I'm trying to put a 700MB .avi movie which says it's 1HR 37mins approx onto an SVCD/CD. I'm thinking it should fit on the CD as it can hold 700MB but whichever program I use it converts to a larger amount than I was expecting. Am I missing something here? Is it not possible to have a DVD player play an SCVD full length movie?? Thanks in a advance.

file size and video/audio time differ.. since playing as data, you can have data compression, which will just (for example) group all the bits because its similar for each frames, and still retain the image quality.. and .avi is an example of that type of compression, although pure DV .avi (non compressed audio video interleaved) will give each frame its own information, and do it in real time.. so while the disc is spinning it follows the frames like a movie reel (analogy)...

you can compress it to fit the cd, but quality will have to suffer... or goto vcd... or try and find one of those 800mb cds...

read on some of this to help you out..
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=1 minute of video = to how many megabytes?&meta=

Thanks for the help N3051M, but trouble is I can't find a program that will allow me to compress the movie enough. Most programs just say 'press' to convert .avi to DVD and even then the outcomes are sometimes different. Some programs convert to .mpeg files, not .vob files which I would expect. Any ideas further than this?

well i use nero Recode to do my dvd encoding... some video editors will also have their own burning plugin somewhere as well...

there are other freewares or paid programs you could try.. like roxio or dvd shrink for example, but i think google is your answer to this (little homework doesnt hurt). try this search strings in google to start you off on your journey

"freeware" avi mpeg to dvd vob
dvd burning software freeware

by the way.. do remeber that there is a difference in "convert to dvd quality file" (mpeg2) or "convert to dvd".... and remember that the amount of compression will also determine how much the video file looses some video or audio quality...

Video Converting

Does this then mean that .mpeg files say, created by TMPGEnc Plus cannot be read by a DVD player, only .vob?

no they wont. not unless your dvd player has .mpeg playing capabilities... you'll have to get them to dvd video format...

torrenter use virtualdub to change and then dvdshrink to fit
most stand alone dvd players play SVCD's
if you have not done so,get a couple of re-writeables to test your burns
I don't know of authoring software thats free ,check sourceforge for free programs

Thanks Samstoned, will get VirtualDub, and use good 'old DVD Shrink. Thanks, needed to know this.