A Doubt About Converting Mkv To Dvd

[The Simpleton 2]

The matroska video (mkv) format is really great 'coz it allows you to compress files and keep the same video quality as the original. But for viewing it on a dvd player it has to be converted into avi, divx or just plain old dvd 'vob' format, right? I have some home videos gathering dust over the years that I want to convert to a dvd. For portability reasons I had them converted into mkv format sometime ago, and now I want to convert them into vob format to view on a dvd player (my initial idea was to convert to avi but I couldn't find a good encoder). I'm using the software "Convert X to DVD" and I have a small doubt regarding this. Once I used the same software to convert a 1gb mkv file to dvd, and it filled up the entire dvd! Now I have enough videos to fill 3 dvds, i.e. a little more than 12GB. Now while converting from mkv to dvd, will 4.7gb worth of mkv files convert to one dvd, or will they expand even more? I hope you got my point? No? I'm asking if 4.7gb of mkv files = 4.7gb of vob or will the converted size be even greater? please help me out with this....

[rob86 2]

A true DVD contains a lot of weird looking files. I'm not sure what you call that format. Vob? DVD's are never in .avi or .divx format though a lot of modern dvd players can play those formats along with mp3s and jpeg. If you do it this way, you'll miss out on stuff like DVD Menus and your disk won't be compatible with standard dvd players that don't support other stuff. On the other hand, you can fit more stuff on, provided the dvd player you use can play that type of file.I've used Convert X to DVD and what it does is takes the video and make it into a true dvd, with a customizable menu. It's a pretty good program. I guess what you're asking is if a compressed video will expand to fit (or almost fit) the DVD. Yes, it will but it will retain the lower quality of compressed file. I'm no familiar with mkv but if you have a 700mb .avi and convert it to dvd, it will use the entire dvd.I think the important thing is length (in time), not file size. Depending on the length of your videos, you can add multiple videos and they'll still be playable like a normal DVD, with a menu. As for two full movies in divx format, no, never.You can however, transfer the compressed video to DVD as data, as you would jpeg pictures, mp3s (not audio cds!) or other types of data. Some dvd players support playing videos like this, some don't, and some do but do a horrible job of it. Your disk won't function like a DVD either, with no menus and no bookmarks or whatever. When I say some players do a horrible rush job of implementing the feature, I mean that some won't let you select an aspect ratio and you're stuck with a funny shaped video. Sorry if I misunderstood the question, I'm in a rush to post this and will come back later to elaborate and possibly make more sense..

[The Simpleton 2]

Hmm I'm guessing you somehow misinterpreted my question rob - and anyway I don't like dvd menus that much, so I always convert videos to avi and play them. In this case, however, converting to dvd format is more convenient for me. I'm not too concerned about the quality - I just want to carry less DVDs around so if they all fit into 3 dvds that would be fine by me. I guess I'll wait for one more person to answer and then start experimenting...Thanks for the reply

[rob86 2]

Sorry I guess I didn't understand what you were asking. I read your questions again and I still don't. How much space videos take up on a DVD depends on the combined length of the videos and the quality or bitrate they will be encoded with. I'm not sure if ConvertX lets you pick a quality. It has an option to change the so-called quality, but it doesn't seem to change the estimated overall size at the bottom. I assume it converts into a highest quality vob file then. Whether or not 4.7gb of mkv files would be 4.7gb of vob format depends on the mkv bitrate and the vob bitrate. You can make them as large or as small as you want depending on how little video quality matters to you. I don't know much about converting TO .vob format. You can also cut down on a little bit of size by encoding the audio at a low bit rate. You can encode something, then test it out to see if it's watchable. You could convert to divx and have lots of control over the parameters. Dr DivX is a good one for encoding a video into divx format I _THINK_ Dr Divx works in Linux under wine. You have to make sure your dvd player can play these things though or else they'll be useless to you. I've been looking for a good command line encoder myself to convert some .trp files to xvid or divx, haven't found one yet.. Probably didn't help you but oh well.. good luck getting replies. It's been kind of quiet around here. Nobody even removed my accidental double post yet - free extra credits, I guess!

[The Simpleton 2]

That made a lot of sense - you made some good points over there. I think I'll start experimenting right away - since I don't care much about quality I think it'll be enough if all of them fit. Well I'll report back in a day or two...

[Baniboy 3]

Are you going to play those DVDs on a DVD-player? If not, then just make a data-DVD. Just burn the matroska files on the DVD without converting or anything. If you want to play those files in a dvd player, you'll have convert your mkv files to .vob format. Just convert and burn. So will these mkv files fit in 3 DVDs? I don't know, just convert and take a look at the file size. If your DVD-player supports .avi format (Check which compression, mpeg-4 or mpeg-2..) then just convert to avi and burn. It might also be a good idea to get a DVD-player that supports USB mass storage devices if you are sick of carrying DVDs around.