help for a compression newbie

[Sorcha]

i'm currently trying to put my edited footage onto dvd. I have about 111mins of footage i've edited in Avid xpress pro, with titles, filters, matte key fx etc and I'm unsure of how to fit it. I've been in the process of putting only 1 hour of footage without fx onto a dvd, and have put it through sorenson squeeze on the lge dvd setting.

How do i fit all the footage onto the disc? What compression should i use? I'm currently trying the sml option but i'm really new to all this and seeing as it's so large scale, trial and error is going to take me forever.

[Scottdvx100]

Is this an Avid DVD program?
Do they have a manual or tutorial?
Are there any presets (i.e. 2 hours, 1 hr, etc)
DVD use MPEG-2 files so you'll need to compress in that format somewhere in the process. If the DVD program compresses just export it as DV or better from your editing system.

[Sorcha]

OK, thanks for that, but unfortunately i think i'm not sure enough to answer your questions.

Have looked for manual/tutorial but even the help in Sorenson Squeeze doesn't enable me to focus on specific questions.....is only an alphabetic directory, general overview and directory.

I know you have to compress to mpeg2, and the options are dvd_pal_lge or dvd_pal_sml. I have managed to compress by this stage, but am sometimes encountering partly compressed completions which say "complete" but play about 30s and then white screen.

I have managed to build a dvd (am using dvd it authoring program) but when using the burn tower at work it won't dub to other discs.

Very confused whether I'm doing something wrong or if it's the technology having issues.

thanks for your help so far.......

[Sorcha]

oh and btw i'm exporting as QT ref file and importing that into the compression prgram, sorenson squeeze, then importing to dvd it.

cheers

[Scottdvx100]

Can you export MPEG-2 fro mthe Avid program? Do you have another compressor?
Does your DVD software compress?
Does Sorenson Squeeze compress to MPEG2? Sorenson is their own codec.

[Markus]

I'm using Avid Xpress DV, Sorenson Squeeze Lite and DVDit. I haven't been overly thrilled with the results Sorenson gives. Are you using the Compression Suite?

It's been suggested to me to try Canopus Pro Coder for compression instead of Sorenson. I don't really know if Sorenson is where your problem is occuring but you may want to look into Canopus.