Recording TV on a laptop ... and on DVD

[alison]

A question perhaps for the technies out there: If you record a TV (or radio) programme or similar onto a hard drive as an .mpg file, and then transfer it onto a DVD, will a TV DVD player be able to read it, or will you be doomed only ever to watch it on your laptop or whatever?  And what happens if the file size exceeds the 4.7GB a DVD is capable of holding?  Could you zip that and put it on a DVD so that you could transfer it elsewhere?  Obviously you wouldn't be able to play it without extracting it to somewhere first.  I suppose a large-capacity USB stick would be an option, and then I could plug it into my hard drive recorder and play it back from there.

 

My mind's boggling at the options ...

[Bluebird]

There is software available to convert your recording to a format suitable for DVD.  The software I use will modify your recording so that a 3 hour ballet or opera will fit onto a standard DVD.

 

http://www.freemake.com/free_video_converter/

 

This software has, until recently, been free but I believe that the most recent version expects you to pay a moderate amount for lifetime usage.

 

As far as I know, this software isn't currently available for Apple Macs.

 

 

[alison]

Thank you, Bluebird

[thewinelake]

Not sure I understand the question!

I doubt that Zipping a compressed video file would be particularly useful.

What are you trying to do?