user1949: I want to encode a group of low-quality MPEG-4 video files to DVD format (to eventually burn to a DVD).
The problem is that when I encode the video, the resulting files are often 2-3x as large as the original video files.
How can I encode the video files so that they are in DVD format, roughly the same quality, and roughly the same file size as the originals?

user1950: Well, the short answer is, you can't. 
The longer answer: DVD uses MPEG2 compression, which is a lot less efficient than MPEG4 (aka h.264). In other words it can't get the same quality from the same file size as MPEG4 does. 
So you can choose: similar file size, or similar quality, but not both.

1949: <p>I want to encode a group of low-quality MPEG-4 video files to DVD format (to eventually burn to a DVD).</p>

<p>The problem is that when I encode the video, the resulting files are often 2-3x as large as the original video files.</p>

<p>How can I encode the video files so that they are in DVD format, roughly the same quality, and roughly the same file size as the originals?</p>
 1950: <p>Well, the short answer is, you can't. </p>

<p>The longer answer: DVD uses MPEG2 compression, which is a lot less efficient than MPEG4 (aka h.264). In other words it can't get the same quality from the same file size as MPEG4 does. </p>

<p>So you can choose: similar file size, or similar quality, but not both.</p>
