Please Help me With Compression!

Hello everyone! I am producing a 2 hour DVD of video (And, of course, audio). The problem is, I have over 20 gigabytes of data, and only 4.7 GB of room on a DVD!
I know there is a way to compress it so that it will look good, because people do it all the time; two hour DVD's are common!
But I don't know how to compress it correctly; I wish I did, and I have looked for a place to learn, but I cannot figure out how! Any tips and tricks would be greatly appreciated!

OR, is there a place that will compress this for me at a relatively low cost?

Hi D.
I think you will find you need to burn two, one hour dvds as you cannot get the right quality with a compression as much as that...Or possibly get the dvd discs that provide more room!! dual layered discs... but you will need a dual layer burner...steve

What are you rendering it as? MPEG2 DVD? You sure you have the original sequence set for DVD quality? 20 gigs for 2 hours is too much. I was able to fit a 2.5 hour video onto a Duel Layer DVD with plenty to spare, Dual Layer is 8.5gigs capacity.

Thank you both. actually, that is the file size of the AVI formatted video before compression; I need to compress that to make it fit on the DVD. Any ideas? I know I can compress it that much, but I don't know how to compress it so that it still has excellent clarity. Thanks!
-Darin

It all depends on the quality/format of the final video. You clearly need to hire a professional video editor to create the right output for the right media if you do not know this answer. A 1 hour video at 1080p and MPEG2 compression will fit on 1 DVD. A 2 hour video at lower quality such as 720p can fit on a single DVD.

I know to use MPEG 2, but can you tell me what setting it should be at as a general guideline (MBPS, etc) I want to become a professional myself, but nobody will give specifics, and I don't know where to learn.
Do you at least have a link to a cheap-ish professional?

What software are you editing on and like everyone says do you want just standard dv or hd final output to dvd? If you want just standard then output it as dv widescreen to dual layered discs. if its bluray or mpeg2 or avchd or? then burn to bluray discs.