stopped at 3.99 gb

Seems a long time maybe the bitrate is too high try a little lower.

Sorry for the above post what you didnt say is what you are trying to copy the original to,vcd,svcd,dvd etc i just presumed (big mistake)that you were doing a 1-1 copy sorry.

I am trying to copy it to a dvd-r. Now the problem is that the m2v file is actually bigger than the original vob's. It comes out to just over 5gb. Do I just change the average bitrate to a little lower one and if so how much do I lower it so it will fit to dvd-r without losing too much quality?