I can burn music files, no problem, photos no problem too, and I play these on my DVD player, photos and music work fine through the DVD player.

Video files I can burn but they do not play on my DVD player but do play on my laptop.

Why is that?

It depends on the DVD player. Since your DVD player can view photos and MP3s, then it has support for those files. However, for video files, it needs explicit support for the format. Of course it can play mpeg/mpeg2 formats, since they are the formats of VCDs and DVDs, but only some can actually play the files when they are written as normal computer files. I know mine can't, and I know that many cheap brand players can. Some newer players also play Divx (mpeg4) files.

If you want complete compatibility, you need to "author" those video files into either a VCD or DVD-video format. This means that the authoring programs will create special files and directories specific to the VCD/DVD-video, which any DVD player will recognize. Nero can do this authoring and converting for VCDs, but it can't do it for DVDs. You will need an authoring program to do that.

It depends on the DVD player.  Since your DVD player can view photos and MP3s, then it has support for those files.  However, for video files, it needs explicit support for the format.  Of course it can play mpeg/mpeg2 formats, since they are the formats of VCDs and DVDs, but only some can actually play the files when they are written as normal computer files.  I know mine can't, and I know that many cheap brand players can.  Some newer players also play Divx (mpeg4) files.

If you want complete compatibility, you need to "author" those video files into either a VCD or DVD-video format.  This means that the authoring programs will create special files and directories specific to the VCD/DVD-video, which any DVD player will recognize.  Nero can do this authoring and converting for VCDs, but it can't do it for DVDs.  You will need an authoring program to do that.

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Thanks Firefox, I have Nero, I will just have to read the instructions more carefully.

you have to check to see what kind of video files they are. For example if theyare files you dL fromt he internet they are likely to be DivX or Xvid in format (which is high compression). These will not play on a dvd player other than in a computer (with a very few exceptions). DVD players will only play MPEG discs.

Even with MPEG there are many settings for the video and sound compression that computers can play, but a dvd machine will only handle a few of these. ULEAD movie studio and others (even nero if you ca figure it out) will offer simple conversions to acceptable formats.

ULEAD is a good one John.

As you get better at it you can play around with the DVD functions too creating different menus etc.

Cheers lads, I will play around with it.

pm kringle for ulead converting for playing files on dvd machines - he has some recent experience

i have ulead videostudio 8 , work fine .