Putting A Movie On Dvd

[OneeyedJohn]

Help & advice required for writing a a movie/TV show video file (avi) to a blank DVD.

I have a standard Asus desktop with dual layer DVD writer ( Samsung ).

My problem is understanding the first step, i.e DVD authoring and compressing and whether this is necessary if one uses Nero Vision.

I seem to have so many bits of software but using them in the right order is beyond me.

As you can probably guess from this post I'm hopelessly confused. The Afterdawn forum would appear to have every solution but there is so much contradictory advice.

I've got a bunch of top quality blank dvd's from holland and I don't want to make a lot of coasters out of them.

Can anyone put me on the first rung to burning /writing a DVD please?

[lor]

Help & advice required for writing a a movie/TV show video file (avi) to a blank DVD.

I have a standard Asus desktop with dual layer DVD writer ( Samsung ).

My problem is understanding the first step, i.e DVD authoring and compressing and whether this is necessary if one uses Nero Vision.

I seem to have so many bits of software but using them in the right order is beyond me.

As you can probably guess from this post I'm hopelessly confused. The Afterdawn forum would appear to have every solution but there is so much contradictory advice.

I've got a bunch of top quality blank dvd's from holland and I don't want to make a lot of coasters out of them.

Can anyone put me on the first rung to burning /writing a DVD please?

First question is what do you want to play the DVD's on? Do you want to play them on a computer or a stand alone domestic DVD Player.

If it is a computer you do not need anything special just burn the avi's to the DVD as data. You can compress them to a smaller size using a codec like DIVX etc.

If you want them to play just like DVD's you buy in the shop then all your AVI's need to be converted to MPEG2 and burned to the DVD in a special way. Luckily there are many DVD creation programmes that will do all the conversion for you and write the DVD in the correct format. All of them also allow you to create nice Menu's for you to pick the films or scenes from. An easy programme is TMPEG DVD Author but there are hundreds more.

Next you need to decide what quality you want the movies. On a Dual Layer DVD, for normal DVD playback the most you will get at acceptable (my version of acceptable) quality is two movies. For it to be the same quality as DVD's you buy you could get between 1 and 2 on a dual layer disk.

There are some DVD players that now play Divx videos. You can use a programme called TMPEG Divx Creator to make these disks. You can also have all the menu's and graphics that a normal DVD will have But you can fit many more movies on 1 disk! I have burned a DVD disk with 7 hours of high quality film on one disk but remember the DVD player you play them back on must be Divx Ultra Certified. There are not many of these around!

There are many more ways to do what you want but best is for you to say what type of films you have and what use you want to put the final disk to and what quality you want.

Regards

Chris

[Cyberstar]

My problem is understanding the first step, i.e DVD authoring and compressing and whether this is necessary if one uses Nero Vision.

Not quite sure where OP is at or whether his situation fits the scenario I envision: But, in the simple scenario the answer to the first question is "no problem" and the answer to the second question is "no"..

In the simple scenario OP has some movie on his harddisk and now he wants to burn that movie to a dvd --- and just that ... If that's the case, he doesn't need to wonder a bit about "authoring". As for compression and codec considerations - try to right click the file and check how big it is. If it isn't too big for your dvd - just drag n' drop it into your Nero and click BURN.

[Penkoprod]

It all depends on how big these AVIs are. Once converted to MPEG 2 format its a simple task to just burn them as data, if the resultant file sizes are less them the capacity of the disc you are going to burn it to

Works every time for me.

In fact most modern standalone DVD players play AVI files, so any conversion wouldnt be needed

To see if your DVD player can play AVIs, just get a cheap disc from somewhere and burn as data to find out

HTH

Penkoprod

[OneeyedJohn]

Thanks for the above....

I want to burn a film to a DVD from my HD so that I can distribute it amongst my friends. Now I can't predict what DVD players everyone has, so I am assuming if the DVD will play in my computer and in my stand alone, there should be no problem.

A normal movie is 750 Mb - 1.3 Gb so I would be more than happy to get 2 of these on 1 disc. Quality before quantity. A series of 12 x 1 hour episodes is 4.2 Gb and that would also be a nice fit.

I like the bit about converting avi to mpeg2, that could be the missing link.

I'm off to experiment

[lomatopo]

Thanks for the above....

I want to burn a film to a DVD from my HD so that I can distribute it amongst my friends. Now I can't predict what DVD players everyone has, so I am assuming if the DVD will play in my computer and in my stand alone, there should be no problem.

A normal movie is 750 Mb - 1.3 Gb so I would be more than happy to get 2 of these on 1 disc. Quality before quantity. A series of 12 x 1 hour episodes is 4.2 Gb and that would also be a nice fit.

I like the bit about converting avi to mpeg2, that could be the missing link.

I'm off to experiment

While it is true that a one hour U.S. TV show takes up ~ 350 MB (no commercials, 42 minutes) and you can put eleven or twelve episodes in AVI format on a single DVD-R (4.7 GB), you would be fortunate to get four episodes (or a single feature film) on a DVD using re-encoding to the DVD file format (IFO, VOB, AOB; VOBs are MPEG-2).

I think the key is for you to continue experiemnting until you find a solution that works for you and your friends.

I use Nero Vision, an application in the Nero 7 Ultra Edition (paid software), to create DVD's from AVI files. It's pretty easy to use, basically open the app. choose the file(s), click create, wait 1 hour. The result is a standard, albeit un-encrypted, DVD which appears to play in any DVD player. Note that the video quality is actually a bit worse than the source AVI file. Get ready to spend a lot of time, and burn a lot of DVD's.

Edited May 3, 2007 by lomatopo

[v8tfcorty]

download dvd shrink it is very easy to use and will do everything you need including burning direct to cd via nero

[astral]

Your computer most probably came with a DVD Authoring programme like

Intervideo WinDVD Creator. The sw is bundled in with the DVD drive.

It will convert the avi file and write it to a DVD for use on a conventional player.