burning videos to DVD

Just started burning movies to DVD and can't get them to play on a DVD player, they play fine in a PC......? I am using windows Vista and Media Player. This is all new to me , do I have to format the DVD a certain way or use a special codec to make it compatable with DVD players ?

OL Stumpjumper :confused

 

Welcome to Major Geeks. Your video files must first be converted to a DVD compliant format, and if you live in North America it's best to make sure they are in NTSC format (even though most modern DVD players can play both NTSC and PAL). If you just take your video and burn it to a DVD, it won't play in your home player unless the player supports DivX/XVid videos; some do, most don't. So, visit the first link below and download the PDF 'how-to' file and read it. Print it out if possible. Generally speaking, the default settings are fine (I like to set chapters but it's optional) so you really don't even need to change any settings until you're comfortable with the program. After you have a decent idea of what's involved, use the 2nd link below to download DVDFlick and install it. It will do everything: it converts just about any video into DVD compliant files/structures, creates an image, and burns the image to a blank DVD that will play in your home player. It uses ImgBurn for the burning part of the process and ImgBurn has it's own settings you can adjust after you've gained more experience and feel confident in making changes. Be patient as converting videos takes time. On a decent PC it takes about 90 minutes, about 60 minutes on a pretty good PC. It also requires LOTS of space. DVDFlick needs about 10gb of space for EACH movie you create. There is a setting to delete part of the converted files after the disk is burned, but if space is at a premium, you might want to delete the entire DVD project after the disc is burned. So, here's the links:
How-to guide for DVD Flick (goes directly to a PDF file, save it or print it) http://www.dvdflick.net/files/guide.pdf
DVD Flick download http://www.majorgeeks.com/DVD_Flick_d5530.html
Here's another guide for DVD Flick, it's the one I first used but it's for an older version so the screen shots are bit different, but it's very similar, and this other guide is easier to use (IMO) http://beginwithsoftware.com/videoguides/dvd-flick-guide.html

Good luck!!
If you have more questions, feel free to post 'em here!
:major
[dlb]

 

And if you have your DVD player's manual check to see if it supports DVD-R and/or DVD+R discs. Some older ones only read DVD-R some new ones only DVD+R.

I think VTMFan's software is for converting DVD to avi. Probably not useful for your current needs.

 

Yeah, it looks that way to me too.... but I have never heard 'Staxrip' and it is free and open source, so it is definitely worth a 2nd look, even if the OP is 'going the other way' with his video files; from AVI (or MPEG or whatever) to DVD....

 

Thanks VTMFan, for the new software choices for converting. I'm going to save the links to both of them to check them out--I like simple and free!

 

Thank you very very much,,,,,, DVD Flick works great , it was a success on my first attempt... on my PC it takes less than 3 hours to do a movie.
I just want to say thanks again.:wave

Stumpy

 

You are very welcome! I've been a fan of DVD Flick for quite some time, over a year now, and it has yet to let me down. There was one time when I converted a file and was doing all sorts of other stuff on the PC at the same time and the final movie ended up being a bit jumpy in places. I usually just let it do it's thing, turn off the monitor, and about an hour later it's burned perfectly to DVD. But that one time I didn't follow my regular protocol... it's a good thing that I happened to use a DVDRW for that particular session I guess I'm trying to say that if you just leave the PC alone while DVDFlick is working, all your conversions should come out perfectly. I turn off all screen savers and everything possible that might use any resources, then I turn off the monitor. Anyway, I'm glad it worked for you, and glad that we could be of assistance. If you have any more questions, feel free to post 'em!

:major
[dlb]