Making video DVD's

XP Pro, SP3, current updates.

I just installed a video DVD maker (avi2dvd) that is supposed to make DVD's that will play on an ordinary DVD player. It looks quite powerful, but is very obviously meant for use by people well versed in all the details of such a task. The program calls in a bunch of external utilities to do various parts of the process.

But you had better know pretty much how to have used all these separately. I tried to make a run. I don't really know if I did or not - there seemed to be no activity indicator. I don't even see a way to locate the output file - or if indeed there is one.

Are all video discs made with a certain few formats of video files? That is, this one essentially will use AVI, MP4, & MOV. Maybe also something called OGM? That would better be OMG (Oh my gosh) if you ask me.

Is there a more automated DVD maker that produces such playable DVD's?

 

http://majorgeeks.com/DVD_Flick_d5530.html

 

In addition to Just Playin's good advice, it's important to remember that not all stand-alone DVD players can read or play back "burned" DVDs - especially ones on re-writable ("RW") discs.

Movies sold/rented on DVD (Blockbuster, Redbox, etc.) are produced by stamping the data on them (basically the same process as how old LP records were made). When you burn a DVD, the "0s" and "1s" that make up the data aren't as deeply embedded on the disc. Although most (but not all) newer DVD players can play back write-once ("-R", "+R") discs, many cannot read or play back rewritable ("RW") discs.
Although some may argue this final point, I have had slightly better luck using "-R" blank DVDs as opposed to "+R" ones.

I learned this the hard way a few years ago after producing and burning a few hundred copies of a video presentation. Even though all of the copies were tested in a PC (Windows Media Player), there were several complaints about "dead" DVDs being sent out from people who attempted to play them in a stand-alone DVD player. :mad

 

Thanks. Working on it.

 

Unfortunately I've experienced the chaos in hardware. Just think how it would be if there were no standards at all. I'm not using any rewritable discs.

I'm using "+R" for no other reason than that one of those pretty office store guys said more people were using them. I've tried getting consensus on forums before and that's not productive, so I went with the guy's suggestion.

If you made that many I know right off that you didn't use DVD Flick. I've never used anything so slow in my life.

I'm only making a few for a SIL, but I have the player she will use so I can test them.

 

DVD Flick is one of the faster ones. The hardware one uses has a greater impact on encoding speed than the software. I have ConvertXDVD and it edges out DVD Flick by only 3-5 minutes.

 

When I did my project, I made one "master" DVD and made the subsequent ones doing a direct DVD to DVD copy using Nero 7 (two SATA DVD+RW drives installed in the PC).

Given I was doing so many, I made a point of doing a few copies from "D" (source) to "E" (recorder) than swapping over to an "E" (source) to "D" (recorder). I've heard that burning a disc puts more wear and tear on a RW drive than playback.

To thwart Murphy's Law, I would also test the final discs on a backup DVD player (just in case the main one breaks).

Good luck on the project.

 

Hey,

Is this true? I rarely convert avi files to DVD and when I do I use an old computer that is just sitting around to do it, so that it can work undisturbed. It seems to me ConvertX is at least twice as fast as DVDFlick. I prefer the quality of DVDFlick's final result but for a one time view ConvertX is a better choice. I just leave ConvertX at defaults which I think is one-pass encoding. I believe DVDFlick uses two-pass encoding by default. Do you set ConvertX to two passes?

I'm trying to figure out if I have a setting wrong. I know I let ConvertX do just one pass but I'm curious if you set it to do two.

 

FWIW, I discovered DVD Flick can go much faster than it did for me the first time. I had put 6 AVI's on the first one and it took around 15 hours. I did another one with only 5 and it took under 4 hours.

 

I don't understand why you're trying to put so many (6) avi's on 1 disk. I would think that the quality would be horrible. I usually only do 1 avi to a disk.

 

Only one 300K file on a 4.3 gb disc?

The reason is that it is a series.

 

I work doing video filming and production for a mixed martial arts event promoter, and also with the local community access tv station. DVD-r is by far the most likely to work in random dvd players you may find. For my type of work, its not worth the rw type medias, and theres no reason to rewrite a disc, if it doesn't work we just replace it with a new one. My current workflow is to put our mp4 or avi file on my mac, use toast to make the actual dvd "master" which is an .iso image instead of a physical copy, then i take my desktop running win7-64 bit with nero to handle the light scribe labels burning those via an external. Then flipping the disc and into the computers built in drive to burn the video dvd portion off of an iso image. In the past have used neros dvd software to make the dvd, but didn't care for how it worked.

 

Whew, thanks for clearing that up for me. I was worried about you trying to put such large/so many files onto 1 DVD.

 

I've known for decades not to assume things and I still do it.

 

Well, that makes two people who have done a lot of DVD's and who prefer -R discs. The next time I need more discs I'll go for -R. Wanna make a bet whether anybody has them locally? Do you have a brand preference? I have a magnavox recorder that I record TV on, and it is very picky about brands. Verbatim seems to be their favorite, and they are hard to find here.

I don't use RW discs any more, since I don't have to save ongoing projects to DVD now.

Thanks for the details.

 

Particular brand, not really, if im using our duplicator system i buy there recommended discs, other then that i always store the .iso of each dvd (which is basiculy each mma event we do) to a pc, so i never have to depend on a dvd being readable down the road.

 

Yes, I do and ConvertXDVD's quality compares to DVD Flick. The only real difference now is the price. ConvertXDVD was once far ahead in features but DVD Flick has closed that gap.



@JimLL - My rule is approximately 2 hours on a 4.3 GB DVD disc.

 

You should be able to find "-R" discs almost everywhere (Walmart, Staples, Best Buy, etc...). Just be sure to look at the package carefully to be sure it says "DVD-R" (not "+R").

Watch your Sunday newspaper for sales (Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Best Buy) - even for a brand name like Verbatim, you should be able to find the standard quality 100-packs on sale for $20 or less. If not, check this link to Newegg:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817507005

One final important note on "burned" DVDs: Standard-grade blank DVDs and CDs - once burned - have a data life of about 3-5 years. Again, this is a hard lesson I learned when I attempted to pull up some old .mp3 music files (circa 2004) and discovered some of the data had become corrupted.

If you are storing important stuff (esp. family memories or other items you want to last longer), it's worth using "archive" grade discs. They're a relatively new product (nobody has figured out their exact lifespan); however I have heard from two video producers they're worth the extra $$$ for long-term storage.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817130088

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817130028

 

I have all of those here, but the fact is that they usually don't have -R here. Some desk jockey is always making marketing decisions that apparently come from Edgar Allen Poe.

Oh, I'll find them somewhere, some time. But I had better either get them from the off the internet or start shopping early.

So much for DVD's lasting longer than vinyl. But then nowadays everybody is into planned obsolescence. Just put out the least quality you can that will get you past the 30 day warranty.

 

@Just Playin,

I've found that DVD Flick does not like MKV videos, takes much too long and does not render the files correctly. I've gotten ConvertXDVD4 and that does the MKV files perfectly.

 

I don't know if this was already posted, but a good how-to guide for DVDflick can be found here: http://www.dvdflick.net/guide.php

I used DVDflick extensively for a looong time as it was the best FREE program to convert any format to std DVD movies, and I never had a problem with playback in my el-cheepo $25 DVD player. However, I have since purchased a DVD player that supports playback of other file formats, so I don't convert to DVD very often anymore, and when I do, I use the faster ConvertXtoDVD.

Another free program that will convert media files to DVD is FAVC (it will convert MKV files, but I have not personally used it in a couple of years, so I can't comment on the rendering quality of MKV files, but I do remember that it handled AVI/DiVX/XViD files perfectly). However, it will not burn the DVD for you, you'd have to do that yourself using Nero or the "Burn DVD Movie" option in the free program Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 - just be sure to uncheck the boxes when it asks if you want to install a toolbar and change your home page.

I haven't tried this one for creating a DVD movie, but it's free and may be what you're looking for: http://majorgeeks.com/DVDVideoSoft_Free_Studio_d6621.html I used it once to decrypt a DVD movie and it worked perfectly, but it was a bit slower than other freeware alternatives, but don't let that stop you from experimenting....

:-D I hope this helps!

 

i get decent results with MKV if i set the encoding profile to fast or fastest depending on the quality of the file,i also manually set the target bitrate according to file size,leaving the audio on auto.MKV files are usually a lot better quality than AVI,so the process takes about as much time or slightly longer than the AVI files set to normal,and the final product turns out very nicely.I keep imgburn updated too,just make sure that after you uninstall the older version, that the now empty imgburn target folder is in the DVDFlick program file,the updated install will find the target folder by default.