MPEG4 to DVD

I need help. I'm looking for software and instructions on how to convert MPEG4 files to a DVD that I can just pop in a standard US DVD player without trouble. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
LB

PS - I'm running Windows Vista

PPS - Sorry but I'm not even sure what file types are for video on DVDs?

PPPS - I've tried DVD Flick (http://www.dvdflick.net/) but it takes literally five hours to process one MPEG4 file and I still couldn't figure out how to output it to DVD

 

DVD Flick guide (Yes, it will burn the finished DVD for you.) http://www.dvdflick.net/guide.php

If you don't mind spending money: http://www.majorgeeks.com/ConvertXToDVD_d4689.html

 

If you're referring to DVDs for playback on a standard home player that's hooked up to your TV, the 'files' must be in DVD compliant files with .ifo (information about chapters, languages, subtitles, etc) and .bup (backups of the .ifo files) and .vob files (these are the files that hold the picture and sound and subtitles). These files must be 'related'; meaning that the .bup's and the .ifo's are the same and contain all the info about the .vob's and all these must be present. You can't decide to leave out the .bup files just because they are back ups. And all these files must be in the compliant AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders (even though AUDIO_TS is usually empty, it must be there). More detailed info is available here: http://www.videohelp.com/dvd

I was going to recommend DVD Flick. However, it should NOT be taking over 5 hours and it should burn the DVD when it's all done. On my PC, it takes about an hour to convert a 700mb or 800mb .AVI file (a full movie with no subtitles or extras). This includes burning the movie at 4x. The reason it may be taking so long is that you are using the PC at the same it's encoding, you haven't turned off everything running in the background (screensavers, antivirus if you have Norton or MacAfee as they are resource hungry), or you have the thread priority set at low while doing other things on the PC. Basically, converting video file formats is a very resource intensive activity. The more free resources you have, the faster it goes. I usually turn off the screen saver, disconnect from the internet, turn off the monitor, and go do something else for an hour. Even on my older significantly slower PC, it never took over 100 minutes to convert and burn a movie. DVD Flick has built-in burning. If your end result was not a burned disc, then your settings were incorrect, or you didn't have a blank in the DVD burner, or the ImgBurn settings were wrong (DVD Flick uses ImgBurn for the actual burning part of the process). So here's a link to the DVD Flick how-to guide, maybe you should check it out. I'm not 100% sure that it's 100% compatible with Vista, so that may be an issue also.
DVD Flick How-To Guide (PDF) http://www.dvdflick.net/guide.php
There are some other free tools, but in my experience, DVD Flick is the best of the freebies, but here's some others:
FAVC http://www.majorgeeks.com/FAVC_d5741.html
KLite Conversion Pack http://www.majorgeeks.com/K-Lite_Video_Conversion_Pack_d5768.html
DVD Styler http://www.majorgeeks.com/DVDStyler_d5728.html
SUPER http://www.majorgeeks.com/Super_d5117.html
MediaCoder http://www.majorgeeks.com/MediaCoder_d4987.html
If you don't mind paying, some good ones are WinAVI, ConvertXtoDVD, Cucusoft, and Xilisoft. The free ones listed above don't do the burning; they produce DVD compliant files/folders that you can then burn with Nero or StarBurn or whatever.
Phew.... I hope this helps! Good luck! and Welcome to Major Geeks!

:major
[dlb]