[gritbox]

can anyone tell me a good program to use to put various avi files onto a dvd, and maybe have a wee intro screen come up when u first insert the dvd so it lets u choose which episode u wanna watch? is it better to encode the avi file first somehow or will putting it straight onto dvd disc work ok? thanks

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[st22]

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[Allsortgroup]

Heres a good one...

http://www.freewaref...6_205_9600.html

[gust0208]

Hello,

There is a decent freeware software combo that will let you do this task pretty easily. The two programs are "DIKO" for converting your AVI's to DVD-compliant MPEG2 files and then "DVD Styler" to create the DVD menu and burn the DVD video disc. Links to the programs and a nice guide are below:

DIKO:
http://www.vmesquita.com/en/

DVD Styler:
http://dvdstyler.sourceforge.net/

Guide for making a episodic DVD with DIKO and DVD Styler:
http://www.vmesquita.com/dikoauthor/

Cheers,
Tom

can anyone tell me a good program to use to put various avi files onto a dvd, and maybe have a wee intro screen come up when u first insert the dvd so it lets u choose which episode u wanna watch? is it better to encode the avi file first somehow or will putting it straight onto dvd disc work ok? thanks

[gritbox]

that looks great that program ma man but just when i go to create the menu it performs an illegal operation an shuts down!! any ideas why?!

[Thebinaryman]

heres the best advice i can give without writing a book about all my trials and errors and corrections,

1.) use TMPGEnc (30 day free, cheap to buy) to convert ANY format to vcd, svcd, or dvd mpeg files. much features! highly recomend you try

OR

use bbmpeg (free), does the same thing, but only from avi files, and a bit more complecated.

2.) then use dvdauthorGUI (free) for taking your dvd encoded video, and adding a few menus, specifiying titles and chapters, then creating the iso disk image.

3.) then use dvd decrypter (free) for "quickly and flawlessly" buring the dvd image file to a dvd.

thats the methods i use for windows movie maker movies and such other things. can get pretty great results after a little practice.

[gritbox]

hey. yeah that sounds good. the problem with those programs is after theyre encoded to go onto dvd, it only lets me put 2 episodes on before it says discs full. thats not possible. the avi files are 42mins long and 300mb each. how could this b?

[gust0208]

With the program you are using to change the AVI's to DVD-compliant MPEG's, there should be an option called "bitrate". Bitrate basically dictates how good the quality of video will be after encoding. A lower bitrate means a lower quality picture and a smaller file size. A typical DVD can hold 120 minutes of DVD-compliant MPEG video (this can change based on the bitrate and the type of audio the files have). AVI's are highly compressed and will be much smaller than their less compressed MPEG equivalents.

You can always mix the programs that have been mentioned here so far. You can use DIKO for making the DVD-compliant MPEG files and then use dvdauthorgui to make the DVD menu structure and DVD image file to burn.

Cheers,
Tom

hey. yeah that sounds good. the problem with those programs is after theyre encoded to go onto dvd, it only lets me put 2 episodes on before it says discs full. thats not possible. the avi files are 42mins long and 300mb each. how could this b?

[gritbox]

ah ok! so i could afford to lower the quality a little to fit them all on? just wondered how box sets work if a dvd has like 6 or 7 episodes on it!

[gust0208]

Hello,

Commercial DVD's including box sets are a little different. Most blank DVD (DVD+R, DVD-R) that home users burn are "single-layer" DVD's and can hold ~4.7 Gb of data. Many (and now probably most) commercial video DVD's are "dual-layer" DVD's and can hold ~8.5 Gb of data. So, these commercial DVD's can hold almost twice the amount of information and thus roughly twice the amount of video!

Dual layer media is available, but is still very expensive and not yet worth the time in my opinion. So, most home users make do with the single layer blank DVD's with 4.7 Gb of space. So to fit those AVI files on a single-layer DVD, we need to re-encode them at a lower bitrate to make them smaller in size. Of course, these is a trade-off as you lower the bitrate, at some point as you lower the bitrate, you will become unsatisfied with the quality of the video (motion artifacts, blurring, macroblocking) and can use that as your cut off for sacrificing quality for space.

Another consideration is what sort of TV you will watch these DVD's on in the end. You won't notice the lower bitrate as much on a 20" TV compared to some enormous plasma or LCD flat panel TV.

Hope that helps,
Tom

ah ok! so i could afford to lower the quality a little to fit them all on? just wondered how box sets work if a dvd has like 6 or 7 episodes on it!

[gritbox]

cheers for ur info. yeah itll only be on a wee basic portable telly anyway probably so should be ok. thanks a lot mi hombre!

[gritbox]

when im changing the bitrate to a lower setting whats the lowest ic an go befor ei see bad effects on quality? thanks

[gust0208]

Hello,

I will put a link below my text that is a great review of bitrates and is where I have gleaned all of this information. For making DVD Mpeg2 video files, you will likely want a resolution of 720x480 and a maximum bitrate of 8000. The explanatory page states the minimal "barely watchable" bitrate is 3000. The maximum results to bitrate ratio appears to be around 7000. Bitrates of 4500 to 5000 should provide decent quality video and a smaller file size.

Overall, it is up to you how much of a resolution sacrifice you are willing to accept. To start off, I would try a slightly higher bitrate ~ 5000 and see how that works for your project in regards to quality and file size.

Here is the link to great explanatory page:
http://www.digitalfa...pture/intro.htm

Cheers,
Tom

when im changing the bitrate to a lower setting whats the lowest ic an go befor ei see bad effects on quality? thanks