AVI to DVD

mts

Anyone have a good program they might recommend to convert some AVI files to DVD format. Can I do it with DVD shrink or decrypter?

unilateral

I used Convertx to DVD by VSO. It is pretty simple, and you can insert your own menus and stuff. It takes about an hour or so to encode (is that the right word?) about 200 minutes of Avi for me.

tardcore

I would recommend TheFilmMachine, which lets you add in your own subtitles as well, but lately it's been having problems. It's a very easy set up and it lets you choose your compression rates, etc., but as of lately, whatever I encode seems to come out with the picture being upside down. I guess I will look into Convertx and see what it's all about.

mts

any free recomendations? or should i spring for the convertx, the trial version puts a big ole watermark in the middle

mcdermott

How crazy are you planning to get with menus and the like? If you're really looking for something free, you can go with something like DVDAuthor (the link goes to a GUI for it), possibly in conjunction with a re-encoder like ffmpeg (I used a GUI for it, two that I know of are GUI4ffmpeg or XpegT Lite).

Re-encode .avi files into MPEG2 .mpg's, including setting all the bitrates and what not exactly how you like them, then use DVDAuthor to turn those into an actual DVD image.

It becomes a real pain in the ass if you want to do fancy menus and such, though (but it can be done).

Eventually I just sprung for Nero, because honestly Nero is freakin' foolproof and my time is valuable. Plus it does pretty much everything DVD-related that I could possibly want it to do (though I still use Handbrake as well, for re-encoding to .avi).

mts

i am not looking for fancy menus. I downloaded a season of a tv show and just wanted to be able to watch it on my tv rather than my laptop. in thery the only menu option i would like would be to play all on the disc

Fantasma

Hi,

You could try the free version of TMPGEnc found here: http://www.tmpgenc.net/en/download.html

If you are unable to open your avi file, there is a method to do so using VirtualDub (which is free) called Frameserving.

What you want to do is to create a compliant MPEG2 movie file to then author it into VOB files for burning to DVD writable media.

Spinel

Tmpg is pretty decent but it's pretty slow when it comes to encoding to mpeg2. I much prefer ffmpeg to encode to mpeg 2, and then I'll use Tmpg to author some fairly basic menus so i can skip to certain episodes.

Just a warning though ffmpeg is fairly complex if you use the command line version.

Now if you have access to a mac it's dead simple with Idvd, Choose a menu style and just start to drag and drop the files you want on the disc.

mcdermott

Oh, TMPGEnc looks pretty sweet, and the MPEG-2 encoding limit is no problemo if you just use ffmpeg after that (plenty of easy-to-use GUIs available, and it's pretty fast).

If you've given any thought at all to upgrading your DVD player, there are also about a dozen models available that will play .avi files in the $35-$40 price range. Just sayin'. Assuming they're DivX/XviD, and not h.264 or anything. Which if they're .avi's is a pretty fair assumption.

EDIT: And no, you don't want to use the command-line version of ffmpeg. Grab something like the aforementioned XpegT Lite (googling should turn it up). Though that particular version is kind of slow, for whatever reason.

Fantasma

Spinel wrote: »

Tmpg is pretty decent but it's pretty slow when it comes to encoding to mpeg2. I much prefer ffmpeg to encode to mpeg 2, and then I'll use Tmpg to author some fairly basic menus so i can skip to certain episodes.

Just a warning though ffmpeg is fairly complex if you use the command line version.

Now if you have access to a mac it's dead simple with Idvd, Choose a menu style and just start to drag and drop the files you want on the disc.

Just for you to know, TMPGEnc encoder lacks authoring capabilities, except for TMPGEnc DVD Author, which is a commercial application.

Weretaco

DvdFlick is supposed to be pretty good

http://www.dvdflick.net/

mts

dvd flick seems nice and simple to use and it uses the FFmpeg as a base for it. easily set up a project and what not. will have to see how it goes later

mooshoepork

+ 1 for ConvertXtoDVD by VSO

mts

So i am going to give a huge thumbs up for DVD flick. Doesn't give you a whole lot of options in terms of menus, but its simple and to the point.