Burning DVD's

[DrFaroohk]

I have some AVI files I'd like burned to a DVD so they can be played in a regular dvd player.

I tried sticking in a blank dvd, and then a menu popped up and it brought up the dvd burning program, and then I selected the files and it burned them and it acted like it worked and then I stuck it in a dvd player (well xbox actually) and it said it couldn't recognize the dvd. Did I do something wrong? Wrong format, wrong program, wrong types of dvds?

[Bandit]

It's the wrong format.

Unless the DVD player knows how to do .avi files (like DIVX), you'll have to transcode to make it into a DVD format.

Doing a google on "avi to dvd freeware" is one place to start.

B

[lordlundar]

^ What he said.

To go into a little more detail, when you straight burn a video file on a DVD, all you're doing as far as the system is concerned is burning a data file, and it treats it no different than any other file type.

DVDs have an altogether format than your avi file partially for compression differences, partially for the functionality (menus and the like) and partially for universal recognition. So as stated, you need to convert the avi file into the DVD format.

[Evil Queen]

DataJager did this a few times with a copy of Pumpkin Scissors back when we lived in Houston. It was really cool. For the life of me, I don't remember the name of the program he used. I'll direct him to this thread and see if he remembers.

-EQ
Evil Overlord

[DataJager]

Hi there. There are a couple of ways to be able to play .avi s on your TV. You either need to make the avi files into Standard DVD files or you need a player that can handle them.

Making the AVI files into standard DVD files and burning them is easy, you just need a program to do the conversion. AVI2DVD is freeware and pretty easy to use, here's a link.
http://www.trustfm.net/divx/SoftwareAvi2Dvd.php?b2=1
AVI2DVD will convert and burn for you. Then you can just put it in your DVD player and play it. Unfortunately this method gets you approximately only 120 minutes of Video at 720x480. If you're willing to lose quality, you can get up to 360 minutes I think. The conversion process takes a while so it's a good idea to do it before you go to bed and leave it running.

IMTOO and Xilisoft also make AVI to DVD programs but they cost money. I used to use IMTOO's AVI to DVD converter, before there was a freeware option.

You can also tweak your XBOX (or PS2 if you have one) or buy an DivX player. I doubt I can say more about that here though. The problem with this method is that you're often limited to very specific formats. For example, if you have MKV or OGM files, they probably won't play. AVI files usually work though.

[draggar]

There are tons of programs that do this - my favorite is ConvertXtoDVD. It handles many formats and is only about $50.

http://www.vso-software.fr/products/convert_x_to_dvd/

(The demo version will put a "DEMO" watermark (or something like that) in the actual video).