Burning Dvds

[lol23]

ok this is prob a dumb ass question but here goes!
ive jus bought comp wid dvd writer on so wanna try it out. i have 3 progs to use which ive got from previous advice on here. these are nero, clone dvd and dvd x copy plat. what i wud like to know is when ive downloaded say a film can i then burn straight to dvd irrelevant of the file format with any of these programs. i.e wether the film is .bin/.avi etc.. or do i need to get some other prog to be converting them. :helpsmile:
cheers in advance

[gildan2020]

hmm...not quite
but this i know as much

for those .bin, .iso, .mds or watever...as long as they're image files...DON'T burn them the way u usually do. look out for the pin titled "Cd Images...." in this forum discussion first (fyi, .avi is NOT a cd image file )

then u can run them on ur dvd player
btw, test everything with a dvd-rw first...in case anything goes wrong, u can always retry

this is all i know...

if u wanna watch them on ur dvd player or on tv, u'll need to do some conversion from one format to the other (bcos ur dvd player probably doesn't accept .avi, .mpg and stuff)

this is way out of my league, perhaps someone will help u

[vivitron 15]

k, here goes:

BIN/CUE or ISO
if its a bin/cue file or an iso file, then it's most likely a vcd/svcd and you burn to CD (using nero most likely)

MPEG FILE

if its an mpeg file, then you can probably burn to dvd. See "DVD authoring" below

AVI FILE

See the section "limitations" at the bottom before you attempt to convert any movies from avi to mpeg.

If its an .avi file, then the best way is to convert it to an mpeg. To do this, there are a multitude of ways. Check out dvd-r help.com for loads and loads of guides. Also browse this forum for some more guides and hints. There is a tonne of info in Movieworld and in Codecworld and Softwareworld.

Basically, the easiest (most newbie friendly way) I've found is to go the forum at kvcd.net and get a program called "ACP" which has its own world over there. You'll also need "TMPEG enc" which is available on kazaa/bt/emule and used to be avail on the main page of this site, however i wouldnt know anymore. Install both programs and then encode the films using acp (it does all the seperate bits for you)

Check out one step kvcd, how to make a vcd/svcd and basically anything by muchspl.

NOTES: Personally, I remove the prediction - after having done a few movies, I have discovered the easiest way to do this is to do 352*xxx video and to encode at CQ_VBR quality 100 and bitrate around 1000~2000 This usually gives a file 1round 1.1-1.3 GB and so it's possible to put 3-4 movies on a disk without dramatically affecting quality.

For action movies I try to get the avi file(s) around 1.4GB per movie - then when i encode, i use acp with "Only selected phase" checked to extract and convert the audio and then i use tmpeg manually to create the video data. Go to kvcd.net and get the templates and use them to encode to .mp2 file as a higher res, mpeg-2 file. This gives much better quality, and so this way I can usually get 1-2 films per disk.

DVD AUTHORING
K, now you should have an mpeg file. You'll need TMPEG DVD author which is definitely avail on BT and will be on kazaa etc. This program is pretty easy to use and you can add the files to different chapters/tracks you can add menus and pretty backgrounds and thumbnails - its pretty self explanitory.

BURN
Now, when tmpeg dvd finishing creating the dvd files, load up Nero (version 6.x) and select DVD mode. Here you can either select Film mode, and then copy everything from "Video_TS" to the Video_TS folder, or you can select UDF and copy both "Video_TS" and "Audio_TS" to it. Basically its up to you - play with it and see which works best. Personally, I do it in film mode, but thats cos i find it works best for my standalone dvd player.

LIMITATIONS

DVDs arent as flexible as vcd's in what you can author to them. The mpeg files have some restrictions. kvcd works well for me, and i think its independant of the player, so wouldnt worry about this. The restrictions are on the frame rate (pal/ntsc) and on the aspect ratio. Accepted values are:

MPEG-1
352*240 NTSC
352*288 PAL

MPEG-2
352*240 NTSC
352*288 PAL
528*480 NTSC
528*576 PAL
704*480 NTSC
720*480 NTSC
704*576 PAL
720*576 PAL

note: PAL=25fps; NTSC=29.97fps

Also, the audio stream must be either .Wav @ 48000Khz (This can be done using acp - under the audio Tab, change it to 48000 and i uncheck all the Lite resampling etc)
Or, the audio can be an ac3 format. In acp, under the settings tab, uncheck "Delete Intermediate Files" and you may be left with a file stg like "audio.ac3" if so, when you author with tmpeg dvd, you can select this file as "external audio source" when you add the file into the tracks. This is dolby sound, and is well worth it if you have a half decent TV system.









disclaimer: i took the values of the limitations from memory, so may have made slight mistakes - for a complete reference go to the help file in tmpeg dvd author, which tells you exactly what you need. For the best dvd's try to copy direct from the video shop or get the biggest avi source possible, and encode using ac3 audio from acp and a nice high bitrate/res in tmpeg using the kvcd templates.

If i have missed anything, please feel free to ask - advise me of any errors. PM&post and Ill change anything where necesary

Always view the dvd in PowerDVD so as to not waste disks

[Legolas]

nero and/or sonic mydvd