Purpose: Watching a typical tv show season (22 episodes) on 2 DVD+R's on my car's widescreen display. I have been using ConvertXtoDVD for a while, but it uses an odd volume boosting method (DRC) that gives random results. Sometimes the volume is so low I cannot hear even at maximum volume, and sometimes the volume is over distorted. It has been trial and error and a lot of reburning to get it to an acceptable volume level. So for the last two days I have been downloading and trying out many other programs, and they all lack at least 1 if not more features I want. I would like: 1) To be able to fit 11 45 minute episodes on 1 DVD+R and have the program auto-fit. Several programs do this fine. I am watching on a small screen, so video quality is fine. ConvertXtoDVD does this fine (though I hand edit the size to 4.3 GB as it sometimes goes oversize). Some programs won't shrink the video enough. 2) To have a text only menu of the episodes, no chapters; the more that fit on 1 screen the better. Only found 1 program that supported 11 titles on the main menu, but it did not auto-fit to 1 DVD+R. Many programs have a single title screen. ConvertXtoDVD does this ok (8 titles per page). Some programs only offer 1 title, some offer 3 max. 3) Audio normalization. Many programs list this feature, but don't have the other two above. This is where ConvertXtoDVD does a poor job. Trying Freemake Video Converter right now, but it does not list a normalization option, hoping it does this by default. Have tried: Roxio Creator 2012 (horrible menus), AVStoDVD (crashes), DVDStyler (won't compress enough), Wondershare DVD Creator (failed to burn, just ended up with 8 Gb of mpg files). Thanks in advance, and please only reply if you have personally been successful with the three "wants" above.
Reconsider AVStoDVD. Although it can't shrink, it can save as half d1 which uses lower bitrates. The author actively supports the program on the VideoHelp site. http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/277852-AVStoDVD-Support-Thread?p=2256654
