Hello, I'm new to this forum but it seems to be the place to ask these questions. I'm going to get right to it. I have many different TV episodes (mostly ooold cartoons) that were backed up into AVI files. I would like to make a compilation of them on one DVD (about 20 AVI files, or episodes, on one DVD-R). I was reading the guide on converting AVI to DVD video and it seems simple enough. However, the guide says the files must be joined and it was at that point that I worried about my goal, which is to create a DVD with menus and for each episode to be its own scene I could seleect in a "Scene select" menu, which I would probably name "Episode select". So are the steps still the same if I want to do that? I've seen DVDs where people made their own menus and could select which video they wanted to play. Not VCDs or anything, either. Regular DVDs that could be played back on any standard player (in particular, I want DVDs that can be played back on the Playstation 2, which I've been able to do when backing up whole DVDs to blank Sony DVD-R's using TMPGenc). So if anyone could point me to the necessary guides/software needed for putting multiple AVI files on a disc with a nice interactive menu that would be great. My goal for the menu is to have a background image with clickable buttons that would say something like "Play all", "Episode select" and maybe a "Special Feeatures". Some background music for the menu would be cool too =) EDIT: I just realized I wouldn't be fitting all 20 episodes on one DVD disc...they're all half hour long episodes, so more like 10 ish on one disc.
Even with 10 or so you will be reducing the quality to about VCD-like quality: In other words, terrible quality. Even if you were to reauthor everything to fit a Double-Layer disc, you still would lose an appreciable amount of quality-you're talking about 5 hours worth of video and audio, whereas single-layer DVDs really only hold 60-90 minutes at full-quality and Double-Layers 120-180 minutes. Divx/xvid-encoded files will allow you to fit a movie or episode in half the space of a DVD for about the same quality level. In other words, the only way you can fit 5 hours of stuff onto a DVD and maintain some semblance of quality is to go with Divx/xvid. Since you say your episodes are AVI files, they may well already be in Divx or xvid format. You can download and run GSpot to find out. (If you downloaded a codec pack, you may already have it.) You will, however, need a Divx-compatible standalone DVD player, such as the Philips DVP-642, if you want to watch your videos on your TV. You will also lose the ability to use chapters, etc. and maybe even subtitles, so it's not as convenient as DVD. If you still want to convert to DVD, something like Nero Recode/Nero Vision is an easy way to convert your AVIs to DVD, assuming you have the proper codecs installed. GSpot will tell you what codecs you need if you can't play the files back. You can manually add chapters and such in Nero Vision. You can tweak the compression settings to fit less stuff onto a disc in favor of better quality, or vice versa.
Thanks Dunker, Yeah my estimate of how many episodes I would have on one disc was VERY rough, sorry about that. Nero Vision looks like the thing I would need...looks a little odd to use but I'm sure it can't be that hard. I just hope it's actually encoding everything to DVD video...as in, stuff that can be played on regular players.
You're welcome. If Nero doesn't crash, it will output a compliant DVD that should play on anything (though your media, booktyping, etc. play more of a role in that anyway). You will find out if you do (or don't) have the right codecs or whether Nero supports the files if you can't even load them into Nero. If Nero doesn't work for you, try the freeware Avi2DVD.
I use Pinnacle 10.5.2 you can put menus ,music in the background,transitons you name it I convert my mov file to AVI just to use this program good for home video or tv programs or any AVI files
