The web is really a great place to find things you can't find in your country. Like TV series, wide-screen versions, old films. All needs that the DVD industry in countries like Brazil, where I live, don't care to attend. Fortunately there are generous people that help us film & TV viewers to fill this gap. Now: I want quality too, and that is not something you will quite get much of. Most video files are compressed avi types, usually Divx or Xvid (don't ask me what's the difference between them), and several sub-groups between them. So there's always a search for the better program to do it all with quality. One step converters, like the the very good ConvertXtoDVD, work in most cases. You will have to set the variables well, but the product is quite good. But sometimes the road is harder. I don't know why most avi files you may find around are PAL or 23.976 types. Original NTSC files are rare. So if you choose a different road from ConvertXtoDVD, which may get you a better quality and a better authoring, there are several steps you might need to go through. IMAGE CONVERSION: You will need a good PAL or 23.976 onto NTSC converter. In my case I use Canopus Procoder 1.5, but there are others that work fine. These programs will convert your file onto Mpeg2 files, separate audio & video. There's another thing you should load in your program: bitrate. Get yourself a Bitrate Calculator through Google, and use it to compute the Bitrate you should use on your conversion program. Otherwise you will end with a large DVD file that many burning programs will reject. AUDIO ADJUSTMENT: Audio levels may be low, sometimes very low. Don't ask me why because I don't know. You will need a program to correct the audio levels on the wav file you will get from step above. I use Sound Forge, but there are others. Correct the exact amount to prevent clipping. Some AVI files have different audio options, so you may need to pick the one you want, which is not so easy to accomplish. DVD AUTHORING: This will depend on whether you want simplicity or complexity. For simplicity, the best is TMPGEnc DVD Author. For complexity, it's difficult to beat DVD-Lab Pro, as it will let you load subtitles, different audio options, add better menus, etc. But all this road is bumpy. DVD media is quite irregular, some avi files are tricky to convert, some audio files are difficult to extract, most subtitles need to be adjusted. Some paths that worked for me, after trying many others, are not still clear to me why they do. Example: lately I have had several coasters when doing some conversions. Like two discs that didn't play well on my Pioneer home player. As I had deleted the files, I went with them through DVDShrink, even if there was no shrinking to do, had the program analyze the files and made a backup. The new burnings worked fine. Can anyone explain that? Same media, same DVD burner. There were other files I had on my HD that I had not deleted because I couldn't get a good burn from. So I did this very same "DVDShrink process" on them, and this time they burnt fine. Any clues on why this might be happening? Not magic, certainly. What I mean is there are ways to get your files work, just be patient. BTW: do test burns on everything using DVD-RW media. That will save you money in coaster DVD-Rs thrown away. A tip: get several DVD-RW discs, as sometimes a problem is the record itself. Don't ask me why either. Probably quality control in the media. Let's hope this long explanation helps beginners or others that are banging against some wall.
hi, you have an idea about a program to convert from mpeg2 to avi without loosing quality?? i tried studio 9 and avs video converter but i'm looking for better quality thank u
So maybe some files that have given me coasters too, that if I run them through DVDShrink and then burn them, it may help? Do you have a favorite "all in one" program? I have been trying to find a solution to my a/v problem and am asking in a couple of different threads here at AD [links: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/5/286600#2111651 and here: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/353406 I have been reading and trying to learn, but I am growing impatient with this latest problem of a/v out of sync, as everyone suggests something different, and then the next person will say that that 'fix' didn't work for them anyways. I don't know what else to do, and this has been a very helpful BB to me over the past few months, so I keep trying! Any suggestions?
There's a program called Sorenson Squeeze, that I think it's already in the 4.2 version, that does it all. And very well, as it's used to make DVDs from professional programs like Avid. Sorry: not completely all. It doesn't burn the disc, but you can use the MP2 files to do that with many programs.
You will have to use some other program to burn your disc, but many can do that well. Like CloneDVD2 or TMPGEnc DVD Author or Nero.
If you are looking for high quality video conversions, I recommend WinAVI Converter. This converts practically any media type (avi,mpg,qt,wmv) to practically any format (avi,dvd,mgp,qt,wmv). This is probably one of the fastest converters on the market. You have to play with the settings to make sure your quality setting is set to high. The settings are quite staright-forward. Just to give you an idea: To convert a 715MB AVI file to a high-quality DVD file, it takes about 40-50 minutes, and there is no loss of quality. Hope this helps!
Thank you carlmart and dizzyduck both for your help and replies. In one of those threads I linked previously, I talked about trying a new program-ConvertXtoDVD, and I still might, I want to read more reviews and tutorials on it first to see if it's what I'm looking for. I have read good things about WinAvi Converter too, but then I would need DVD Shrink and burn with Nero too, if I remember correctly, I'll have to read up on that too. I know I can't keep going with Nero or DVDSanta. Putting only 4-5 22 minute episodes on each disc with DVDSanta is driving me nuts, it's the storage issue, not the cost of the discs! LOL And Nero, like I've said so many times in different places here since I joined, I LOVE it when it works. But it just drives me nuts the time/discs it wastes when it doesn't work. I continue to hope that one day soon they'll have a solution, but I can't wait forever. I will read up on ConvertXtoDVD and WinAvi/DVDShrink in the meantime and try that. Thank you all again for your help.
