N00bie (dvd wont play on home dvd player?)

Greetings,

My apologies in advance, this is not my field, I am working on a 1 time project.

I filmed 4 days of presentations. I edited them using Microsoft Movie Maker. I saved them as windows movie files. I burned them to a DVD as data files.

They will not play on my home DVD player. I have to make about 20 copies which were sold, and I need them to play on home dvd players.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I bought nero ultimate package V6 today, hoping that might help.

 

Hi richw,

As you did buy Nero 6, you can do the whole job with NVE (NeroVision Express, shipped with Nero 6):
- import the WMV files
- convert them to MPEG/VOB
- create the corresponding IFO and BUP files
- burn them all

[bold]But[/bold] the image quality of NVE does not compare with a standalone MPEG-2 encoder such as MainConcet Encoder, TMPGEnc or CCE (CinemaCraft Encoder). I compared NVE and CCE, and CCE's image is obviously better. You can see the difference on a regular TV.

Be aware the MPEG encoder is not enough. You also need a DVD authoring tool, such as TMPGEnc DVD Author or DVD-Lab. Thus the procedure to get your DVD is more complex (and more expensive) but you'll get the best quality possible.

NeroVision is an all-in-one tool (just import your files anc click Next a few times) and you don't have to spend more money, but the image quality is average. It's up to you.

There is a 3rd way: MainConcept has just released version 2 of their video editing tool: EVE (Easy Video Editing). For 70 $, you get a tool that works like Movie Maker but can also encode to MPEG-2 and author a DVD. I'm testing it these days but I didn't compare the quality with CCE and NVE yet.

At last, whether you choose a standalone encoder or NVE or EVE, you should not work with WMV files. [bold]If[/bold] you captured your movie as AVI, you should re-export your Movie Maker project to AVI files, because you'll get better image quality if you encode to MPEG-2 from AVI files rather than from WMV files. Of course, if you captured as WMV directly, it's pointless to re-export the project to AVI files (you have lost the original image quality anyway) unless the MPEG-2 encoder doesn't accept WMV files.

Cheers.

 

Herbsman,

Thanks for the useful information! Your comments are the kind of roadmap I was hoping for!

Daba,

Likewise, thank you very much for adding options!!

A few more questions. (I looked in Movie Maker, okay, no Mpeg save option)

1, If I have saved my original work as a Microsoft Movie Project, have I already lost the data? If I open those projects, which I did save, and save the files as AVI, will I still be working with my best choice for quality? (Otherwise, I need to decide between editing a second time, very unlikely and accepting the reduced quality of the saved projects)

2, Could you comment back on MainConcept ASAP? I may gambe and buy it anyway, so any comments you have from use to date would be appreciated.

Again, thanks for the beginner level input!!

 

MainConcept's video editing tool (EVE) contains a [bold]limited[/bold] version of their MPEG encoder. So for 70 $ you get video editing [bold]and[/bold] MPEG encoding.

@richw:
If the video files you are working on in Movie Maker are AVI, then it's worth exporting your project to an AVI file. If your video files are WMV, you've lost image quality definitively and you [bold]will not[/bold] recover it by exporting to AVI.

I'll let you know my experience with EVE as soon as I test it further.

Cheers.

 

Guys,
I thank you much for your help here...

Some stranger somewhere sometime will receive favor from me in return for your kindness.

Best Regards,
Rich W

 

I compared EVE's image quality with NeroVision Express and CCE Basic. See this thread in the general video discussion forum:

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/81580