Transferring AVI's onto a DVD

mjn6172 · Post by **mjn6172** » 2007-07-13 11:24pm

Hey, I just had a quick question for someone more knowledgeable than I am on the subject. Lately I've been transferring a bunch of old home movies onto my computer to better preserve them. Now that I've got that done, I was wondering if it's possible to get them to play on a normal DVD player. Well, all right, I'm sure it's possible; I just don't know how to do it. I don't want to do anything complicated like putting chapters or anything on them; I just want to play them on my DVD player. I've been saving the files as AVI's if that makes any difference.

Note: I tried looking on Google and searching through the archives, but I didn't have any luck either way. The only things I could find off of Google were ads for various AVI to DVD converters, running between $20 and $45. Thanks in advance for any help.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-07-13 11:35pm

Windows DVD Maker is capable of doing precisely what you want. I'm not sure if it's available in XP or older operating systems, but it comes bundled with Vista. I've been playing around with it lately and it's ridiculously simple to use. (This is assuming you're using a Windows machine, of course. Specifying your OS is important for things like this).

mjn6172 · Post by **mjn6172** » 2007-07-13 11:55pm

Sorry, I'm using Windows XP. I knew there was something else I needed to add to that original post. It looks like the Windows DVD Maker is only available for Vista though

You know, when I bought this machine it had a coupon that gave a free upgrade to Vista. I should probably look for that and see if it's still good.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2007-07-13 11:59pm

Sorry, I'm using Windows XP. I knew there was something else I needed to add to that original post. It looks like the Windows DVD Maker is only available for Vista though You know, when I bought this machine it had a coupon that gave a free upgrade to Vista. I should probably look for that and see if it's still good.

Or alternatively, you could install Linux on a seperate partition and avail yourself of K3b and other Free and Open Source utilities for DVD authoring.

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2007-07-14 03:12am

Nero also has a simple DVD authoring tool as part of their burning package - not sure if it comes with all versions though. Check their site.

Lisa · Post by **Lisa** » 2007-07-15 12:23pm

Tmpgenc will do what you need, no idea what the cost is. I used to use it along with a few other tools before I got my mac.

Manus Celer Dei · Post by **Manus Celer Dei** » 2007-07-15 12:26pm

RThurmont wrote:
Sorry, I'm using Windows XP. I knew there was something else I needed to add to that original post. It looks like the Windows DVD Maker is only available for Vista though You know, when I bought this machine it had a coupon that gave a free upgrade to Vista. I should probably look for that and see if it's still good.
Or alternatively, you could install Linux on a seperate partition and avail yourself of K3b and other Free and Open Source utilities for DVD authoring.

Do you not think installing an entire new operating system just to make a DVD is a bit, ah, drastic?

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2007-07-15 02:49pm

Manus Celer Dei wrote: Do you not think installing an entire new operating system just to make a DVD is a bit, ah, drastic?

Replace drastic with retarded for more accuracy. Maybe it's just me but I always get pissed off whenever some moron recommends getting a brand new operating system when all that's being asked for is one specific utility.

Laird · Post by **Laird** » 2007-07-15 09:18pm

Try locating "Divx2dvd" there are still older versions on the net before they went pay to use.

SCRawl · Post by **SCRawl** » 2007-07-15 10:11pm

Netko wrote:Nero also has a simple DVD authoring tool as part of their burning package - not sure if it comes with all versions though. Check their site.

I can confirm that. Nero Vision Express will transcode DivX into MPEG-2 and allow you to author a DVD. I find it somewhat limited in its capabilities, but it does the job. It isn't free, but it will work.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2007-07-17 01:17am

I got fed up with hodgepodge solutions a long time ago and started using Pegasys DVD Author. It's quick and easy and it's one of the very few packages that will use lossless encoding if it detects a DVD-compliant MPEG-2 video stream in the source data. Believe it or not, most DVD authoring programs will re-encode everything, even if it's already DVD compliant.