Question about video files data backup?

whatever911 · Member Joined: 02 Nov 2006 Location: United States

i'm thinking if video files that are back-up from a PC to a DVD, containting 60 or more movie files ( .avi, .rm, or any other formats ) could be playable on a home standard DVD player. Is it possible to do so? if yes, plez guide me

redwudz · Mod Neophyte Joined: 07 Sep 2002 Location: AZ, USA

Simple answer, NO.

A regular DVD player may play DVD, VCD, or SVCD and sometimes MPEG-2 or 1. But no others. A Divx player may be able to play all those and some forms of Divx and Xvid and possibly a few other AVI (MPEG-4) formats. You are very unlikely to find a standalone player that will play any other formats, like RM or Quicktime.

You would either need a software converter to change them to a compatible format or just play them on a computer with the proper formats.

For conversions, see: 'CONVERT' to the left for guides.

And welcome to our forums.

whatever911 · Member Joined: 02 Nov 2006 Location: United States

thanks for replying

but i still have 1 more question if you don't mind. According to what you've said, a home standard dvd player could read only the movie discs if only those were in DVD, VCD, SVCD, Divx, Xvid, and MPEG-4 right ? so is there any way i could put about 20 movie files in a DVD disc ( each file ~ 100 MB ) and still be able to watch it on a dvd player ?

i don't want to make a DVD movie, i just want to make a data DVD that contains movie files and could be watchable on a standard dvd player with an excellent quality. If it's possible, plz show me how

jagabo · Member Joined: 09 Dec 2005 Location: none

A DVD player only needs to be able to play pressed movie DVDs to qualify as a DVD player. Most of course will also read movie DVDs on DVD R and RW media. Many have the ability to play VCD and SVCD but that is not part of the DVD spec, it's a bonus.

Further, since DVD movie data is really MPEG1 or MPEG2 some players can play MPEG1 and MPEG2 files on ISO data DVDs.

Even further some players can also handle handle MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid, etc) AVI files on ISO data DVDs. Those will typically be labeled as Divx or MPEG4 compatible or certified. Note audio can also be a problem depending on the audio codecs used.

If you have Nero Burning ROM, you can use the DVD-ROM (ISO) No Multisession template to burn video files onto a data DVD.

One issue you will run into: when you stick a data DVD into a player that can play MPEG or AVI files it will give you a simple menu (list) of the files. It can take a while to scroll through 60 files to pick the one you want. You will also find that most players will not show full filenames if you use long names. So avoid using long filenames like:

My Favorite TV Series - Season 3 - Episode 11 - The Greatest Show Ever.avi

You may only see:

My Favorite TV Ser.avi

or something cryptic like:

MY~07E4B.AVI

redwudz · Mod Neophyte Joined: 07 Sep 2002 Location: AZ, USA

A DVD data disc with video may work on some DVD players, though only if they will play MPEGs, or with a Divx compatible player, Divx or Xvid videos written to a specification that they will accept. All other formats would need conversion to a compatible format for your player. For a regular DVD player, the most compatible would be video encoded to MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 DVD specifications, then authored to a DVD.

If you look to the upper left on this page for 'WHAT IS' DVD, you will see the DVD specifications and format. If you make your files compatible with that, they should play on just about any DVD player after authoring.

If you just want them to play on a computer, then you can burn them as a data disc in any format you want and they should work, as long as you have the proper codecs installed on the computer for playback.

If you want them to play on most any DVD player, you will need to follow the DVD specification and format. You first need DVD compliant video and audio, then you need to author the MPEG video and audio to create the DVD format.