How do I convert various formats TO a dvd that will play on ANY dvd player?

tinman01 · Member Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Location: United States

Hello, I have a question about converting various video formats ie AVI, DVIX, MPG, VOB, and a couple of others. I download a lot of movies and video from the internet and also rip a lot of DVD's. I have been having a lot of trouble

getting them to play on stand alone DVD players. Even doing a DVD rip with DVD Shrink a dvd to dvd full back-up, most of the time won't play in a stand alone DVD player and when converting from other formats I am not sure what format to convert it to for the DVD players, mpeg1, 2, 3, 4, or vob, mpg, exc. I use manily the PC for this but have both the PC and Mac and the same trouble on both, so I'm sure it is something I'm doing. On the Mac I'm using Mac the ripper and dvd remaster, On the Pc I have several programs DVD Shrink, Star Video Converter, Magic DVD Copier, VeidoRedo, Nanopeg Editor, Prism Video Converter. Each one offers a lot of choices and I'm not sure what the final format should be or the best way of doing it. I have done the trial and ERROR, ERROR, ERROR method but I still don't get it! I know this sounds like a stupid question but I can't figure it out. Any help would greatly be apreciated.

jman98 · Member Joined: 08 Oct 2004 Location: Freedonia

Welcome to the forums, but unfortunately like a lot of new members, you have left out some important information. Telling us what make and model DVD player you have would have been helpful. It could easily be that your player simply can't play the raw data files you are trying to feed it. We don't really have enough info on what you are trying to play and how you are making these files to be sure what the problem is.

ConvertXtoDVD is not free, but it's simple to use and works well for most people. You might want to try it for your conversions. I'd suggest that for simplicity's sake that you convert everything to DVD as that should work in your player. Your player may not necessarily support other formats, but we don't know because we don't know what your player is.

Do note that blank DVD discs are not all the same and you may find certain cheaper brands don't work very well for you. As a general rule here, we recommend using Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden (you'll have to mail order TY if you want it) as they have the highest quality and seem to work the best for most people.

tinman01 · Member Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Location: United States

I have several DVD players, Toshiba HD, Philips upscaling to hd, a Panasonic DVD/VCR. I have also triedt the disks on some friends DVD players and same results, thats why I was thinking it was something I'm doing (or not) that was the proublem. I have used different DVD burners and Players with the same result it is hit or miss. I have downloaded ConvertXto DVD but have not bought it yet. I have several programs and didn't want to put out any more money it the trouble was me and not the programs. I have even tried different DVD brands with no luck. I know this isn't a lot to go on ( sorry). I have seen some DVD formats listed as mp2, 3 or mp4 and some as vob is one better than the other? thanks for your advice.

guns1inger · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2004 Location: Miskatonic U

I use FAVC, burn to verbatim with Imgburn, and have no problems with playback on multiple machines
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tinman01 · Member Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Location: United States

Thanks I'll give that a try.

jagabo · Member Joined: 09 Dec 2005 Location: none

Try the Guides. Format Conversion: To DVD:

http://www.videohelp.com/guides?searchtext=&tools=&madeby ... ist+Guides

jman98 · Member Joined: 08 Oct 2004 Location: Freedonia

Toshiba HD DVD players won't play anything except DVD, HD DVD and CD audio. That's it.

We don't know enough about what you are doing to help much. What you've done is like taking your car in for repair but not telling the mechanic what is wrong, yet demanding that he fix it. Yes, surely something is going wrong in what you are doing. Philips players tend to "play everything", so if you can't get your discs to play on a Philips player, something is wrong in what you are doing. As far as WHAT that something is, well, the possibilities are almost endless. You're probably creating data discs, which can be a problem for some players, but all kinds of things could be to blame. You might be using resolutions that the players won't support, creating formats that won't play on the players, and so on. Hence my generic recommendation to just convert everything to DVD to cut down on the errors.

Finally, you could be doing stuff right (Who knows? Even you don't know.) but you might be using crap media. I have seen media so bad that it just won't work in some players. Hence my recommendation to use Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden just to eliminate another potential source of problems for you.

oldandinthe way · Posted: Mar 13, 2008 10:58

It might help if you focused on just on burner and one player. Identify the burner, the player and the mediaID of the DVD's. Describe the process you are going through to create a video DVD.

Your scattershot approach leaves too many variables to find a solution. For instance using various brands of DVD may not be actually using different DVDs - Imation, TDK, HP, and various house brands are all CMC manufactured DVDs and may have the same mediaID and exhibit the same problems.

By the way, you will never get a burned DVD that will play on ANY DVDplayer. Some older players will not read burned DVDs.

tinman01 · Member Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Location: United States

I do tend to have a scattershot approach to things let me see if I can pin it down just a little! I am using TDK DVD's, I am burning with a genaric 16X DVD burner. I will use a Panasonic DVD player. First off I am starting out with several different types of video, mostly AVI so lets start there. (I can convert the video to just about any other format if needed.). I use nero 8 to burn the DVD's. What format should I try to convert to? I use Star Video Converter to change the format usually from AVI to VOB I am not sure of what format I need to try to get it to. The VOB is the only one that says DVD cpmpatible MPEG2 Format (*.vob) the others are DivX Format(*.avi) and various .mpg's. is there a standard format? My player does not reconize the mpg format. Also I have just recently got Prism Video Converter. I don't know if that is any better or not but I can use either one you would recommend. thanks

oldandinthe way · Posted: Mar 13, 2008 12:38

Your TDK media are made by CMC. They will have a greater number of problems with some players than Toyo Yuden or Verbatim.

There is no such thing as a generic 16x burner. All burners have a manufacturer and a model. Use Nero info tool, or the Device Manager on Windows to find out the model. DVD burners need periodic firmware updates to support media which did not exist when they left the factory and to correct errors in the write strategy for some media. Writing a DVD with the wrong write strategy or the default write strategy will usually generate inferior burns.

You need to be generating compliant DVD-Video files, not just VOB but the associated other files in the structure - IFO, BUP etc. After you have properly authored these files you can use Nero or Imgburn to burn as a DVDvideo

Tools like ConvertX to DVD will generate a compatible DVDvideo file structure and have builtin burning software.

A existing DVD ripped to hard disk with DVDFab, DVDShrink or a variety of other tools will generate a full file structure which can be burned as a DVD video.

tinman01 · Member Joined: 13 Mar 2008 Location: United States

Well I still don't know what is going on but I took your advice and I am running ConvertxtoDVD. I works great! I could not locat the brand name of my DVD burner, I think its a Mad Dog, but not sure. ConvertXtoDVD sure makes it simple. Thanks for all your advice.

zaque2004 · Member Joined: 14 Apr 2007 Location: United States

i used to run into the same problem. My problem was that some files were PAL not NTSC. So I was creating mixed or all completely wrong Standards. I now check before I burn what the frame rate is in the video portion. If it is PAL I convert these to NTSC. Solved that part of the problem.