Question about creating DVD's from Digital Camcorder

[SlowPoke]

I am a newbie using Movie Factory 2. My problem is figuring out how to get Chapters into the movie -- not "subchapters". When I capture in Movie Factory, I can split scenes, but like all home movies, there are dozens of splits of the same "subject" (like kids birthday party). This creates too many "chapter points." If I capture the whole movie there is only ONE chapter.

1. I cannot seem to combine the split scenes in Movie Factory -- If I could that would make it easy. Can it be done ? (Now I Capture, go to Windows Movie Maker and can "create movies" that are combines scenes -- lot of extra work.

2. If not, is there an easier way to combine AVI Files (I have seen programs to join Mpegs, but not AVI files.

3. Is there an easier way to do what I want -- have chapters, not subchapters, of the major "scenes" combined.

4. Should I be capturing in AVI format -- it takes forever to render the DVD in Movie Factory, but TMGwhatever only accepts Mpegs I think ???

[bottle-necked]

The easiest way I can think of is Ulead VideoStudio V6. You would simply choose new project, then template from existing file of type, browse to your AVIs and select one then click ok. The program will setup itself for that type of file. You could then add the other clips you have onto the timeline. When you're done just produce this project as a new file, choose a name then done. As long as all the AVIs are the same (frame size, etc) the program will simply splice them together. If they were mixed format (frame size, etc) then ULEAD would reencode them to the specifications of the file you choose in the Template step.

I've got V7 but I haven't messed with it enough to understand how to do that in it. Version 6 is far easier for me to use.

Good luck.