Help making home video DVD's from captured AVI.

[gyoung1988]

After reading several posts, I still can’t figure out which programs are best for my goal. I have several hours of home video captured in AVI format using WinDV (which is a great program) and now need to make home DVD movies.

We have another child on the way and my wife has given me the OK to build another computer to complete the task of making DVD’s. I am not necessarily looking for the cheapest (free) software, but the best video quality software for making home video DVD’s.

Having chapters and good quality is my main goal. I need this for the grandparents, so they can easily see and choose what clip to watch. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[kschang]

Well, sounds like you want a chapter menu also.

The problem here is your needs are multiple, since you need to 1) Convert/transcode from AVI to MPEG2, 2) Edit / Trim / Join the footage to create "the best of", and 3) Create the actual DVD by authoring, laying out the menus, getting the whole thing imaged, and burning the actual DVD.

As you have an actual budget, I'd head into your local computer store and grab a copy of Adobe Premiere Elements, latest version, and start playing with that. It's step 2 that should take up most of the time.

[harley2ride]

Download trials for Adobe Premiere Elements, Vegas Movie Studio, Ulead Studio 10, Ulead Movie Factory. All of those will do a pretty good job for the price. If you want to go hi tech on a budget, try Adobe Premiere 6.5 or Sony Vegas 5 which are both semi-pro products (just older versions). But both of those have a pretty steep learning curve and would require hours of tutorials and practice to master.