Burning 4/5 700mb's avi's onto a dvd for playback on standalone player

[blockers]

Hi.

First off, I am a complete n00b at anything relating to avi -> dvd encoding/transcoding. So i was hopeing that one of you lovely people here would be able to let me know what i needed/how to make my avi's playable on a standalone dvd-player.

After google searching and reading about people using a variety of programs to get avi's onto a dvd i downloaded "avi2dvd" and had a play. I converted one of my 700mb avi's and it ended up being 3.5gb's - this wasnt particularly helpful as i have 4/5 avis that need to go on 1 dvd.

1) What programs do i need to use in order to convert my avi to dvd?
2) How do i put multiple avi' onto the dvd in order for playback on a standalone player?

Finally, how difficult is it to integrate a menu to select the file that you want to play?

Thank you very much
Sorry for the newbie questions
Will.

[kicko]

depending on the quality of these avi's i would not put more then 2 on a dvd. Since they are compressed to start, putting too much on one dvd you would have to lessen the quialty to fit it all on. Depends on what your looking to do but dvd's are cheap enough i'd do one per disc, but thats just me.

[Krispy Kritter]

Or get a dvd player that supports divx/avi playback. Then just burn the avi's onto a dvd as a "data".

If you really need them in dvd format, then you will need to do a little work. Basically all of your files need to be converted from avi to dvd spec mpeg files. You then need to author a dvd. Then are many ways to get a final product. You will get the best results performing each step manually, but there are tools that will do everything for you...convertx2dvd is one such tool.

My opinion is to just get a divx compatible dvd player. It will save you a lot of time and hassle, you will use fewer dvd's, and see the files in the best quality.

[MysticE]

The size of the original AVI is irrelevant, it's all about running time when converting to DVD.

Assuming your 700 MB file to be about 90+ minutes long, 3 on a DVD would be pushing 5 hours which would look horrible. Two on a DVD might suit your needs qualitywise depending on the size of your TV.

[RabidDog]

std calculation is movie length / disc size = bitrate
eg 5 clips of 20 mins duration is 100 minutes of total playing time
100 mins playing time on a standard 4.7gb disc gives an average bitrate of 5789.
https://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm

you shouldnt really aim to put more than 2-2.5 hours on a single std dvd as the bitrate (and thus the quality) will suffer too much.

However solution two => philips 5960 available for only 80 of your US dollars which plays avi files without converting, thus sidestepping a barrelful of laughs and sadness.

[blockers]

Thanks very much for that input there guys. Really helpful, i reckon i put the original .avi's onto dvd for back up and to play on the computer then put as suggested a couple on each dvd. sorry hadnt appreciated that it was the lenght rather than actualy bytes that was important.

Thanks again!

Much appreciated
Will.

[mats.hogberg]

My recommendation is no more than 2 hours on a DVD-5. Try ConvertX2DVD for the conversion.

/Mats

[MysticE]

My recommendation is no more than 2 hours on a DVD-5. Try ConvertX2DVD for the conversion.

/Mats

It seems with Xvid conversions that you can easily go to almost 3 hours and still maintain decent quality.