n00b video guy needing direction..

[baldbilly]

Well, I created a movie gathered from multiple dv's of our daughter since she was born less then a year ago, and I am trying to make a nice mothers day present for wife and grandmothers, a DVD of our daughters first year.. korny huh?

I have about a 500mb file in wmv format.. I would like to create a menu with a chapters, by months...
However, after I made the movie(I put a copy of it on a cd-r), I deleted my old dv's to free up space..

So I assume now I need to "break" my wmv into chapters or sections? Do I need to do some conversion or whatever...

I honestly don't have a clue as to where to start from the movie...

I really don't want to buy an expensive dvd authoring program that I may only use once or twice, if I'm lucky, so freeware would be best.


TIA for any suggestions

[mats.hogberg]

Start reading here: https://www.videohelp.com/guides?searchtext=&tools=&madeby=&formatconversionselect=WMV+...or+List+Guides
As far as DVD source material goes, WMV is one of the worst. It's hard to convert, it's highly (often) compressed...

Good luck!
/Mats

[baldbilly]

Thank you, I can not believe out of all the hunting and reading I did I skipped one guide that is exactly what I wanted ...

EDIT:

I should have mentioned that they were originally .asf, converted to .avi and then put into a wmv...

So far so good... this sure aint a fast process is it...

[baldbilly]

Well, I was able to get a DVD iso but using dvd flick it failed to "burn" successfully..

I checked keep iso etc and was able to burn the iso to a dvd with nero 7

it played and was somewhat grainy(of course it looked great on computer)

likely it was somehting I did, the movie(pre-burn) was widescreen in MWP. I may have to go back and check my output settings from WMM.

Thanks again for the great help!

[mats.hogberg]

Not that it affects video quality, but I recommend using ImgBurn to burn ISO (or anything else for that matter) to DVD-R/CD-R

/Mats

[SingSing]

Your video quality issue can caused by the multiple conversion of the video. Every additional pass of conversion adds artifact to the video. The best quality video is always from the original to the final in one conversion.

Nero burning rom is a good choice for burning DVD. If you did not select iso file output. The program will leave a set of DVD files such as ifo,vob as the output. The good things is you can watch this DVD with your DVD application like Nero player, and Power DVD...etc. before you use Nero to burn it to a DVD.

Note : The cheapest part of burning a home movie DVD is the disc (10 to 50 cents), So don't hesitate to experiment and just throw out those you dop't like.

[mats.hogberg]

Nero burning rom is a good choice for burning DVD.

YMMV, but I bet some (I for one) would disagree on that...

/Mats

[träskmannen]

Note : The cheapest part of burning a home movie DVD is the disc (10 to 50 cents), So don't hesitate to experiment and just throw out those you dop't like.

Or use re-writable discs during the experimenting... that will be cheaper in the long run.

[baldbilly]

Thanks for the tips gents, I used nero becuae it came with the drive and I new how to use it to burn ISO's, after DVD Flick bombed during it...

I will play aroudn some more and see what I can get out of it and check the movie before its burned since I kept the files..