Where does a newbie start !

[Briercliffe]

To say I'm new to this is an understatement, but no doubt we've all been here at sometime or other.

Right I have the equipment (or I think I have) and what I wish to do is download movies, rather than music, and burn them onto a Vcd so I can watch. that seemed rather easy or so I thought.

My first action was to download Red Dragon from Kazaa, it came down in two parts and although it said they were *.avi files I doubt they are. So what I wish to do here first of all is find some kind of idiot proof editing software which will join the two parts together, from there I assume I need to compress it so I can burn it on to a CDR, but I have to be honest and say I'm lost and would appreciate any help at all.

If it's of any help I've downloaded the following programs DivX, Flaskmpeg and TMPGEnc, I also have Ulead DVD Movemaker and Easy CD Creator Platinum 5, it all sounds very nice but at the moment it's like having a car with no wheels.

Regards
Briercliffe

[kitty]

Read the following in order:

http://www.vcdhelp.com/newbie to know what's what
http://www.vcdhelp.com/tmpgenc.htm to convert your divx movies to VCD

[Briercliffe]

Many thanks for your prompt reply Kitty, it is appreciated.

I only stumbled across this site/forum while searching for information on what to do anyway but must admit I'm glad I did, it's a very informative site.

I will of course view the items you suggest sometime this morning and take it from there.

One other quick point, I notice you use a Hauppauge WinTV PVR-250 card with XP Home, I also have a Hauppauge WinTV PCI card but found it very unstable with XP Pro on my previous KT7-Raid M/B, however, now I've changed M/B to a more stable Albatron KX400+ ans I see Hauppauge have now released driver for XP I wonder if it would be worth installing again, anyway that's another item to ponder on.

Once again thanks for the advice.

Briercliffe