Thanks all for your suggestions....unfortunately it still kept disappearing...however I've just got hold of Panasonic Mpeg encoder, which has done the job nicely

BJ_M.....Your original reply to my first post was to tell me that the films I mentioned were not legally available on DVD yet....I showed you that you were wrong...it appears that its YOU who has the attitude problem, not me. You proved that by locking my original thread....you also assume that because my movie is in Xvid format then it MUST be illegal...eh?????...in that case how come the main site has tutorials on converting Xvid??