Please help a newbie out!

[piquet]

I recently got a dvd-burner and the program DVD MovieFactory 2. I want to put my avi movies on a dvd for my standalone player. I was told that this was the best program, so I bought it.

When I create a project, everything runs fine (I used the guide on this site). But just before the dvd-r is finished burning, the drive ejects the disc and MovieFactory says "General error" and then says something about a software problem (sorry can't remember more than this). Has anyone else experienced this, and do you know how to stop it?

Is there any other way to do this? I can convert the avi files to mpeg2 with the TMPGEnc demo, but what do I do with this file? Can I create the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders myself? If so, what do I put in them? I know I need some special files call vob and some others, but how can I make them?

This IS so annoying, I've wasted 7 DVD-Rs on it so far...

[housepig]

first off - go buy some dvd-rw discs so that you don't waste any more discs.

second - write down the error message - it's really hard to diagnose an error when you have only a vague description.

third - you are correct, you need to author your mpeg-2 files before putting them into VIDEO_TS folders... an mpeg2 file dropped into a VIDEO_TS folder is not going to be recognized as a dvd file by most players.

I would also suggest authoring and burning in more than one step - it sounds like you are trying to do it all at once. Author the disc to your hard drive, not your burner. Test it with a software dvd player like PowerDVD to make sure it's okay. Then burn it - if Ulead won't burn it, try Nero or RecordNow Max. As long as the files are properly authored by Ulead, you can burn them with any other dvd burning app.

If Ulead is not creating the vob & ifo files properly, try downloading a different authoring app like DVD Lab and giving that a try.