Xvid to DVD Questions

[NightwolfFUS]

Hi. I'm basically new to this forum. Actually, I just found out about ffmpegx a week or so ago, but I downloaded it and started using it. It seems to be the answer to my video conversion problems, and it's an incredible program, but I have a few questions you guys might be able to help out with.

I have a bunch of files (26 to be exact) that I eventually want to burn to DVD. Through trial and error, I've been learning how to effectively convert Xvid Avi files (in PAL format) to DVD which can be played back on US DVD players. Today, I believe I made a stride by converting one of my Xvid files to DVD with ffmpegx by selecting conversion to NTSC [Film]. I used an Apple DVD-R disc to burn the file. I made sure to have it muxed as DVD and it was encoded with AC3 audio. The screen was also autosized to "DVD." Oddly enough, however, it played differently in the numerous DVD players I have. On my older Panasonic DVD player, the sound was perfect and the video played, but there was some flashing green and white tiling at the top and bottom of the screen.

On my newer Philips DVD recorder, there was no tiling at all, the picture quality looked as it was supposed to, and the audio was flawless, but this time, it looked like the image was too big for the tv screen, almost as though the screen was being zoomed in on.

I also have a mini DVD player, and the disc played perfectly on that one. No screen size, audio, or visual problems whatsoever.

So, my questions are these:

1. Does the screen proportion issue have something to do with the PAL video and the screen size I chose to encode to? Perhaps I should re-encode as 4:3 aspect ratio or perhaps 1:85 to 1? I was surprised to have been able to convert PAL to NTSC at all, and I believe I can get it right on all my machines. I'm very close. I just need some advice.

2. Is it better to burn ffmpegx-created files to DVD-R as opposed to +R? I basically wasted 2 Maxell DVD+R discs by trying to encode an Xvid, but that was before I realized I had to encode to NTSC (film).

3. Obviously, I don't want to be wasting whole blank DVD discs for one file a piece. When burning with Toast 6 Titanium, how do I make it so I'll have access to four or five of these Xvids on one DVD? I tried burning 4 of them to a DVD, but I was only able to play one of them. I had no idea how to access the other three.

4. Is there a way to select chapters within each of these files as well as to be able to create some sort of DVD menu (perhaps from within ffmpegx)? It's kind of a pain not being able to create chapters and having to fast forward.

Any help is appreciated! And I apologize if some of my questions have already been partially answered somewhere on this forum, but I'm still new and looking around at all the different topics. It's a huge place!

[major]

1. NTSC DVD is always and only 720x480
2. This depends from your player specifications. Check the compatibility list at https://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers
3. Keep the elementary streams (m2v/ac3) and author them on a single DVD with Sizzle or DVDSP
4. This will be added in later versions of ffmpegX. For now use Sizzle or DVDSP.

[NightwolfFUS]

Ok. Thanks for the info. How exactly do i burn the elementary streams along with the Video_TS folder. Or will ffmpegx automatically encode the video_ts folder in such a way that it will keep those streams? And, is using Sizzle going to be one of my last steps, meaning, I simply save each XVID file after having encoded it with ffmpegx?

[major]

The elementary streams (m2v/ac3) have to be authored before burning. Authoring is the process resulting in a VIDEO_TS folder. ffmpegX can do it but only for one file. For multiple files, use Sizzle. Load the various m2v/ac3 pairs in Sizzle, and it will make a single VIDEO_TS folder ready to burn.

[NightwolfFUS]

Oh, ok. I understand. However, when I encode my XVID files, I turn out an mpv, mpg, and ac3 file along with the authored video_ts folder in ffmpegx. I'm not getting any m2v file. Also, when I tried importing the ac3 file to Sizzle, I wasn't able to select it from the desktop. It was faded out. If I use Sizzle, should I uncheck "author as DVD" with ffmpegx? Was that the problem? Or perhaps I should mux as MPEG-2 and not as DVD?