took over 2 hours to burn movie and looked like crap on tv

[Dentist]

i am very new to this, just got a nec 3520a, using latest nero i tried to burn a movie(avi format) and it took forever, and finally when it was done i went to check it on my dvd player and tv and it looked terrible, and ideas or input?

edit: 8x media

could this be solved with different software, media or a firmware upgrade

[ktnwin]

That's why you are a dentist, hehe...

1) Why does it take so long ?

Look like when you tell Nero to burn the AVI file to DVD, it first encodes it to MPEG-2 format (that's why it takes that long), then authors and burn the results on the DVD.

2) Why crappy quality ?

First, is your AVI file plays with decent quality on the computer monitor ?
Second, is Nero a good encoder ? I dont' know as I never use Nero for encoding. I use either PS8, TMPGenc, or NeoDVD that give me good quality DVD. Try to encode with TMPGenc, then author and burn with Nero to see if you get better quality.

[Dentist]

thanks, i'l give tmpgenc a try and i only watched part of the movie on my computer but it looked pretty good

edit: tmpgenc dvd author, tmpgenc dvd source creator, tmpgenc dvd xpress, or tmpgenc plus

[ZippyP.]

Second, is Nero a good encoder ?

NO!

[guns1inger]

Nero is a very poor encoder. Tmpgenc plus is a much better quality encoder, although it is slow compared to some. Once you have encoded it you need to author it to a DVD compliant format tnpgenc DVD author will allow you to do this.

You should also read up on bitrates, resizing etc in case you need to start tweaking

[ZippyP.]

edit: tmpgenc dvd author, tmpgenc dvd source creator, tmpgenc dvd xpress, or tmpgenc plus

TMPGEnc Plus.

[Dentist]

should tmpgenc take about 9 hours to encode? when it starts the remaining time is around the 9 hour mark is there anything else that i could try for encoding avi's to dvd format that are a good quality

[steve2713]

should tmpgenc take about 9 hours to encode? when it starts the remaining time is around the 9 hour mark

On a 1.7ghz Celeron? I'd say that's reasonable. TMPGEnc is slow to begin with, combined with a slower processor.

[ZippyP.]

should tmpgenc take about 9 hours to encode?

Depends on your settings, your CPU speed and the length of your file. For speed set Motion Search Precision to Estimate and don't use any filtering.

[northcat_8]

should tmpgenc take about 9 hours to encode? when it starts the remaining time is around the 9 hour mark

9 hours seems a bit long but...you are running 1.7 Ghz, you only have one hard drive so you are reading and writing over the same IDE channel, which will slow the process considerably.

The length of the video has alot to do with time to convert but 9 hours? I don't know Dentist...that seems pretty long to me...

and just to echo what others have told you, I wouldn't use Nero. Nero is a burning software company...they are experts in burning CDs...not video. I would go with a software from a video based company. TMPGenc DVD Author is very good, you'll also want TMPGenc Plus to convert the AVIs to .m2v, another good one is Ulead DVD Workshop <make sure you get WORKSHOP and not DVD movie factory > DVDWS also has a free trial that is only limited by 30 days to evaluate and limitations on motion menu length. DVDWS will take your AVIs and convert them for you <but takes a while>

Welcome to the wonderful world of digital video...It can be stressful, but you came to the right place. You are always garunteed that someone around here knows the answer to every question.