avi to DVD? is that right?

[eleetindustries]

so i have complete movies in .avi format. I was wondering what is the best format to convert it to to play on a DVD player and hten burn to a DVD. It would be great to include htre softwares id use for each step if there are multiple. Also how long should the avi converstion to whatever the right format is take?[/i]

[guns1inger]

If you want to do it with the minimum of fuss and learning, and are happy not to have menus, then VSO DivxtoDVD is a pretty good option. It can convert a movie in around an hour on my AMD 1800+ and the picture quality is reasonable. It also produces 2 channel AC3 audio and adds chapter stops. You can load multiple files at once, and also force format conversions as well.

If you want to maximise quality, then you need to read and learn. You will need a variety of tools

virtualdub or avisynth for loading, resizing and filtering the avi before frameserving to and encoder

tmpgenc or CCE basic (or similar) to encode the filtered and resized output to mpeg-2

and something to author the results intoa final disk.

The quality will be as good as you can make it, but the process generally takes a lot longer and is a lot more complex.

[mats.hogberg]

With your specs, 1-1.5 times video length can be expected when encoding AVI to DVD mpg.
There are several ways to skin a cat, described in great detail here.

/Mats

[spectroelectro]

It's not explicit from your post but at a guess your avi is probably a download. If so, you'll have to do some serious filtering and resizing and whatnot to get the video to look good if you want to play it as a DVD. That will involve running a variety of VirtualDub filters as well as resize.

THe thing about downloads is that they look decent on a computer screen but they tend to look like total sludge on a TV screen because the characteristics of a TV and a computer monitor are completely different. They've got different color characteristics, different phosphor decay rates, the TV is interlaced while the computer monitor's non-interlaced, etc.

In short it usually takes a whole heck of a lot of work to make a downloaded avi look halfway decent when converted to a DVD-compatible MPEG-2 and played back on a DVD. Personally, I just stick to playing downloaded avis on the computer. Less hassle, and they look decent -- all the divx macroblocking and color banding from the low bitrate isn't nearly as visible on a computer monitor as on a TV screen.

[thecrock]

Wow, what type of tv are you using, my movies usually look better on my tv after transcoding to dvd than on my Lcd and it's not a bad tv either. My monitor really shows up any blockiness but my tv shows up jerkiness unless the framerate is 25fps.