Looking for easy AVI to DVD process

[KJShearer]

I work in the video department for a professional sports team and we are looking for an easier way to make our DVD's that we give to players. Currently, our video is stored on a separate video network, where the only outputting we can do is through a TARGA 3K card out to an external DVD recorder. We also have the ability in the video editor to export the particular video to avi files. Each week, we create anywhere from 40-50 "cutups" in our editing system. To give to the players cutups to take home, we have to manually output them to our external dvd recorder one at a time, stopping after each one to create a chapter. Obviously, this takes real time to do.

Does anyone know of any software that would let me take the 40-50 avi files that we can export, load them into a dvd-authoring program, have it automatically make a chapter for each file, and then burn to a dvd?
The home-editing software that I have that I tried would require me to either add each file one at a time and manually pick my chapter points. If I could find one that I just simply load the 50 files into, and hit "render" and walk away, that would be awesome. Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Kevin

[jimmalenko]

convertxtodvd will make a new title for every new file, which isn't what you asked, but may do the job just as well. you can certainly just add your files and walk away and it will do the rest.

[KJShearer]

That looks pretty good, but I need one that will specifically add chapters for each file.

[jimmalenko]

AVI2DVD is a much spoken about alternative but I don't know how it handles multiple files / chapters. Maybe you should take a look through the Tools section and see if any float your boat ?

BTW, unless you'll have more than 99 clips per DVD, there really shouldn't be too much difference between chapters and titles.

[KJShearer]

AVI2DVD won't let me load more than one at a time....

I need chapters for the simple fact that you need to be able to hit next while watching one file to go right to the next. Title won't do that correct?

[jimmalenko]

When playing the last chapter of a title, the Next button goes to the next title on my DVD player. In the case of every title being one chapter, this then would exhibit the behaviour you require. Dunno whether this is standard across all players though. Most should have a title button though, which would let you manually select the next title.

[KJShearer]

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

[jimmalenko]

Found this on the AVi2DVD site:

Tips :
2) In avi mode if you have an avi/mkv/ogm [not wmv] with parts cd1, cd2, cd3... you can load as unique avi renaming the avis like this :
Matrix CD1.avi
Matrix CD2.avi
Matrix CD3.avi
etc...
Now just load the Matrix CD1.avi
Renaming your files like this, avi2dvd will join these avis automatically and will produce an unique film. This tip is valid also for ogm/mkv.

By the looks of it, this should accept multiple files and join them as one title. I still don't know what it would do with chapter points though.

[KJShearer]

Well, I just tried ConvertXtoDVD. It does indeed make an new title for each one, but hitting the next button doesn't do anything. And that's what I need.

[jimmalenko]

What if you were to do as you have just done with convertxtodvd, and then follow these instructions:
http://members.dodo.com.au/~jimmalenko/test.htm

It would make things two steps, but should work and only having to attend to things twice as opposed to 40-50 times is obviously an improvement.

[thecoalman]

Try Ulead Movie Factory or Ulead DVD workshop. You can set the default behavior or manually change where it goes after titles are complete, at least you can in Workshop but you should be able to do that in Movie Factory too.

For that matter you could just load the entire clip pre-edited and make your minor trims and edits and set chapter points. both will accept just about any format video.

[MysticE]

Well, I just tried ConvertXtoDVD. It does indeed make an new title for each one, but hitting the next button doesn't do anything. And that's what I need.

It should. I have many small clip DVDs I've made with ConvertXtoDVD and hitting the next button on my JVC always takes me to next clip, unless there are chapters. Play around with the settings. If you don't want chapters look under chapters and change it so it doesn't do any. Here is my Authoring screen, I've unticked everything. Note, they still auto start and play sequentially.