Want to convert Real Media videos to DVD movies...

[fatmanskinny]

Hi all. My first post. I have a library of videos stored as Real Media files.

I want to transfer these videos over to DVDs that I can play on my regular DVD player. How can I go about doing that and make the videos appear so they fill out the whole television screen? Buying a Mad Dog 16x DVD+_ R/RW tomorrow.

Thanks.

[Matt D]

Welcome to the forums.
You'll need to convert them to MPG with a dvd compatible resolution (720x480, 704x480 or 352x480 being very common ones). When this is done, they will need to be authored to DVD and they then should play fullscreen.

[AlecWest]

I have a library of videos stored as Real Media files. I want to transfer these videos over to DVDs that I can play on my regular DVD player. How can I go about doing that and make the videos appear so they fill out the whole television screen?

Assuming the RealMedia files are 320x240 or 352x240 files, you can convert them to MPEGs which can, in turn, be used to burn quarter-D1 DVDs that will fill out your TV screen. The quality will be marginal but it can be done. You'll need this tool to make the RM/MPG conversion:

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=88

[AlecWest]

Just wanted to do a P.S. to my last note. I'm a "news junkie." While other people collect movies and music videos, I collect "history" ... and a lot of it was from RealVideo files captured from Fox News' website (their RM files are on an HTTP server ... and downloadable). So, if I couldn't capture historic news live with my Dazzle DVC for VCD burning, I'd go to the Fox News site and download their RM files ... converting them to MPG with EOvideo, for later VCD burning. And eventually, all that irreplacable historic footage saved to VCDs will be converted to DVDs.

Couple of notes. Like I said before, the files should be at least 320x240 or 352x240. Trying to convert files with smaller resolutions will look absolutely terrible. In addition, RM files encoded at anything less than 150kbps will look absolutely terrible on conversion. As an example of stuff I've converted, Fox News RM files for broadband are normally 225kbps. Assuming the files are encoded at 320/352x240 and greater than 150k, you should be able to do what you want. This is the procedure I'd follow.

First, convert an RM file to an MPEG1 file with EOvideo or some other utility (and at the same resolution). Then, demux the MPEG1 file with TMPGenc, saving only the M1V (video) part. The reason why is because, sometimes, TMPGenc can produce a shoddy MP2 result. Instead, I'd import the original MPEG1 file into VirtualDub and choose the "Save WAV" option from the "File" menu. Once your WAV file is saved, check to make sure it's the same time length of your M1V file. If not, use GoldWave or some other audio editor (I use an older version of Multiquence, the forerunner of GoldWave) to either compress or stretch the audio's time to match the time length of the M1V ... saving the result as a new WAV file. Then, using tooLAME, I'd convert the WAV (or new WAV) into a 48k/384 MP2 file.

After that, simply import the M1V/MP2 files into DVDauthorgui to create DVD files ... and use ImgTools to burn the DVD (if you use Nero). I'm still new to this but the procedure works for me. This is a quarter-D1 DVD that should look as good as a VCD does ... with the possible exception of artifacts present on the original RM file from where it came.

P.S. FWIW, one of the RM files I captured from Fox was especially historic. It's 6m13s long and starts out after the first plane hit the first WTC tower on 9/11/2001 but before the second plane hit the second tower. That was a time when many people were suspecting it was an accident. Terror was not certain at that point. The Fox News commentator was skeptical of that ... but didn't rule an accident out. At the 2m10s mark, he speaks by phone with Dr. Vernon Gross, a former National Transportation Safety Board inspector. Dr. Gross leans toward the "accident" theory, giving a number of reasons how it could have happened. And, as the two are talking at the 5m19s mark, you see plane 2 hit tower 2. The Fox commentator says it has to be deliberate ... and Dr. Gross, rather contritely, adds, "Well, I would begin to say that, yes." If it wasn't so tragic, Dr. Gross' recanting would be funny.

If you want to watch it (and have broadband), I put the RM file up on my domain:

http://novelhost.net/WTCfox.ram

P.P.S. BTW, I just got a Hauppauge PVR150 capture card. But, I won't be using it to capture movies (grin) or TV shows. If it isn't tuned to CSPAN or one of the news channels, it'll be pointed toward the History Channel. 8)

[only_emo_kid]

I heard DVDSANTA would do real media files... worth it to check out!!

[fatmanskinny]

How about this - WIN AVI Video Converter? http://www.dvd-guides.com/content/view/58/59/

Looking at how to also author them in terms of converting from RM to DVD format, authoring (where I can access each scene instead of having it play through) and more.

Is there a one-size fit all for this newbie? The Mad Dog DVD Writer comes with Nero Express 6.

[SCDVD]

I just downloaded WinAVI yesterday for the same purpose; that is to convert Real Media videos to DVD. It works great. It is trailware that allows you to use it with all its features enabled. It has a watermark message on the converted videos which goes away if the product is purchased.

[fatmanskinny]

I just downloaded WinAVI yesterday for the same purpose; that is to convert Real Media videos to DVD. It works great. It is trailware that allows you to use it with all its features enabled. It has a watermark message on the converted videos which goes away if the product is purchased.

Does this tool allow you to add subtitles and created scenes if you want to skip around movies?