Best encoder for "avi2dvd"

[sickboy_xl]

I have been using Nero 6 to convert avi's to DVD's and burn them. The quality is great, but the menu options suck and half of the time, the disc starts to skip half way through the file I've encoded. I started using Nero because the first time I used avi2dvd, I got giant macroblocks in the film, and it was very pixelated (especially in the dark scenes). I was using QuEn the first time around...are any of the other options better? I am all about quality, not speed. If they are not better is there a better avi to dvd converter out there with fairly decent menu creation options?

[redwudz]

ConvertXToDVD does well enough with most Xvids.

But if you want the best quality, the most control and nice menus, you should look into using different programs for each step.

That means a separate MPEG encoder and authoring program. You can use HC or QuEnc for freeware as they work quite well. Or payware, TMPGEnc for easy or CCE for fast.

For freeware authoring DVDauthorgui or GUI for dvdauthor or payware TMPGEnc DVD Author or more expensive, but much more flexible, DVD Lab.

And you might want to familiarize yourself with VirtualDub or VirtualDub Mod for filtering, cropping, resizing and frameserving the output to an encoder. Frameserving saves a lot of time and hard drive space. A little more advanced is AVISynth which will do all that much faster. But it has a bit of a learning curve.

You will never find a all-in-one converter that does everything well. If you want the best quality, it takes a bit of work. But if you are just converting Xvids off the net to DVD, there's only so much you can do as most of the quality is already removed by the time it's converted to a Xvid. But give it a try, at least with the freeware tools. All it will cost is a little time and you will learn quite a bit.

[sickboy_xl]

Poetically answered. Thanks.

[MysticE]

I have been using Nero 6 to convert avi's to DVD's and burn them. The quality is great, but the menu options suck and half of the time, the disc starts to skip half way through the file

Do note that the skipping may be indicative of other problems, not Nero's encoding.

[CCEncoder]

And you might want to familiarize yourself with VirtualDub or VirtualDub Mod for filtering, cropping, resizing and frameserving the output to an encoder. Frameserving saves a lot of time and hard drive space.

You will never find a all-in-one converter that does everything well. If you want the best quality, it takes a bit of work. But if you are just converting Xvids off the net to DVD, there's only so much you can do as most of the quality is already removed by the time it's converted to a Xvid.

Wait the minute! Virtual Dub does not allow you to crop fields... TEMPEG does... and it did nicely for me... VD only allows me to resize... I needed a AVI to DVD.

!ahhh! XVID isn't too bad if you use it right... I have a XVID that looks like a DVD quality video it has 1500kpb but is only 1.4GB for a 2 hour MOVIE! wanna bit? give me a place to upload it.

[guns1inger]

virtualdub certainly does crop, if you know how to use it. It has a big Cropping button on the filters dialogue. Just add the Null Transform filter and crop away.

If your Xvid isn't full DVD resolution, it doesn't look like DVD quality.

[CCEncoder]

virtualdub certainly does crop, if you know how to use it. It has a big Cropping button on the filters dialogue. Just add the Null Transform filter and crop away.

If your Xvid isn't full DVD resolution, it doesn't look like DVD quality.

I looked on filters for VD and there was no crop option.
It has 544x 304 res. SVCD quality I suppose wanna bite?