best way to convert video files to dvd

[skinnyzaz]

Ok I am noob at this but I have been using movie factory 2 to try and create a dvd out of video files I have. I have been letting movie factory 2 do all the converting but it takes a really long time to convert the video. I was wondering if there is a better way to go about this. I was wondering if i should convert the video files on my own and then just use movie factory 2 to create the dvd image. any thoughts are really appreciated thanks.

[ktnwin]

IMHO, for a newbee, it is best to use neoDVD software to convert video to DVD. Video sources could be from analog / digital camcorder or video files. I have used other software to do this job but it takes forever.
(My PC is 1.2GHz Athlon, 256MB memory, 30 and 60GB HDDs)

Here are the reason:
1) neoDVD is fairly cheap (30$ for standard version, 50$ for Plus version)
2) easy to use
3) extremely fast
I have captured my video directly to MPEG-2 format (near real time), then author the MPEG-2 to DVD.

Total time (for 80 mins video)
a) 80 mins to capture and encoding (this part depend on lenght of video)
b) 10 mins to add chapter points (if I want to do it manually)
c) author and burn (at 1X) about 60 mins (this depends on write speed)

total : 2 hours 20 mins to 2 hour 30 mins

There is a mode to: capture / encode/ author and burn in a single step (with chapter points every xx minutes) but I have not tried. neoDVD claim it can do this in (video length + about 15 mins). If this is is true, I would be very happy.

[bugster]

Encoding takes time. The amount of time depends on several things, the most important ones being the proceesor speed of your PC and the efficiency of the encoder.

I don't know which encoding enging MF2 uses but in general you can get better quality results using a seperate encoder, but this still takes time and whichever encoder you choose there will be a lot a reading and learning if you want to get the best out of it. Possible choices include (but are not limited to) TmpGenc, CCE and MainConcept.

If you are happy with the quality of the MF2 finished product you might as well stick with it, you probably won't get a lot quicker by using a seperate encoder. However, if you want better quality and more flexibility, try one of the encoders mentioned.

TmpGenc can produce great qulaity encodes but is very slow, probaly much slower the whatever encoder MF2 uses.

CCE is much faster but more diffiecult to learn and use. Still produces excellet quality encodes though.

Mainconcept sits somewhere between the two (IMHO) in terms of ease of use and speed but its output doesn't quite match the others.

All this assumes of course that you have good quality source to start with.

Anyway, just my thoughts on the matter!