Help the drongo?

[gatamig]

Hi ya all
Got meself a fine new NEC 2500 dvd burner with nero software. Problem is the movies I have downloaded are not recognised by nero.
Question is what kind of decoder should I use and how do I go about using this to end up with a DVD that I can play on my home cinema.
All this has to be on a tight budget as my wife has already threatened to kill me if I spend any more money on that ******* computer!!!
Also please treat me as a complete drongo with laymans terms cos I aint quite as bright as you young sparks.
Thanks in advance
Gatamig

[spectroelectro]

Don't despair, don't lose your hair. You can do it all with software that costs nothing.
Download Gspot
http://www.onlythebestfreeware.com/program.asp?program_id=152
It will tell what audio and video codecs you need.
Download the DirectShow filters for those formats.
Open up the AVI file (which is most likely some form of DiVX) with VirtualDub, save it as AVI. Download TMPGenc and encode the AVI into MPEG-2. Burn the MPEG-2 file to DVD. There exist a bunch of DVD authoring programs you can download, including DVDlab and Pegasys DVD Author.
That should do it.

[gatamig]

thanks a lot for taking time out to help me. I have since downloaded the programs you recomended and have had a lot of success.
I also have now got Nerovision and find this a very easy to use and flexible tool. It seems to be able to convert most formats to DVD for burning with a minimum of fuss although it does seem to take quite some time to change them. Mind you I amnot complaining cos all I have to do is set it going and go to bed and in the morning the faries deliver a nice burned DVD for breakfast!!!
Keep up the good work and thanks again
Gatamig