Newbie: need basic explanations: From AVI to home dvd player

[Raoul777]

Hi all,

I downloaded a couple of old movies. Most of them are in AVI format.
My idea is to play them on a DVD at the cottage (I would like to leave a small bank of movies so people borrowing it have access to a couple of movies).

I got a cheap DVD player. It says it plays:
DVD, VCD, SVCD, CD, MP3, DVD+ R, DVD+ RW, JPEG, and WMA

I am totally a newbie on this. I understand AVI are a common internet format for computers. Most older table dvd player don't play them.

So I need to convert from AVI to something else. Which one would be the simplest/most efficient? DVD?
I have Sonic Digital LE v7. I am just doing a try. I am converting a 700 mb avi film into a DVD film. My dvds are 4.7 GB. (can be doubled, any relevant?). I could not convert it to High Quality. I had to use the Extended Play (quality, second lowest), 4.3 GB.

I could bring it back, and get another one a bit mor expensive that plays AVI. Would that be the best? The tv up there is cheap too. 21'. I don't care that much for the movie quality, as long as it's watchable.
Are AVI and DVD (converted from the same AVI) files the same quality? The avi file is 5 times smaller. Keeping my files all AVI would just makes thing way simpler for me, less space, no conversion. Any drawback?

Thanks all! And I hope this long message will help others too.

Raoul

[redwudz]

Divx DVD players are cheap enough these days that I would just use one of those. Any time you convert to a different format, such as Divx or similar AVI formats to DVD MPEG, you will have some quality loss. And you also have the time it takes to do those conversions.

Some videos off the net are in PAL format, and you probably use NTSC there. They will need conversion to NTSC format most times.

You can put several Divx 700MB videos on one DVD, up to six, normally five and play them on a Divx DVD player.

Dual layer DVDs are still a bit expensive. I would use the single layer 4.37GB DVD media.

If you do want to convert to DVD MPEG format, I would try ConvertXToDVD. It can do PAL>NTSC conversions and produces good quality from Divx videos. You would usually have one or two videos on each DVD. With this you could use your existing player, but you would have to spend the time to convert, probably a few hours for each video.

And welcome to our forums.

[Raoul777]

Thanks,

So that's another format to look after.
Most movies I downloaded are AVI. (I had a DAA one too).
Should I look for DivX? I will still need to convert from AVI to divX, right?

Raoul

[jagabo]

Thanks,

So that's another format to look after.
Most movies I downloaded are AVI. (I had a DAA one too).
Should I look for DivX? I will still need to convert from AVI to divX, right?

Raoul

AVI is a container. It can contain video and audio compressed with any number of codecs (divx included). Most video you download from the net is encoded with Divx or Xvid. Most Divx certified players will play both Divx and Xvid encoded AVI files. The Philips DVP-5960 and DVP-5982 are inexpensive (US$70) but decent Divx certified DVD players.

If you are going to get a Divx certified player there's no need to convert PAL to NTSC frame rates. You will run across some Divx/Xvid AVI files that won't play properly though. Not all Divx/Xvid features are supported by all players.