Problems with Roxio MyDVD Basic v9 and other questions

[ForgetSun]

Hi, I am new here and new for making DVD. It is my first time to post here. After reading this forum I found it has tons of useful information for me. But they also seem difficult for me to understand. Recently I videotaped a student recital with my Sony av. Because the recital was performed by many students so when I downloaded the videos to the computer I created each student (each performer) with a separate AVI file. Plus introduction and ending which ended up with 21 files and their total size is about 16GB. Each file lasts about 3 to 6 minutes long. I made them to a DVD with Roxio MyDVD Basic v9 (that came with my HP computer). At first I tried to use double layer DVD to try to preserve the best quality but problems occurred. The final DVD cannot run smoothly with my DVD player in which the motion kept stop-and-run while the sound tracks seem fine. It ran ok with my notebook and ran not as good as my notebook with my older computer (1.2GHz and 1.5GB RAM). I later learned that (from this forum) only the Verbatim’s DL DVD+R works. So it might be the reason. Then I tried to burn it onto a single layer DVD and it was better with every computer and DVD player but the quality would not as good as the DL DVD. So here are my questions:
Why can’t I create a DVD that would compatible with computers and DVD player?
After reading a reply made by guns1inger to the other post saying that to achieve the best result by “using the correct tools at each stage” to make DVD. It seems make sense to me. But since I am dealing with 21 small files here is it going to be troublesome for me to work like that (and considering I am a newbie)?
When I created my DVD I used a main menu with 2 submenus; 1st half and 2nd half of the recital and each submenu holds about 10 chapters. Would that be any problem with that?
Oh, speaking of chapters, I thought I have created the DVD (with Roxio MyDVD Basic v9) with many chapters. When I played it with Windows media player it showed that all the files are titles within chapter 1. So I can’t switch to next or previous chapters like the way it does for normal DVDs. It happens with all other DVD player software in my computers. Why? But it's work with my DVD player.
My final wish is that my final DVD could preserve the best quality and be able to be read by both the computers and the DVD players. Can you suggest me any good software(s) to help me to do that? I found that Roxio Easy Media Creator® 10 is on sale in Costco. Is it a good software? Good enough for me to get what I want?
Thank you in advance!!

[Richard_G]

Avoid Roxio like the plague. 16GB of DV from a camcorder is going to be just over an hour running time so should be no problem to fit on a single layer DVD. There are plenty of freeware tools that will allow you to do what you want to do but may take a bit of learning to use properly and get good results. If this is a one off, try downloading the 30 day free trial of Ulead DVD Moviefactory from www.ulead.com . This will allow you to create each file as a chapter, in fact, you can even put chapter marks in the middle of a single file.

You will almost certainly have to uninstall Roxio first as it is known for screwing the installation of any other software.