All-in-one program for multiple avis to dvd with menu and good quality?

[Yaeli]

Generally I love freeware and inexpensive shareware because, well, they are free or cheap and I am poor. Very. My time, however, is not cheap and wasted hours plus high number of coasters (if it gets that far before crapping out) and really bad quality and bad menu designs have convinced me that paying for quality, speed and flexibility would be good.

What I want is a program that will convert avis to put on a DVD --along with the capability of putting multiple avis "episodes" on the dvd with a lovely and flexible menu (making my menus pretty and professional looking is something I will enjoy wasting time on and consider it well worth the effort if the darn thing spits out the working dvd with the lovely menus at the end of the game) --as well as burning to the dvd and not reducing the quality unless I tell it to and not spitting out toasters on a regular basis or dying before the toast can even begin.

What I've tried:
Nero 6 (came with my burner) --produces lots of toasters, only gives the option of copying ISOs to CD rather than DVD, creates ok menus but then in the player they all only link to the first title or don't work, and often has a problem with sync. From everything I've read, version 8 is not worth the upgrade.

DVD Flick - works "nicely" meaning no toasters, but extremely slow compared to Nero (which isn't saying much) and critically has only 4 really crappy menu backgrounds and zero flexibility meaning you end up with a really ugly looking Eretz Nehaderet season 2, episodes 1-3 product (for example).

DVD Styler - yo, "create a menu" options are excellent but can't handle AVIs (despite the latest version claiming to be able to do so) without crashing at the "write" stage, can't seem to handle multiple VOBs per single episode when adding several episodes (and nearly all the conversion-only/really should only be used for converting programs seem to split a single avi tv episode into 3, on average, vobs) and outputs a low-quality version when you can get it to work.

Convertxtodvd - conversion it can do. Period. Please don't attempt burning at home.
And some other freewares that I deleted so quickly after producing disasters I can't remember the names of.

I'm tired of doing X with one program and then trying to do Y with the files produced and sometimes having to start over with X.

Is there a beast out there that can do it all and do it all well??!! Advice much appreciated!
Yaeli

[lordsmurf]

I'd like a machine that can shower me, make me a gourmet breakfast, feed it to me, dress me, and start my car -- without me having to walk around the house. I spent too much time walking up and down the stairs, my time is valuable, I'd rather sleep 10 more minutes.

Sadly, much like the item you desire, no such thing exists.

You can do it with quality, or you can do if fast/one-click, but you cannot do both.

[Yaeli]

Fine, so give me a hint toward a program or two or even three in combination that will do quality. If I spend an average of 12 hours converting, creating menus, and burning 2 episodes and actually get something I can put in and watch, I'll be happy. But spending that much time and still ending up with something that won't function at the end, and dvds are expensive here, is simply not something I want to do. I'm putting in 3-4 evenings to get one disk with 2 working episodes and at bad quality.

[lordsmurf]

ConvertXToDVD is the best all-in-one for conversion and authoring. The menu options are probably limited (I wouldn't know, I never author any with-menu when I use it). Maybe convert down to Half D1, and do not overload the disc (no more than 3-4 more hours max at Half D1, or two hours at Full D1). It's not like your sources are all that high quality anyway.

As far as burning, use ImgBurn.

If you want a professional-quality disc, and I suggest it, use something nicer. Go ahead and encode in ConvertXToDVD. Take the individual VOB files, and re-author in authoring software. You want freeware, however, so I don't know what to say. For professional quality, I use DVDWS2 for Windows, or DVDSP for Mac. Burning is Imgburn (Win) or Toast (Mac).

You may consider skipping menus altogether, if these are 20-25 minute episodes. A new chapter is a new episode, plays like a VHS tape. Label the DVD (not with a label, but with a market in nice handwriting, or use inkjet discs).

You've got options, but time and budget are the limiting factors. The software you've requested does not exist, and the need for "free" (ConvertXToDVD 2 is not free) limits even more, almost to nothing.

[jagabo]

Ulead DVD Moviefactory is decent.

[Yaeli]

Oh hey, I'm willing to pay (my english is maybe not so good and I did not make that clear) so long as I can actually make a nice and working DVD with episodes and a menu! I do have a copy of paid convertxtodvd already but I could not get what it produced to work with the other programs that I have that can create menus (except for DVD Flick which creates menus you don't really want). I tried convertx along with nero alone and then with Dvd Styler (alone plus with Nero) and still end up with toasters most of the time.

At this point it would be worth it to buy even two or three programs to get things to work regularly and be nice products.

[olyteddy]

If video quality is important to you, give FAVC a shot. It has a great free encoder. The menus aren't great, but are quite functional.

[marioval]

Encode and add subtitles with FAVC (free and easy to use) then Author with TDA3 (not free and mostly easy to use). There, only 2 programs. Badabing!!

[TBoneit]

TDA 3 can do the conversion too. Try the trial version as far as I remember, it puts a small watermark on the menu. You can use it's preview before going to the conversion and output stage.

I try and keep DVDs at or around the two hour total running time.

As a alternative get a divx player such as the Philips 5990/5992 and get more time on each disc as long as they aren't OGG or MKV and they are created for playing in standalone players.

[_MrC_]

Give a shot to AVStoDVD 2.1.0. It encodes multiple titles (using HCenc or QuEnc), authors DVD (using MuxMan), creates simple but nice menus (internal Menu Editor) and burn (using ImgBurn).

Ah, it is free (open source).



Bye