Posted by Dave Garrett on 02/22/07 03:04

In article <1172104036.991701.70130@s48g2000cws.googlegroups.com>,
michaeljc70@hotmail.com says...
> On Feb 21, 1:06 pm, Dave Garrett <d...@compassnet.com> wrote:
> > In article <1172082747.145722.304...@h3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
> > michaelj...@hotmail.com says...
> >
> >
> >
> > > On Feb 20, 6:51 pm, "Stuart" <stuart=E2=82...@whodunnit8.com> wrote:
> > > > "Mike C" <michaelj...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >
> > > >news:1171984828.176180.74080@l53g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

> > > > >I have had a hard time putting .avi on a DVD. A hard time meaning I
> > > > > can do it, but the re-encoding takes forever. What I have been doing,
> > > > > and it works great is use Nero to put the .AVI to a Video CD. They
> > > > > work fine in my player and can be generated in a matter of minutes.
> >
> > > > > My question is, is there a similar way to quickly put multiple avi
> > > > > files on a DVD to play on a newer dvd player? The way I figure it,
> > > > > most TV shows in AVI format (w/o commercials) are around 350MB. Than
> > > > > means I should be able to fit at least 10-15 on a DVD.
> >
> > > > There are 2 ways you can approach this task
> > > > 1. simply burn the avi files as DATA on to a DVCD-R or +R and then you can
> > > > play it in any modern DVD player that is DivX or Xvid capable.
> >
> > > > or
> >
> > > > 2. Author a DVD using programs like NeroVisionExpress or my favourite for
> > > > this type of episodic compilation VSO ConvertXtoDVD. Simply add each file=
> > > as
> > > > a separate title and away you go - on my system a 3 hour compilation takes
> > > > about 1 hour 10 minutes to complete. ConvertXtoDVD allows for a simple bmp
> > > > or jpg backdrop for the menu and you can select chapters based on a every=
> > > x
> > > > minutes etc.
> >
> > > Burning the .avi files as data to the DVD didn't work. My DVD player
> > > must not support Divx. I might just get a new one since they are so
> > > cheap now (cheaper to buy a new DVD player than the software to create
> > > compatible DVDs).
> >
> > You don't have to buy any software, there's freeware/shareware out there
> > that will convert AVI files to MPEG-2 files and author a DVD for you.
> > VideoHelp.com has lots of info on various conversions, but this one:
> >
> > http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=298122
> >
> > is specific to one of the easier-to-use conversion utilities, Avi2DVD.
> > You can ignore the parts concerning subtitles and menus if you don't
> > plan to create those for your DVD.
> >
> > It does take quite a long time (and pretty much maxes out your CPU) to
> > do these kinds of conversions, especially if you have an older computer.
> > I just converted a 1.3GB AVI this weekend using Avi2DVD; the result was
> > a 4.2GB DVD-R that plays just fine in my DVD player. The conversion and
> > authoring took 19 1/2 hours with an AMD Athlon 1700XP CPU and 1GB of
> > RAM; burning to DVD-R using Nero took another hour or so.
> >
> > Dave
>
> I installed AvitoDVD. As far as I can see, it allows you to select
> one .AVI, not multiple as input.

You can do it, but AFAIK it's not possible to keep them as separate
files (but it will insert chapter stops every five minutes by default
unless you specify otherwise). You have to put all the files to be
converted into a directory on your C: drive (for some reason, it
frequently doesn't display any audio stream selection options if they're
on another drive) and name them something like xxxxxxCD1.avi,
xxxxxxCD2.avi, etc. Then you select xxxxxxCD1.avi as the input and it
will join all the other files together into a single file in the order
you numbered them before beginning the conversion. And it is very picky
concerning the filenames - if you have any other characters in them
other than numbers and letters, it will probably give you an error
message that it can't proceed.

That said, it performed admirably once I worked out the few kinks I ran
into, but I think if I were going to have to be able to play avis on a
DVD player regularly, I'd just go ahead and buy another cheap player
that could handle them in their native format. Or one of the various
devices that allows you to stream video content from your PC across a
wireless network to your TV, bypassing the DVD player entirely.

Dave

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