Converting avi to DVD player watchable

[MoonMan]

Hi, I'm a bit new to burning watchable DVDs and VCDs. To tell you the truth, I usually download and watch heaps of tv shows and movies right at my computer thanks to my newer and nice monitor.

But yesterday a friend asked me to burn a tv show I had downloaded so she could watch on her DVD player. So.. I tried it.. Burned a random movie first, tested it on a DVD player and, lo and behold, it's a coaster. It plays but sluggishly. There was a pause in the frame rate every few seconds.

THEN I tried a VCD with a single tv show episode, and it worked! But the quality was crummy. It seemed to become blurry, almost choppy, during scenes with a lot of movement.

WTF am I doing wrong? haha. I'm using cucusoft's video converter avi to dvd. I tried nero but I had to convert it to dvd format before it would allow a DVD movie burn so.. I decided to leave that alone for now. Can anyone recommend some software to use, or explain what I could be doing wrong?

fyi, I'm using windows xp "media edition" and my system specs are decent.

[silentscream]

winavi is quick and simple and i have yet to coaster a film cos of it

it will convert most things too

.

[MoonMan]

Thanks, I will try it. Oh yeah, what kind of burner and disks do you use? I suppose another reason could be because this isn't exactly a fansy burner, it came with the store bought computer. :| I'm using Fujifilm DVD+RW which, as far as I can tell from limited research, is a decent brand to burn things onto.

[silentscream]

i just use +Rs, at the mo they are 16x maxell beasts

and my burner is a writemaster dual layer job with 16x single layer writing

.

[MoonMan]

stupid question, I just made 2 coasters trying to figure this software out. I downloaded winavi videoconverter and I used the button to convert my avi to DVD. Seemed to work. Then I tried the "Burn your DVD now!" button but I think I'm doing something wrong.

For starters, both disks were little more than 3 and some change MB large, lol. Second, they wouldn't play (obviously, since there was practically no data written).

I'm a noob to this stuff so bare with me.

[shawners]

Download nero 7version, what evers close to being current. And use NERO Vision express.. It can make a IMAGE file and you can mount/burn later. Or you can burn once it finishes converting. Use DVD-R to store dvd movies your gonna watch, DVD-RW if you think its a bad movie where you will record over it. It takes 2-3 hours to convert.

[Mels_Smileys45]

Here is a guide Soul wrote for winavi http://www.zeropaid.com/news/6110/DVD+Authoring+with+WinAVI

[YWD67]

Been looking for a program like this for awhile thanks silentscream.

HEY! MoonMan, glad to see your back on the air again. Been awhile since I have seen you post.

[oneday]

I think after the conversion has been finished,the best thing is try to play the converted file on the pc to see if the conversion is successful.Then burn to disc.;)

[DigitalJunkie]

Important Reminder - Some DVD players will play multi-session disks, but not very well. So, if your DVD video is playing choppy at times, see if you've finalized the disk(s) when you burned the video to those disks. Once, it's finalized (can not add more file to the disk), most DVD players will play it just fine!