BleepingComputer.com: Best Way To Make Dvds?

Hola,

I have quite a few videos on my computer and I am wondering, what is the best way to make a playable DVD? I have a lot of files that are avi, mpeg, wmv. I have tried to burn DVDs but have been, in a way, unsuccessful. I know how to make an AVI into a DVD, but the programs only allow about 2 video files (at 40mins a piece) onto a given DVD. If I have something like say, Futurama (which is the greatest show conceived by man), it would take me 30 DVDs to make playable DVDs even though the AVI files are only about 150MB. As a DVD is 4.7GB, I would be able to fit about 30 episodes onto a DVD if I were to just transfer the files. Is there a reason that when an AVI is converted to a DVD, it suddenly jumps from 150MB to 2500MB? And, finally, thee question: Is there some way that I can burn a DVD that will fit more that 2-4 episodes that will be playable in a DVD player? Thank you for your responses.

d3k0y

Hey there mate!

Your looking for a program that can take video files, convert them and arrange them into a DVD structure thus allowing them to be burnt on to a DVD which in turn will allow to play them on a DVD player.

There is an application that can do this:
1) DVD Flick An opensource application, for more details hit the link.

Dual layer DVD's can hold more data, be sure your DVD writer can support this feature. (use Nero tools to check)

Hope that helps.

Great program. Thank you for the recommendation on the program - I think will replace my typical DVD programs. My computer does support dual layer which will fit more but still not a lot. I was just wondering if it were at possible, via some means of compression or some other unknown method to me, to fit, say, 10 episodes on a DVD vs. 4? Anyone know any method or is this not possible? Thanks again. And thank you firecracker for the post. And another question - do most DVD players support dual layer DVDs - same format as regular DVD so I suppose so but I don't actually know.

d3k0y

No worries chief, glad to of helped!

With regarding to 'fitting more more episodes onto a DVD', currently you may realise from a shop/store brought DVD that you can only fit around only 4/5 eppisodes onto a DVD. This depends on how long the clips/episode are. The shorter the eppisode the more you can fit.

However, if you were recording a series from TV onto a standalone DVD recorder you can (well you can on my machine)set the quality to be lower thus allowing more data to fit onto the DVD when it is burnt.

The other alternative is to just copy over the content (I assume the video clips are divx's) straight onto a DVD. The only downside to this is that you have to check that the DVD player is capable/compatable of playing Divx files.

Most DVD players are compatable with dual layer disks, these are know as DVD9.

Hope that helps!