video editing

don51181 · 12-27-2005, 13:57

I am trying to make a home video and put it on dvd but I need some help. How can I shrink my avi file videos to take up less space? What file type do I convert the video to so I can play it on a dvd player? Thanks.

Furant · 12-27-2005, 15:35

This can be a pretty involved process.

Short answer is you need a tool to convert it to MPEG 2 format (VOB files), create the necessary menu and index files (IFO and their backup BUP) and put them in the proper structure (VIDEO_TS directory) for DVDs. I have tried Pinnacle Studio and Sony Vegas. Both work very well.

Your Camcorder may have come with some software to help you do this. If not, let me know and I'll see if I can dig up some freeware. Also, WinXP has Windows Movie Maker that can help you edit and render the files, but I don't think it'll let you create a DVD from them.

Joey

don51181 · 12-27-2005, 19:15

The file format that my program (MotionDv) outputs is ASF/AVI/MPEG1. I have seen that most of the new dvd players play MPEG. Does that mean any type of MPEG file? I am still searching for some free programs to convert the file types. Any suggestions?

don51181 · 12-28-2005, 12:19

I have heard Nero is good. What do you think of this.
http://ww2.nero.com/enu/Nero_Digital_Pro_InfoPage.html

Furant · 12-28-2005, 14:01

Nero is very capable of doing this. You will probably need to first use the DVD Plug-in to encode it to MPEG 2 and then I'm sure it's burning solutions can format it for the DVDs. I've just never done it that way, so you might need to refer to the help files.

don51181 · 01-05-2006, 16:59

I have a "used" version of nero that works for the most part until I try to edit the video. Do you think it could be a bad copy? Should I just scrap it and buy the $79 version.

Washington,D.C. · 01-05-2006, 18:12

You can try to update it.It may need an update for SP2 and or your burner.

Furant · 01-05-2006, 20:11

Good luck with the Nero thing. All in all, I think it's worth the cost of Pinnacle Studio, or if you can afford it and will be doing this relatively frequently and want top notch results, Vegas + DVD is the best I've seen. I haven't used Adobe Premiere, but for the cost, it doesn't look much better than Vegas (in fact it lacks some of Vegas' capabilities).

But, if you really want to try to tough it out for a little expense as possible, this looks intriguing: http://users.dslextreme.com/~craig.l...tes/video.html

Joey