Hi Mike, this is wonderful information for me

Thanks

Hopefully this latest part on the actual video itself might help too. It covers a couple of topics that I've seen confuse a lot of people, but if you work with TV or DVD sized video they're unavoidable, since a lot of (most?) software will change things automatically for you, often when you don't want things changed.

DVD Video, Part 1

When it comes to DVD video there are 2 concepts that many (most?) people have trouble with, even some pros... it's not that either is particularly difficult, but at least the first of the two can seem to make no sense, so for better or worse I'm including a very brief history lesson.

Most all video software considers all DVD-sized video [720x480 NTSC -- 720x576 PAL] to have Non-Square pixels. Now the 1st thing to remember is that pixels themselves don't exist physically, but are a unit of measurement, just like an inch or mm, a quart or liter. Years ago a company wanted to market their new hardware, & as a part of their marketing they invented pixels that were rectangular rather than square to help explain why their hardware was better than anything else available at that time. Their explanation stuck, becoming part of all the standards.

Back then video signals were all analog waveforms, & to digitise them, capture or convert those analog signals to digital files, that analog signal was measured at a set frequency, producing the 640 frame width video that most everyone's familiar with [I'm skipping PAL measurements for a moment trying to keep it as simple as I can]. This new hardware used a higher frequency, took more measurements so it was more accurate, BUT, they chose to save & display it on PCs at a 720 width to reflect that extra data [I've always thought the people in PAL land got the short stick]. Since the actual TV picture never changed, displaying it at a 720 width didn't look the same, was distorted, so Non-Square pixels were invented -- basically the explanation goes: the video itself is perfectly fine, but the pixels themselves are no longer square so it just *looked* wrong, & people working with video on their PCs could just deal with it. Now at the time there were few people working with video on PCs, so that original assumption, that they could deal with it, while short-sighted was at least somewhat reasonable.

There's a bit of math behind it, but long story short the aspect ratios for the *pixel rectangles* are: 0.9091 4:3 NTSC, 1.2121 16:9 NTSC, 1.0926 4:3 PAL, & 1.4568 16:9 PAL [Note that that's per the Sony software I use -- the wide screen ratios can vary slightly depending on your brand of software]. While the math folks can work everything out exactly, the most important point is simply this: the picture in 720 width video will look stretched wider [NTSC] or shrunk narrower [PAL] if shown unaltered on a PC/laptop screen. DVD player software compensates [take a screen capture & measure it]. Most video editing software will compensate automatically, which is not always a good thing, for example when you're importing still images which start with square pixels [the best way to import stills varies with the brand of editing software, so if you're concerned with accuracy dig deeper & research or/or experiment]. Video player software may or may not compensate, often depending on the video format -- avi will usually be shown with square pixels, & so too wide or narrow. And of course if you're not aware of this pixel aspect mess, but have a good eye, converting 720 video to some other frame size can often seem badly broken.

If you're one of the math folks you might have worked out already that given those ratios earlier, video frame size conversions, going non-square pixel to square, don't seem to work out perfectly, & you'd be right, they don't. 720x480 video does actually have more data than the PC-centric equivilent of 640x480 NTSC, so some of the width has to be cropped off to make things exact. [Work it out for PAL & again I think those folks didn't come out as well in this scheme.] At any rate, analog video capture wasn't the only source of video on a PC [& certainly isn't today], so provisions were made in case all you had was 640x480 video to start with... it's not as commonly used, but the non-square pixel equivilent of 704x480 [NTSC] & 704x576 [PAL] are on the books, as is 352x480 & 352x576 -- those are all *legal* DVD video frame sizes. Those [sometimes called "Cropped"] video frame dimmensions can save space [less data = smaller files], & make it possible to use PC video [e.g. on-line video] on a DVD without aspect distortion. Otherwise if you're not a math whiz, or if you are & just don't want to bother, just re-size video from square to non-sqare pixel frames & the reverse -- just be aware that each re-size will lose quality, so don't do it more than you have to, & if you can avoid re-sizing altogether that's best.

Finally it's time to get to the 2nd concept that I mentioned people might have trouble with... the most important thing to remember here is that TVs are Dumb. NTSC & PAL TVs *Only* accept NTSC & PAL signals respectively -- the same goes for smarter HDTVs when you use a regular NTSC/PAL input. Whatever hardware sends the TV that signal is only going to send it a compatable signal, so when your target is a TV, the only thing you have or need to worry about is making sure that hardware you want to use works with your video. Whether you have to have square or non-square pixel video, & in what format depends on that hardware.

This concept is important because you can read an awful lot of video related info that addresses the actual signal the TV recieves, & for most purposes that's completely irrelevant -- target the hardware sending the TV that signal & let that hardware worry about the signal. But while you can [and I think you should] choose to ignore that info, there is one related area that's harder to avoid... Again with the history, to make early analog broadcast work it was decided to not include the whitest whites or the blackest blacks. Worse, the designers of NTSC limited blacks an extra amount, so while no regular broadcast TV signal includes pure white, NTSC signals don't go as far towards pure black as PAL. This effects you two ways. One, software can try to be helpful & transfer images & video to/from that more limited TV colorspace for you, often without you having any say in the matter what-so-ever. You should be aware that this sort of thing happens, so if for example your video appears to turn very dull, knowing what might have happened you can deal with it if you wish.

Two, it can help you improve your video. Test first of course with the hardware you want to use, but most player hardware is colorspace agnostic -- it'll accept your video regardless the colorspace as long as it's in the proper format. That means you can expand your video to take full advantage of the full 0-255 colorspace if it doesn't already, & whatever hardware sends the TV it's signal should pass it to the TV. Mileage will vary, depending in part on how the TV's adjusted, but the results can be dramatic... I've seen DVD players that marketed a similar expansion of the colorspace as Super Black. It may or may not be worth the conversion depending on the source video & how much time you want to spend, but if processing your video you use an intermediate step, simply choosing a format or codec with the full color range for that intermediate can do the job nicely. [Of course there are people, sometimes very vocal people, who will tell you that since that's illegal according to the signal spec you just cannot do that -- & if you were broadcasting that video analog over an antenna like the local TV studio you couldn't, but fact is, you're not.]

A sort of a PS, in the US watching cable I've seen plenty of examples where the supposed pros got all of this stuff I've talked about wrong, with dark colors crushed [looking very blotchy] & aspect ratios pretty far off. If you find this stuff confusing don't feel badly -- it's not what you do for a living, & considering that at least some small portion of the pros get paid to do it wrong, any confusion on your part can be rightly & easily forgiven... Don't feel badly about it. :-)

Hi Mike, this is wonderful information for me, particularly about the layering as I understand that even less than I do the rest of the process. Thank you so much for the effort you have gone to, to let us "know how". Very much appreciated.

Thanks, Mikiem. :)

A Side Note about interlacing... If you look at a fast moving light in the dark you'll see the light's tail or trail -- that's the way our eyes & brain work. The TVs we've watched since the 50s (with a picture tube) rely on that same effect, plus they work by "lighting" a phosphor coating on the back side of the screen, & once "lit" that phosphor coating doesn't go dark but stays glowing for a very short time. To reduce the amount of data that had to be broadcast over the air [& carried by cables from one broadcast antenna to the next], interlaced video was devised. According to broadcast standards, 60 times a second [50 for PAL] every other line of what we think of today as pixels is refreshed -- the odd numbered lines are refreshed 30 or 25 times a second, & the same for the even numbered lines [60 or 50 *Fields* per second]. With truly interlaced video, every 1/2 of a frame [called fields, & made up of all odd or all even lines] shows you a picture that's 1/60 [or 1/50] sec. advanced in time. Because that phosphor coating stays glowing for that short time, & because of our persistence of vision [the way we see those light trails], everything looks smooth, looks fine [with the exception of sharp horizontal lines or edges]. If you looked at the individual fields on your PC/laptop however you'd see an image where every other line is totally missing -- often it'll be shown as a half height frame, IMHO probably because that's easier to code in software compared to showing transparency like in a graphics app. Most of the time though you'll be shown both separate fields overlaid, one on top of the other, & because neither field, neither "picture" was taken at the same, precise moment, the odd & even numbered lines don't match.

Now, there are 3 problems you'll encounter with or because of interlaced video: it doesn't look nice when you're editing [seriously, get over it], it doesn't resize well, and it looks softer when converted to progressive [progressive video frames &/or screens, monitors etc. simply means not interlaced]. It looks softer because the 2 fields are averaged or blended -- note that your editing &/or player software [& often your graphics drivers] may give you 2 or 3 ways of doing that blending. Note also that there's something called field order -- it determines how odd & even fields are paired, & if you get it wrong the result is Very noticeable [in fact that's usually how you determine field order -- the wrong one looks Bad when you play the video]. Normally you're better off just leaving interlaced video interlaced -- it's what a standard TV with a picture tube requires, & many (most) software players, many graphics drivers, & HDTVs etc. will handle that blending [called deinterlacing] themselves. Note also that interlaced video requires the full, standard TV frame height, 480 NTSC or 576 PAL -- converting that standard video to a smaller frame size includes deinterlacing by definition. Practically speaking, enlarging a interlaced frame without 1st deinterlacing is impossible, though software will gladly let you do it -- the result is generally nasty looking, because the missing, 1 pixel height lines in each field don't grow very well at all. Most commercial [retail] Video DVDs use the pull-down I mentioned earlier, with 23.976 fps [frames per second] NTSC video frames that are repeated for each field, so odd & even fields show the exact same moment in time, & that's why some people talk about having easy success enlarging them -- they were never truly interlaced to begin with. And finally note that you may also come across HD video that's interlaced to reduce the bandwidth required to broadcast or stream it.

Video DVD basics & choosing Authoring software...

Video DVDs can vary a LOT in their complexity, & a very big part of choosing an authoring app is based on what you want/need to do -- it's really a lot like choosing the app you'll use for your image editor, e.g. can you get away with Windows' Paint or do you need Photoshop or The GIMP. And just like when choosing an image editing app, it's hard to judge just what you'll need when you're 1st starting out. It doesn't help that it's harder for the average person to choose a DVD authoring app than most other kinds of software because there's a really high level of abstraction -- if you actually saw the scripting & registers used it would be too complicated for many (most?) people to deal with without quite a lot of learning, so all that stuff's hidden & the novice has no idea what capabilities any authoring app has left out. What I'm doing here is telling you a bit about Video DVDs, & in doing that I hope to accomplish two things -- 1) make it easier to work with DVDs, & 2) give you enough knowledge about DVDs that you can decide what you want to be able to do, & knowing that, hopefully make a better choice checking out & deciding on authoring software. If all you want to do is play a video in your DVD player, that's easy. If you want to get into [especially more involved] menus, flying blind so-to-speak can get expensive in both time spent learning the app & the cost of the program. Just diving in can also mean dead ends & false starts as you try to learn & do more -- an authoring app's help files, manuals, & forums [usually stocked full of loyal fans] are based on what that software can do, & NOT on what DVDs can do or how it should be done... how DVDs work, & by extension how to author one, are covered by an NDA [Non Disclosure Agreement], so while a company can tell you how to use its software, they can't tell you really how to generally go about creating video DVDs. That said...

Everything you see when you're playing a Video DVD is DVD-spec mpg2 video -- mpg2 video encoded using a specific set of options -- though as this has almost become a standard in & of itself for mpg2 at DVD frame sizes, you often don't need to worry too much about your mpg2 being in-spec. In a DVD layout mpg2 video is contained in VOB files, along with audio tracks & optionally subtitles. Audio is usually AC3, & here you might have to worry about specs a little, since DVD authoring apps can seem a bit picky -- if your authoring app doesn't like the AC3 you want to import, you can often just import the original .wav files & let the authoring app do the encoding rather than lose quality (& usually volume) twice [once with each encode]. You can think of DVD subtitles as a transparent overlay track -- they have graphics shapes that act as masks, with the player coloring the area covered by those masks. Subtitles usually exist in 2 forms, as plain text an app will turn into an overlay track, or as those graphics overlay tracks saved to a separate file -- there are also OCR apps for turning graphics subs back into text. And there is software for stripping out the CC optionally embedded in mpg2 video, so that can be turned into subtitles -- since many DVD players &/or HDMI won't pass CC through to a TV that can be extremely useful [CC is rendered by the TV -- subtitles are rendered by the player, becoming part of the picture sent to the TV]. Subtitles in text files can be edited, & will play with some software players, but DVD players & player software will only handle the graphical version. Authoring apps for DVDs vary in their support for subtitles &/or multiple audio tracks -- sometimes you need to author the DVD to your hard drive, then add whatever you want/need using specialized software before burning to disc. Finally the media in VOB files is divided up into one or more cells -- these cells are time measurements that coincide with mpg2 video *I* frames. Cells are used for chapters, & any where/any time the DVD needs to jump to a certain time in a video. "I" frames are the Full frames in mpg2 video -- partial frames recording just changes fill the space in between -- I frames are usually 12 - 18 frames apart depending on the encoder. Usually you want to be able to add a chapter point [& cell] a couple of I frames into a new scene. More limited authoring apps might limit you to setting a chapter every "n" amount of time, which may not be a big deal to you if you'll just use the chapters as a sort of fast forward. Better apps will show you the I frames so you can be exact, though adding a chapter a minute or so into the new scene you're *usually* all right, as the closest I frame will usually be in the beginning of that scene -- add a chapter just when a scene changes & you'll often wind up showing just a frame or two of the previous scene, which is annoying to viewers.

The IFO files on a video DVD contain the directions for the DVD player -- they are where DVDs can get complicated, & are based on a somewhat primitive scripting designed for dumb hardware in the 90s to interpret. Part of what makes it complicated is some features were never commonly implemented in players, while other commonly used features are used in ways never envisioned when the spec was created. Most Video DVD authoring software uses a set of boilerplate scripting, & how well that scripting works varies from one app to the next, forming the basis for both the capabilities & weaknesses of any particular brand/model of authoring app. Often you can add to or edit that scripting in PgcEdit, adding features to a video DVD that it wouldn't have otherwise. Where the IFO files are most involved &/or more complicated is with any menus [if present on the DVD] as well as for special features, like DVD movies with more than one ending, or if the DVD contains simple games -- IFO files for DVDs with only a title movie or video are usually Very simple, so most any authoring app can handle those well. Menus are made up of mpg2 video, usually AC3 audio, & a type of subtitles. Buttons are really just rectangular areas, while button highlights [the part that changes color to tell you which button is selected] are any subtitle graphics shape(s) within that rectangular area. A pro-grade app lets you set those rectangular areas & import the graphics shapes used to define those highlights -- the further you move away from pro software the more limitations you'll have. What's called the Abstraction Layer in most video DVD authoring software hides the fact that any menu background, including what you *see* as buttons, any text, & any animation, is simply a mpg2 video file. If your Video DVD authoring software has or lets you place text, add animation, place buttons etc., it'll just render all that stuff to an mpg2 video file. Designing your menu in your authoring app can be a time saving convenience, but it also limits you to what that app allows or can do -- you can most always do better elsewhere, & better authoring software lets you import your own work. [In practice you often do what you can do in your software, & as possible learn tricks to force it to do what you want.]

One area where DVD menus get more complicated is with aspect ratios, i.e. 4:3 vs. 16:9... Generally you can get by matching the video, &/or using 16:9 since that'll look better to most people, even if letterboxed, than 4:3 with pillarboxing on a wide-screen monitor or TV. More pro-grade authoring software will let you include both. Another area where things get more complicated is having more than one menu cell... Video DVDs can have an intro video, plus you can use intro video's with any other menu or video -- this is what you see transitioning to the menu &/or playing before a menu or video plays. When you have menus with more than one cell the 1st cell can contain the DVD intro, & the 3rd cell (if present) can contain the intro to a video title, playing when you click that menu button, as opposed to including a separate video file on the DVD for each transition. I'm mentioning this mainly because some software companies make a bigger deal out of it than I think warranted -- in practice you won't usually see a huge difference... Using menu cells can help you control where on the DVD that video's physically located [you can have a delay if the DVD drive mechanism has to travel from one end of the DVD to the other], & it puts that video into another domain on the DVD [e.g. a concern if/when you reach the max number of titles]. OTOH if you have/use a menu with a looping audio &/or video track, multi-cell menus tend to cause a bigger delay at the point where it loops, so you may prefer not to use multiple cell menus, even if/when you can. Menus aren't just used for their designed purpose [letting the viewer make selections], but can be used just to hold scripting or used instead of a title for audio/video.

A title video is basically any video file that's not in a menu -- it's not just the main title on your DVD -- & both menus & title video's have End Actions you set to determine what happens once it's done playing. You can have a menu button start a short video file as an intro or transition, & that file's end action would normally be set to open another menu or play another video. Menu end actions are usually either loop or hold, but at a more advanced level for example you can have a menu end action set to activate a [often hidden] button -- with a multi-cell menu including the intro video, that auto-activated button can go to a duplicate of the main menu using a single cell with no intro video... that gives you the best of both methods, very slightly better continuity between intro video & main menu, plus slightly less lag when the menu loops, & doing it that way is pretty common for or with retail Video DVDs. And whenever thing's change, say a button's activated or a menu/title video ends, that's when/where you can change things like the audio or subtitle track, or even the video aspect ratio [though that one can get iffy because of player over-rides]. That's why you have separate setup menus -- when you change audio tracks using a menu the button you click goes to another menu page, though it may look identical. But the viewer, the person playing the DVD has a lot of those controls right in their hand -- the player's remote. A DVD author tries to control the viewer, not so much because of ego but because that's the only way to make sure of what they see on-screen, when, & to do that they prohibit operations -- you're probably became familiar with these DVD flags or switches when you tried to skip through the trailers at the beginning of a DVD & found out you couldn't. I think most authoring software adds these prohibitions when it makes sense to do so -- e.g. the results are unpredictable hitting the Next button with a menu on-screen -- & a lot of DVD related apps will remove them all by default. You should be aware that those prohibitions exist, that some apps will let you set them, & some other apps will remove them all unless you're careful... you don't want to spend time designing & creating a very nice DVD experience, & then run it through DVD Shrink, finding that all prohibited operations were removed because you didn't un-check the box in preferences.

Now, most authoring apps include an mpg2 encoder, & most of the time you want to avoid using it as possible... pro-grade apps assume you might have spent a whole lot more money on a separate encoder that they can't hope to match, while cheaper software is cheaper in part because they don't have to license or write a really good mpg2 encoder. Even in cases like the Sony apps where DVDA uses the same encoder as their Vegas editing app, they leave out most of the encoding controls/settings figuring you'd use Vegas if you wanted higher quality. You want a DVD Authoring app that passes through your already encoded video -- it used to be a sign of higher quality authoring software, but nowadays it's so common that only the really poor authoring apps won't let you. As a general rule of thumb, use VBR [Variable Bit Rate encoding] with a max bit rate of 9 [you can go higher but might have compatibility issues], & for single layer DVDs, an average of ~5 as you approach 2 hours length, ~6 as you get closer to 1.5 hours... rather than a bit-rate calculator what I've always done is open Windows Explorer so I could see the new file being written, opened Calculator at the same time, then regularly refresh the view in Explorer -- as soon as the encoder progress bar/window shows 4% I enter the new file's size in Calculator & divide by 4. If I'm in the ballpark I'll try again in a few minutes at 8 or 12 % for example, & if it still looks good I'll walk away & let it be. I'd also rather just be a hair over the limit & use DVD Shrink or Nero Recode to reduce the size than be too cautious & waste quality by having the video file turn out much smaller than it has to be. [If/when you're only slightly reducing size (in the 90 range), Shrink & Recode discard data from the in between frames ("P" & "B") in a way that is not very noticeable, & the overall result may even look better than the same video encoded at a reduced bit rate to fit.] If your encoder & source video support it, use pulldown -- a movie at 23.976 fps is used with special flags in the mpg2 file, telling the player to repeat certain frames to reach 29.976 NTSC, which allows you to use a higher bit rate for the same final file size, with no loss in quality compared to actually repeating frames in the video file. Note that you may or may not have better results encoding menus progressive or interlaced [assuming you have a choice], depending on the software you're using.

Audio & video tracks are separate things -- audio & video themselves use different timing [video is based on fps, while Video DVD audio is based on a sample rate of 48.000 Hz]. True, some containers like AVI may let you interleave audio & video, but that's just the way they're combined into a single file. Better Video DVD Authoring apps, encoders, editing software etc. let you work with the separate streams, indeed may only let you work with separate audio & video. Many, usually cheaper authoring apps & many converters only let you work with the two combined -- often you'll use a muxer/demuxer app to combine or separate the audio & video files as necessary. It can be confusing with mpg2 since muxed [multiplexed or combined] files usually have an .mpg file name extension & contain more timing info that separate .m2v files, which are the same thing, just without the audio & that extra timing data. Sony media apps [Vegas, DVDA] are an anomaly, working best with .mpg files without audio -- use a muxer on .m2v but don't supply an audio file.

Using more than one audio track means you need to be able to add audio tracks separately. When space is tighter, e.g. on a single layer DVD, a stereo AC3 file is smaller & more people can play them on their PC/laptop. When you have the room OTOH 5.1 AC3 sounds better, even down-mixed by a player to stereo. If/when you have room, e.g. on a double layer DVD, it's nice to include both -- again best of both worlds. There are apps/tools, both free & not that let you create fake 5.1 from stereo, & those often do sound better as 5.1 AC3.

Dual layer DVDs are necessary when you have too many extras to fit with the video on a single layer DVD, &/or when the video length exceeds 2 hours -- dropping the average mpg2 bit rate below 5 [which you need to do to get the video file small enough] noticeably downgrades quality. Most authoring apps consumers can afford do poorly when it comes to dual layer DVDs... What I do is open the DVD on a HDD in PgcEdit, then go to create an ISO, which tells me the layer break [split] should be between chapter X & chapter Y -- sometimes I get lucky & an existing chapter is ideal, but that's more rare than not. When I need another cell [chapter] I go back into my authoring app & add a chapter between "X" & "Y", since I can't just add a cell otherwise -- layer breaks are best placed when there's a minimum of anything going on, since reversing course the player's drive may hesitate/pause. Back in PgcEdit I'll remove the chapter from the cell, & then create the ISO, which I'll burn to disc with ImgBurn.

most video capture cards and dongles (search for video capture, ebay has lots- other places too, but you said cheap) have at least a basic capture program with them.

unless you want spendy (for conversion off dvr's- vhs is 200-250 lines horizontal at best) or inexpensive but biased toward video surveillance recording, mpeg-4 is going to be in software. the actual capture will be in mpeg-2 and compressed on the fly- allocate more hdd space and record the mpeg-2. compress later. you have to have a card or usb device to digitize video from an outside source on nearly all computers. some video cards have video in as well as out, but you'll have to do the research.

WinAVI Video Capture 2.0 is a freebie, works with many video capture sources on windows, including cheap web cams, long as the driver's installed. Plain vanilla cards/dongle systems should work well with it.

Not so hot on things like my DVD Xpress DX2, a GO7007 based external capture box with hardware DivX/Mpeg-4 encoding without involving the computer's cpu, but it's an imperfect world.

I'm assuming when you say "video" you're referring to VHS. If that's the case here are links to articles that I think address your question. I hope you find them helpful.

"How to Convert VHS to DVD"
http://www.signvideo.com/conv-v-to-d.htm

"Digital Focus: Convert VHS Tapes to DVDs"
http://www.pcworld.com/article/97624/digital_focus_convert_vhs_tapes_to_dvds.html

"Beginners Guides: Converting Videotape Into Video Files"
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=813

- Renegade -

I am going to say no on DV. I mean like the vhs videos that go in the vcr (not scaled down camcorder ones). The format of mov, wmv, would be fine

Do you mean DV or other camcorder video to a digital format (like MOV, WMV, etc.)?

I am an instructor and teaching an online class is there a program (preferably free or inexpensive) that will convert a video to digital so I can load onto a course management system for my students to access? thanks in advance for any help!

Todd

you want to record the interactive actions, as I know, only moyea swf to video converter can do so, the watermark is in the left side, if you don't want it, you can add yourself watermark, or you should buy it, most trial vision has watermark.

oh sorry i pasted the wrong stuff i prefer #3 i really messed up sorry

Niloy, why do you prefer link #4 over say... link #3 ?? :P

try this it might work
http://www.flash-on-tv.com/flash-to-video.html
and here is a list of some more cheaper items
http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/downloads/swf_to_mp4_software/
here is a freeware
http://www.flashconverter.net/pmpro-flash-to-ipod-psp-3gp-mp4-converter.html
and a really nice one that i like
http://www.flashconverter.net/pmpro-flash-to-ipod-psp-3gp-mp4-converter.html

I am attempting to convert swf video files (strongbad emails) into MP4 format. The videos have clickable content, which tends to not work on a lot of them. Does anyone have any suggestions. The only program that has worked so far is Moyea, but it leaves a nasty watermark. Thanks in advance to anyone that can help me.

Why not try Apollo DivX to DVD Creator?
I think it will be the one you want. It's very very easy to use,burn DVD with 1 ckick.
http://www.videoxdvd.com/divx_to_dvd_creator.htm

you may try Any Video Converter

it is a free converter

Are you looking for a free one creative/Deb? The quickest most reliable one that I have found (plus you can put many avi to dvd on a single dvdr) is "ConvertxtoDVD". It even puts a menu on your DVD so you can select which movie you want to watch. Its 39.00 USD but well worth it after saving on the amount of dvd's you'd burn to.

http://www.vso-software.fr/

You can download a trial here http://www.vso-software.fr/products/convert_x_to_dvd/

Great, thanks for this. Alas, I downloaded but it tells me it can't open the file! Any suggestions?
Deb

Hello. I believe Avi2DVD is what you're looking for, free of course.

http://www.trustfm.net/divx/SoftwareAvi2Dvd.html

Avi2Dvd is an All In One tool in order to convert with just few clicks an Avi/Ogm/Mkv/Wmv/Dvd to Dvd/Svcd/Vcd.
Supports multiple audiostreams and up to three textual external subtitles. From the version 0.3.4 and later it can support DV-AVI videos, so it can handle captured avi's from digital videocameras. Avi2dvd can also produce semi professional dvd menus with chapter/audio/subtitles buttons with extreme facility !
This utility is 100% freeware and uses only freeware software.

Hi there, Has there been a GOTD programme which converts AVI to DVD? Any ideas if one will be coming up? Can anyone recommend any?
cheers,
Deb

Audio/Video to EXE: the professional version looks gd!! :)
(http://www.f2ko.de/English/a2e/a2e.html)
perhaps to be suggested as a giveaway?

oh, i oso use the Acala 3GP Movies Free and Acala DVD 3gp Ripper to batch convert my videos to my phone. produces quite good 3gp/3g2 videos.

their website is: http://www.cutedvd.com

I'll suggest it then.

@BuBBy - how abt having it as a giveaway??

I use AGK all the time. Nice.

Another which is excellent - http://www.fairusewizard.com

It has a free "lite" version - and a more featured "full" version.

The biggest limitation of the free version - converted movie output size is restricted to a maximum of 700MB.

Fair Use Wizard - in my opinion - would be a lot easier to use, in the same way AGK made Gordian Knot easier, Fair Use Wizard is easier than AGK.

If you want a program to convert movies to various portable devices, SUPER is a good choice. However, because it downloads a series of small programs, it can interfere with other video itilities and codec packs you've already installed (which may be later versions)
If your chief interest is converting movies to avi format (Xvid, Divx etc) a better freeware choice may be Auto Gordian Knot:
http://www.autogk.me.uk/index.php

This site has some tutorials and papers written up on using super.
http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=SUPER_1

SUPER will convert to/from any of the listed filetypes.
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPERsnap2.html

and the SUPER forums
http://www.erightsoft.net/Supforum.html

thanks for the free converter i was looking for an rmvb conv. it looks like this does everything i am downloading it
thanks paul