burning to dvd

[gino555]

hi all

i am trying to burn footage captured from my camcorder to dvd from file stored on my pc ie edited clips but when i go to play them on my dvd player it does not reconise the disk i am using sonic software that came with the pc

it only lets me write at a min writting speed of 4x

(i dont need any more coasters!!!!!!!!!)

thanks

[sbowler]

I had similar probs with mine, it could be a disc compatability issue. my drive on the pc also burns at 4X, I use sonic dx for burning and had to experiment with different discs. I found using DVD rewriteables better than record once discs. I have a sony DVD recorder in the lounge and it can be very tempromental with discs, found DVD plus rewriteables the best. Are you just putting the video ts folder on the disc, which is what I do. and also with sonic dx, you have to burn the disc as a data disc, dont ask me why?....

[gino555]

i am making the movies with windows movie maker the saving them to my pc as wma files and then burning them on to disk as a video file what format do you save your video files in?

Thanks for the reply

[senu]

For your DVD player to play video files, They have to be encoded to mpeg2 for DVD ( best quality)or mpeg1 for video CD ( less quality).

Some DVD players may also be able to play mpeg 4 files as divx or xvid. The divx or xvid files may be burnt to disc as data cd/ dvd roms and the player may be able to play them.

Not so for the mpegs or wmv. Just burning them to disc wiill produce a cd/DVD rom data disc containing video files.

Such a disc will not be recognised by the DVD player as a VCD or DVD video disc . It will gennerally not play.
The VCD or DVD have a formal structure which allows the player to identify them as video discs and play them.( explore a commercial DVD on your pc and see)

The conversion of a collection of video files into a formal DVD structure and creating a menu is called DVD authoring.

At its simplest level, you can use windows movie maker to capture the video , edit them if you wish, then output to: DV avi, or dvd mpeg2 or mpeg1. You can then import the outputted files ( from WMM) into Nero vision to make a playable DVD .

There are much more capable programs but if you wish to know about them , post again. Note that your WMV files are compressed from the DVavi and quality will suffer if you then convert them again to mpeg.

For best quality, keep your starting material as a DV avi or convert to dvd mpeg2 for Dvd authoring. Your wmv are great for email, sending on cd to friends using for presentations etc , but not the best if the material is going to end up on a DVD video.
HTH