If you want to play them as a DVD then you have to author the DVD and the video must be in the correct mpeg2 format.
Alternatively if the files are small enough you can just copy them to a DVD which is then a data DVD which a set top player will not play although you can play the files back on a PC using WMP or always copy them back to a PC.

You could also convert them to mpeg1 and store them on a DVD but again the set top playet most likely will not play them. Don't know why you don't want to use mpeg2 though, it gives you VBR which means more efficient compression.

why dont you want mpeg2 compression? you can author as dvd...i think you can still author mpeg1's....

nero will save it as vcd or svcd

The file sizes vary between 100-700 Megs. The average is about 150 Megs. and I have 57 files altogether!!! This is why I did not want to convert them if I didn't have to but I guess you can't just put them on a DVD as a data file and have the DVD player read them.

Any idea which would give me smaller compression and faster? mpg1 or mpg2? (I don't want to spend the rest of my life compressing these darn files.)

mpg1 will compress to smaller files more quickly. As will all compression, you lose quality, so if these arent for later editing i would put them in mpeg1. Or if their are VHS quality, mpeg1 would do.

you might want to ask the experienced vegas ppl about the speed of the mainconcept mpeg encoder.....

and also if vegas 4 has batch encoding so you can leave the files to be encoded overnight

Okay....I'll bite.

Your daughter has 57 AVI's that she wants on a DVD to be played back on a Television Top DVD player (not desktop). The files range in size but most are about 150 mb.

What type of AVI's are they? As in, what is the content - and where did they originate? That is...were they digitized from a camcorder or VHS tape (weddings, parties, etc)?

Where are the files stored currently? Are they on her computer or a shared computer or can you get to them from your home network? If they are not on your computer...how are you going to get 57 AVI files (of this size) to your PC?

Are they already burned on CDs? If so, why doesn't she just convert them to Mpeg 1 and make VCDs out of them?

AVI files ranging in the 150 mb area sound very much like DIVX compressed video....you could spend what ever time is needed to recompress them to another format - but you may run into some issue with synching (and such).

Time wise....it depends on your system. The slower the system, the longer it will take. So - really, that's not a fair question.

Having a DVD Burner andseveral DVD authoring programs - reading their directions / manuals would answer most (if not all of your questions). www.dvdrhelp.com is another place to find ALL the answers you need for any and all types of burning your...uh...daughter is trying to accomplish.

Thanks for all your replies.

All the files are on a removable hard drive and they can all be watched on a computer but I wanted to free up the hard drive and also gain the convenience of watching them on a desk top player without having 57 separate "discs". The length of each is about 50min - 1 hour long. The codecs vary from: S-Mpeg 4 version 3, DivX 3 Low-Motion and DivX 3 Fast-Motion.

Since each movie is about 150Mb long I thought I could somehow put at least 10 of them on a DVD.

Well yes you can put all the files onto a DVD-Data disk and still play them back on a computer so long as it has the CODECs installed to play them.

To turn them into a DVD you first need probably to get them into AVI format and then encode to mpeg2 and then author a DVD. Lots of work really with variable results, goign from DivX to AVI to mpeg2 isn't goign to give marvelous results I suspect even if you can find a way to do it, probably best done with something like Procoder, I think it can transcode almost anything to anything but it's not cheap.

I was being somewhat polite - but what it sounds like to me is we are offering advice on how to get burn illegal downloaded files so they can be played on a TV Top DVD player.

Personnaly...I don't care what you download - I just can't offer any advice on how to accomplish something that is illegal from the word go.

You skipped right over my question about the content of the files and/or where they originated from. Divx compress AVI ranging 50 min - to 1 hour long is part one of a two part bootleg download.

Sorry, can't offer the advice on how to defeat this.

kameronj!
I find it rather presumptius of you to think that the files are: 1. illegal and 2. they have been downloaded 3. bootleged. I felt that this forum was about technical help and not trying to pass moral judgements by trying to guess either their content or where they came from. That moral dilema should be on my shoulders. It was technical helpl that I was after. If you are not sure then ask directly and don't presume. I understand the point of not trying to help if someone is doing something illegal but for you to come and acuse me of it on this forum is in poor taste. But for your information they happen to be a number of clips of interviews of Holocaust victims and survivors that my daughter has collected, -from personal videos- have been transferred elsewhere onto avi files to be shown in school. Hence the lenght of less than an hour. It is her project.

Hey Steve,

You should find it rather presumtius that I think that the file are bootlegged illegal downloads (actuall one point, not three...since you, your daughter, or someone would have presumtiously have to download them and it would be a bootleg illegal copy....which bootleg and illegal are really the same)

You are the one who originally glossed over my direct question as to the content....I surely didn't (cause how would I know what and where the 57 files came from.)

But...you are definately not making any rational sense in your defense of your own question. And here is why I say that.....

My presumption of your files were due to your lack of information. Regardless of what your presumptions were on this (or any other forum) - I will not and refuse to be party to any illegal action either knowing or unknowing.

Which raises the next question...since you want to be technical. If your daughter has all these videos transferred onto AVI from personal VHS - then as a normal capture procedure (prior to any DIVX conversion) the files for a 50 minute video would be a lot larger than 150 mb.

However, if your daughter has these videos that were captured and conveted to Divx...then - by rights - your daughter would have the means to recapture them in uncompressed AVI and bring them right into most DVD authoring applications and hit "Make DVD".

End of discussion.

But...since there are 57 of these personal video AVI captured and recompressed - you...I mean, she - probably doesn't have the original video any longer and has to go through the reconvert process. Which brings you back to square one on having to reconvert them.

And...here is where it gets a little shabby. Are you saying that (ultimately) your daughter wants to play these moviesin school - or she played them in school already and now wants to get them off...her...computer to play on the desktop DVD Player (which isn't really a desktop DVD player....but I'll leave that one alone)?

And if the project was to play these in school...what...she took the removable HD to school and played the video's there - on their computer....hooked up to a Tele? Or a projector? Then brought the HD back home and now wants to dump them off to watch again...at home...in the living room...on the tele?

Dude...you make no freakin sense.

Admit it - you just have a bunch of Kazaa'd movies and porn and you want to get you movie-watch on in the living room on the big screen and save some 'puter space.

Don't get me wrong - I don't give a rats fat ass what you do in your home. Just don't come out here in public and ask a bunch of thinly veiled questions about your activity and then try and throw up some sympathy explination that too makes no sence and try to have me even think for a moment that that warm running liquid feeling that I have running down my leg is rain.

Steve: Don't worry, kameron is a bonehead. He's on another forum trying to figure out how to convert HIS porn clips to DVD so he is just projecting the whole thing on to you. He has a history on the forums so just ignore him.

Your best bet in Vegas would be to author your clips in DVD architect and then you could do sub menus and organize them in any way you want. It would be easy for your daughter to play them on any DVD player and go to just the clips she wants to view.

If you just want to save them in their .avi format, then just save them raw to a data DVD and you can always figure out what you want to do with them later.