My other half has 'kindly' bought me a DVD burner as a present - all installed and working ok (phew). However, I have no idea what format to convert avi files to before burning to DVD - I would like to be able to play them on a stand alone DVD player. Any help with the following would be much appreciated!
1. What format to convert them to: MPEG1, MPEG2, SVCD or something else?
2. Once converted do I simply 'burn' this file to DVD?
3.Will we have to buy a new DVD player (ours is ancient) to be able to play any DVDs that I burn?

Thank you - I now have to buy some new DVD rewritables to replace the 10 that I've 'mucked up' trying to get this right.

This may help:
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/DVDMediaFormats/



Really need to know what DVD burner you have and what DVD player you have,. but the table in link above should sort it out 4u

In order to convert AVI moveis to DVD they're going to have to be recoded into the right format and if they are simply film clips then you'll need to add a menu etc. This can be quite a complicated process but I found that Ahead Nero 6 Ultra edition with it's Recode facility is really quite good at simplifying the process.

There are plenty of free utilities that can also help but require a bit more knowledge of formats, ripping, encoding etc. If these things mean nothing to you then there is a steep learning curve. The other alternative may be to keep an eye out on the cover of PC magazines as they sometimes have giveaways that may help.

To answer your question:
DVD-R will work on more DVD players that DVD+R. In terms of the actual burning, you could use something like Sonic MyDVD, Roxio Easy CD/DVD, or Nero 6 Suite.

NOTE: I'd recommend getting a trial version first, to make sure that the software is compatible with your DVD burner/writer.

-Jeff

A lot of people would like to convert AVI to DVD in order to play it on their home DVD player and TV. The most common way to convert AVI to DVD is that convert AVI video to MPEG2 format (DVD format) with a Video converter application and then burn the converted AVI video to DVD with DVD burning software such as Nero. However, it required twice converting operation and hours to wait. So, is there better way to achieve it? Sure, you can convert AVI to DVD directly with one application, much faster and easier than the common way. Sounds great?

Download and pay downloadvlcplayer.org