Help w burning a dvd to play on the tv

Newbie Forum
#1

I shouldm’t be a newbie w/all the work I’ve done on this, but I must be because I still don’t havea dvd I can watch on tv. Trying to burn a highlight tape for college (football)… ok, I have been able to make. wmv and .avi videos… obv can watch on computer fine … burned to a dvd-r with Veritas REcord Now – the .avi does not play on tv… what format do I need to play on tv? Yes, I searched here but nothing fit exactly w/my situation…

I made my movie in win movie maker … I HAVE Vegas Movie Studio … can I take this movie and import it in that (I also have Premiere…) — the win movie maker seemed so easy and fast and I am under deadline BAD… lol

Will Vegas save it to a proper format that Veritas (or the DVD ARchitect w/ Vegas) can burn onto a dvd that will PLAY ON A DVD PLAYER/TV.?? By the way, the computer w/ the Vegas software does NOT have a burner so it will have to be transported somehow to the other computer that does… no, can’t put the software ont hat one – not enough hard drive. lol

THANKS IN ADVANCE to anyone who can help me asap!! Believe it or not, some colleges want me (LOL) so I need to get my highlights to them asap!!! before they change their mind! :cool:

#2

DVD-Video is encoded as MPEG2 and there’s a strict arrangement of particular files contained in a Video_TS folder.

Movie files contained in an .avi wrapper are usually MPEG4, but even if MPEG2 then they probably won’t play unless the DVD player is designed to read them.

Basically you need to encode the tape recordings as MPEG2 and author to the DVD-Video standard.

#3

thanks alot for your response, imkidd – that’s about what I figured, mpeg2, but how do I get it to save or burn in that format? Is that because I did it in movie maker? [B]Will the Vegas Movie Studio software save it in that format? Then I can burn it and then it will play? [/B]

Thanks!!!

#4

Usually you have to save the edited video as a whole MPEG2 file, then as a separate step use another program to ‘author’ the video to DVD (this means the folder designations and arrangements are correctly set up). Commercial ones like DVD Movie Factory 5 are very good, or you can use a freeware application such as DVD Styler.

I haven’t used Vegas so I can’t help you unfortunately. Is there not an output format selection available?

#5

As you referred DVD Architect should be a compatible authoring software to use with Vegas.
I’m used to Ulead software, but it shall go the same way.

  1. You capture your footage to Vegas and define the new project as Mpeg2 DVD compatible (this to get the final edited file rendered to Mpeg2):
    • Import the Mpeg2 into DVD Architect
    • Author the DVD - menus etc.
    • Burn the DVD
      It shall work with your home DVD player to TV.
      Your version of Vegas, if it is the last one, is sold bundled with DVD Architect and Sony call the package “Vegas Studio+DVD”, so it has to do what you wanna do.
#6

Yes, thank you.
OK – here’s my latest dilemma… I do not have a dvd burner on my pc, but my mom’s does… the vegas/dvd architect is on mine - if I open the .avi I made in Vegas and save it as an .mpg, can I Zip it so it fits on a cd (I know this is convoluted, but right now this is all I have - convolutions lol) and then put it on her pc, unzip it and use the Veritas (I think thats what she has on her pc) RecordNow to burn it?

Will it still be in .mpg format and play on that dvd on the tv?? From what you can tell? THANKS! You guys are awesome for answering so quick.

#7

You’ll probably need to rar it, splitting it into chunks that’ll fit a CD. Coipy each chunk over & then unrar it. Should work fine.

#8

You have to author the DVD using DVD Architect.
So, one possible solution would be to install DVD Architect in your mom’s computer, transfer the Vegas produced files to that machine to author the DVD, using TimC suggestion if the individual files are bigger that a CD capacity or usinf a CDRW if they fit (a 700 MB CD can acommodate about 12 to 18 minutes mpeg2 file) and author the DVD there.
Reason, most times these authoring software burn the discs by themselves.

Myself, I’d try to make the mpeg2 pieces under 700 MB and put them togheter under Architect - think that those pieces will correspond to chapters of the fianl movie and you will be able to do that with no prob, because for in the editing process you also have to make cuts and transitions to put small pieces together.

Optimal solution - convince you mom to buy you a DVD drive, as they are so cheap that she will prefer that to her machine’s occupancy for this kind of job.

#9

Yeah, I have a dvd player I guess in my computer, but not a burner, just a cd burner it turns out.

I don’t know what ‘rar’ means… lol (newbie!)
Sounds kinda hard to cut into pieces and put back together – I hope it lets her put the DVD architect software on another computer. Thanks - I’ll try all this.

#10

There’s an app called Winrar, works like Winzip. So instead of saying zip we say rar.

#11

do I need that instead of winzip?

#12

To split the file into CD sized chunks then yes.

#13

ok thanks

#14

If you don’t want to pay for Winrar maybe you might want to consider one of these free file splitting tools or 7zip which is also free.

You may also consider this: Once you get your avi on your mother’s cpu, convert it to dvd with the freeware version of divxtodvd and then burn it. I would consider using divxtodvd just because of the speed in converting.

#15

Thanks alot all – let me tell you where I stand. I made an .mpg and zipped it and it fits on a cd, so no problem – its not that huge…

I put it on the other computer, unzipped it, and went to play it, Wind Media Player opened, but it said error searching for codec or something for a second and wouldn’t play – had an error. YET if I play this on MY computer, WMP plays it perfectly… lol, just my LUCK!! What can I do to get it to play in my mom’s WMP so I can ck it??

Yeah, holy moses, it plays fine on mine and won’t play on hers… ARGGHH
Something wrong with THAT WMplayer now??? *eye roll

#16

Open the mpg in Gspot and it will tell you what codec you need. http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ You can also use the divxtodvd program i suggested to convert the file into a dvd.

#17

Yeah, so I burned a dvd-R with a .mpeg file on it but my standalone dvd player won’t play it. lol
What am I doing wrong??

Aw and my computer dvd won’t even read it (but plays a commercial movie one) - doesnt’ even recognize that there is a disk IN there… ?? – I think I am giving up now. LOL I can’t even fathom all the things I’ve done in the last two days to get back to square one… :sad:

#18

Hi,

there are lots of good tutorials at videohelp.com. Building DVD is normally not something that can be managed with three klicks…

Michael

#19

Don’t give up yet. It’s all a learning experience. Did you burn it as a mpg clip or did you convert it to a dvd? If it’s a clip not all dvd players play clips. Also, it’s possible your dvd player only plays dvd+r. Did you DL divxtodvd? You really should if you didn’t. You can convert the clip to dvd in 2 clicks. It will convert the clip into a VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folder. Once you get those folders you just burn to a dvd. Don’t give up yet, don’t you want to play football? :slight_smile: Think about the rewards of sticking it through. You may want to look at these guides too. http://bbmayo.home.comcast.net/

#20

Thanks all – I will ck out those links tomorrow, mind’s fried now. LOL
And YES I want to play football at college! haha SO. That being said, I have not given up for good, I never do.

So let me say one more time what I did this last time today.

I took my .avi I made in Windows Movie Maker and I imported it into Vegas MS.
I put it on the time line and made some more text overlays describing the focus of the next play… which was pretty cool and helpful I’m sure to anyone who sees it – if anyone ever sees it. lol

So then I “made Movie” I think it said – in mpeg format. (mpeg2 I’m 99.9%)

THEN because I don’t have the burner on here and haven’t put DVD Architect on the other computer… I ZIPPED the .mpeg – put in on a cd – brought the cd upstairs and unzipped it on computer #2, then using Veritas Record Now – burned the dvd. My problem I think is here – the Veritas only had these options:

make an exact copy of a disk in the other drive (I guess)
burn a music disk
burn a data disk.

I did data disk… and I looked around pretty much and never saw anything suggesting the word ‘video’ anywhere so … maybe it doesn’t do that? Its either that or the fact that I dragged in the .avi to begin with, what do you say? Does any of that make sense? Maybe tomorrow I’ll try and put the DVD Architect on computer #2 and waste another day, how’s that sound? LOL!

Thanks again for all your help today.