How do I burn home movies onto DVD

[Gladiator024]

I made a home movie, eddited it and all. Then I burnt it onto a CD-R and brought itto my friends house where he has the DVD burner to try to burn it to a DVD so I can watch it on a DVD player. But when trying to do it, it wouldn't recongize it. It is saved in Windows Media Player formatt or something, I was wondering how do I put it onto a DVD now. I also saved the movie onto the computer itself, to see if that woudl do anything, but it didn't.

[LT. Columbo]

to be clear, what format was the file in when you burned it to the cd-r? .mpg? i assume you burned a data disc?

[Gladiator024]

The type of file it says is Window Media Audio/Video, I burnt it straight from my computer, so I assume it was in data format.

[Taelon]

The type of file it says is Window Media Audio/Video, I burnt it straight from my computer, so I assume it was in data format.

If you're trying to make that into a DVD compliant disc, you have a long road ahead of you I'm afraid, look at this chart:

<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" width="600"> <tbody><tr><td width="20%">Video format</td> <td width="20%">File Format</td> <td width="20%">Resolutions</td> <td width="20%">Video bit-rates</td> <td width="20%">Audio specs</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top" width="20%">DVD-Video </td> <td align="left" valign="top" width="20%">MPEG-2, sequence headers at each GOP, 4:2:0, MP@ML</td> <td align="left" valign="top" width="20%">= NTSC (4:3): 352x240, 352x480, 704x480, 720x480
= NTSC (16:9 widescreen): 704x480, 720x480
= PAL (4:3) 352x288, 352x576, 704x576, 720x576
= PAL (16:9 widescreen): 704x576, 720x576</td> <td align="left" valign="top" width="20%">Up to 10.08Mb/s total combined bitrate. Up to 9.8Mb/s max video bit-rate. CBR, CVBR, or VBR</td> <td align="left" valign="top" width="20%">= (1) AC3 Dolby Digital stereo or surround. Average AC3 stereo is 192-384k. Average surround is 448k or higher.
= (2) LPCM uncompressed 1536k WAV/AIFF.
= (3) DTS, same bit-rate as AC3.
= (4) MPEG Layer II (MP2) stereo, 192-256k bit-rate, not officially supported in the spec</td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top" width="20%">DVD-Video </td> <td align="left" valign="top" width="20%">MPEG-1, sequence headers at each GOP, 4:2:0, MP@ML</td> <td align="left" valign="top" width="20%">= NTSC (4:3): 352x240
= PAL (4:3): 352x288 </td> <td align="left" valign="top" width="20%">Between 1.150Mb/s and 1.856Mb/s CBR video bitrate</td> <td align="left" valign="top" width="20%">Same audio spec as MPEG-2 version</td></tr></tbody> </table>
What this means is that you'll need to convert the Video into an MPEG2 stream at the proper resolution (size), also the audio should be an AC3 stream if you're in Region 1 (north america).

So, how can you do that? Well for starters you should re-encode your source material and save it as .avi in one of the resolutions listed above, preferrably at 720x480. Then you might want to read this guide Introduction to video conversiona good encoder to use would be the TMPGenc, since it has a 30 day trial.

Then you'll need to take the output from the encoder and turn that into a DVD compliant compilation, before you can burn it. An excellent freeware application for that step is Muxman.

There are of course commercial programs which can make the process easier, Adobe Premiere Pro, Ulead DVD Movie Factory, etc.

[deuce2]

Perhaps it's time to cut out the middle man and buy a DVD Writer. IMHO, with all the hard work of the editing and creating (never mind the time) that goes into home movies, you need one. They're relatively cheap and usually come with decent software for creating a DVD.