Club CDFreaks - Knowledge is Power - View Single Post - Avi's, DivX, Nero 6, menu problems...HELP!

Syngent · 14-02-2006

Hello. I have several questions regarding burning DVD files. For reference, I'm using a Nero "suite" of packages that came with my burner; it features Nero Smart Start and Nero Experss v6.6.1.4.

I have several related files that I want to burn to DVD, and I'm trying to get as many of them on a double layer disc as possible. I'm a stickler for features; I'm trying to get all of them accessible by a nice menu (with animated buttons) but I'm having MAJOR problems trying to get my menu system to even work...that's the focus of most of my questions:

1) The video files in question are .AVI files (yes, those cursed things)...I'm guessing they're DivX-related (I'm still learning about it). I must have the codec to PLAY them, even though Nero's Media Player always displays that MPEG licensing warning every time ("Due to patent licensing restrictions, MPEG-4 decoding is not available"). However, Nero's in-application player refuses to play these files in the chapter-marking and menu-button-animation screens, and sometimes the whole program freezes up during those tasks, which require me to simply skip those steps. The resulting DVD's I burn do actually work, but without any chapters and unanimated menu buttons. I've noticed that I have something called FFDshow that seems to act as the codec-translator for these files; it appears in my system tray when I play (or Nero tries to play) these files. How do I fix all this? Is the issue some incompatibility with FFDshow and Nero? Is there another codec program that would be more compatible? Better yet: Is there a better conversion/burning program, with DivX compatibility, double-layer burning capability, and improved menu customization (including animation) that's out there and won't cost an arm and a leg?

2) One of my friends mentioned just burning the DVDs now without any fancy features, to save hard drive space, and then coming back to burn "full-featured" DVDs later. My question is, are there any "lossy" DVD conversion/burning methods that I should be aware of to avoid? If I'm going to make some "basic" DVDs to redo later, I want to stay away from those methods, because I don't want the quality to degrade over conversions/burnings.

3) Finally, I actually HAVE been perusing some of the threads here in this forum...and I'm a little alarmed at some of them. I'm having difficulty understanding some of the steps, which seem quite complex and require at least 5 different programs. Worse, it seems every method will require at least 4 spare GiGs of Hard-drive space, which I currently do not have. Is this really necessary?

Everyone: Thanks for answering these questions...wish me luck!

14-02-2006	#1 (permalink)
Syngent New on Forum Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 3	Avi's, DivX, Nero 6, menu problems...HELP! Hello. I have several questions regarding burning DVD files. For reference, I'm using a Nero "suite" of packages that came with my burner; it features Nero Smart Start and Nero Experss v6.6.1.4. I have several related files that I want to burn to DVD, and I'm trying to get as many of them on a double layer disc as possible. I'm a stickler for features; I'm trying to get all of them accessible by a nice menu (with animated buttons) but I'm having MAJOR problems trying to get my menu system to even work...that's the focus of most of my questions: 1) The video files in question are .AVI files (yes, those cursed things)...I'm guessing they're DivX-related (I'm still learning about it). I must have the codec to PLAY them, even though Nero's Media Player always displays that MPEG licensing warning every time ("Due to patent licensing restrictions, MPEG-4 decoding is not available"). However, Nero's in-application player refuses to play these files in the chapter-marking and menu-button-animation screens, and sometimes the whole program freezes up during those tasks, which require me to simply skip those steps. The resulting DVD's I burn do actually work, but without any chapters and unanimated menu buttons. I've noticed that I have something called FFDshow that seems to act as the codec-translator for these files; it appears in my system tray when I play (or Nero tries to play) these files. How do I fix all this? Is the issue some incompatibility with FFDshow and Nero? Is there another codec program that would be more compatible? Better yet: Is there a better conversion/burning program, with DivX compatibility, double-layer burning capability, and improved menu customization (including animation) that's out there and won't cost an arm and a leg? 2) One of my friends mentioned just burning the DVDs now without any fancy features, to save hard drive space, and then coming back to burn "full-featured" DVDs later. My question is, are there any "lossy" DVD conversion/burning methods that I should be aware of to avoid? If I'm going to make some "basic" DVDs to redo later, I want to stay away from those methods, because I don't want the quality to degrade over conversions/burnings. 3) Finally, I actually HAVE been perusing some of the threads here in this forum...and I'm a little alarmed at some of them. I'm having difficulty understanding some of the steps, which seem quite complex and require at least 5 different programs. Worse, it seems every method will require at least 4 spare GiGs of Hard-drive space, which I currently do not have. Is this really necessary? Everyone: Thanks for answering these questions...wish me luck!