Hi, I have around 50 AVI video files (which last 45 minutes each and 350mb in size) and I want to create my own collection of DVD discs so I can play them on my stand alone DVD player/TV. I can simply use WinAVI to do this but the thing is... I want a nice, fully customized menu made for each disc.

I have "TMPGEnc DVD Author 3 with DivX Authoring" which I can make lovely menus in. I can add background pictures, enable background music, write text and all sorts of things which is really nice. So I select PAL DVD under the output source but it only lets me add 2 AVI files on a 4GB disc. This is confusing because 2 45 minute files should not take up a whole 4GB DVD, and they are only 350MB in size each. So I have to select DivX Ultra PAL in which I can add up to 7 AVI files on a 4GB disc.

I create my menu perfectly how I want it, I then leave the program to encode the files (with the menu) for a couple of hours. It saves everything as 1 .divx file but I am not sure what to do with it. I've searched on Google for help and somewhere said you can burn divx files using Nero Burning ROM using the data mode. Since the .divx file is over 2GB, I had to use the UDF format. So I burn the .divx to my DVD disc but none of my stand alone DVD players (I have 3) can read the disc. My computer can but that's no good.

So my question is, what can I do?

In the output tab there should be a box you can check called "Write to disc media after building". This will burn to disk for you instead of using Nero.

This probably won't solve your problems though if your dvd players are not Divx certified. Do any of them have the Divx logo on the front of the player? Do they play other avi files without problems? Try burning a few of these avi files as data, no menu, and see if any of your players can cope with these avi files.

Is the program showing that it is reencoding the files as it makes the menu or not? There should be a little FR logo on the clip if it is going to reencode...what TMPGenc is calling Full Rendering.

You may have to settle for making regular dvds with only two files per disk. Or buy yet another player that is capable of playing Divx authored disks. Of course, test this before buying anything!

Has nothing to do with the size of the input files. DVD-Video is generally limited by the playback time. 1.5 - 2 hrs is about the limit, depending on the encoding quality. You can easily change your output settings if you wish, or use DVDShrink to shrink the final output to a 4GB disc size. In any case, you can create any size DVD-Video project you want, you just can't burn it if it's too big for the disc. Just ignore the warnings about the project size and create the project on the hard drive in a folder.

Depending on the quality of your MPEG4 (AVI) files, you can expect to put 2-2.5 hours on a DVD-video disc with decent image quality. But again, I'd use DVDShrink to shrink the DVD to a single disc size. Or, use dual layer media and double the project size.

Yes, I noticed that option but didn't use it. I did however click the "Launch the disc writing tool" inside TMPGEnc DVD Author but wouldn't that just do the exact same thing Nero does? (Burn the divx as data)

No, I do not see a Divx logo on my DVD players so they can't be certified for DivX

When I first started to learn about burning video files to DVD, this was the first thing I tried, and I am sure normal AVI files will not play on my DVD players. I have to convert the AVI (or MPEGs) to VOB, then it will work fine.

I am not sure but when I start the process, for the first 30 or so seconds, it says "Writing track #1"NAME OF TRACK" menu page ##1..." and I can see the menu I created in the output preview window. After that, it starts writing the tracks one by one, process takes 2-3 hours.

I can see no mention of this FR you talk about.

I don't understand though... why is this? I understand if the 2 video files lasted several hours each, then it would not fit normally on a DVD. I would also understand that if they were larger than 4GB in size it would not work because the files couldn't physically fit onto the DVD disc. Neither of these are the case... I have 2 files which come to 700MB in total and last 1 and a half hours in total. I have burnt 5 episodes of a TV series (lasting 40 minutes each) onto 1 DVD using WinAVI and Nero Vision Express and they went on fine.

I do this all the time using ConverxtoDVD, converts .avi files to dvd file and plays perfectly with any menu you would like to make. You can even set the chapter time.

When you convert the avi to mpeg2/dvd the size of the output depends quite a bit on the bitrate you choose. The higher the bitrate (up to a certain point) the better the quality, but this increases the size of the output. There are bitrate calculators that can give you a better idea on what bitrate to choose, depending on your input file, but that's getting into the nuts and bolts of encoding that most people don't want to mess with, and so they choose programs like TMPGEnc Author and ConvertXtoDVD to handle it for them

You can adjust bitrate settings in this program when you import your avi files. Over where it says Track 1. Underneath that is a button that says Settings. Click on it and you can adjust bitrate. Nominal setting is 6000kbps.

I've uploaded a pic with both the FR logo on the clip and the Settings button.

I've taken note of every comment posted here, about the bitrate and all and I can confirm that the FR logo is present when I create the divx file from the 6 AVI files. Now here is something I do not understand...

If I place the 6 AVI files in TMPGEnc Author under PAL DVD, it says there is not enough space to fit on a 4GB disc. However, if I convert those 6 AVI files into DVD MPEG files, then place the 6 MPEG files in TMPGEnc Author, it allows me to have all 6 on 1 disc using PAL DVD... how come?

How come trying to create a disc using PAL DVD works perfectly fine with 6 MPEG files but says there is not enough space when using 6 AVI files?

ConvertXtoDVD has many settings, it also has a free trial but is watermaked but you can see if it works for you.

Well it appears I can do this with TMPGEnc DVD Author now. Instead of using AVI files, I just convert them to MPEGs using TMPGEnc 4.0, place the MPEGs into DVD Author and use the PAL DVD setting and it will save the videos (and menu) in VOB format (Audio_TS and Video_TS folders)

I would like to know why this is though.

Just ask those who created that "avi"s.
You cannot easily compare avi with mpeg files.

You want to have "VideoDVDs", so you have to transcode the source to mpeg2 format and then author all the stuff.

Thanks all, you have been of great help to me!

Couldn't find an edit button so I will post a new message...

I successfully created 6, 45 minute video files with a fully working menu using TMPGEnc DVD Author 3, the quality is no different than the original AVI files either so that's good.

Thanks everyone, I had to convert the AVI's to MPEG first though.