Convert avi files to use on DVD players

Does anyone know who to convert a digital camera video file to a regular - non avi file? They are automatically saved on avi file.

I record little home videos (no longer than 2 minutes or so) and would like to keep them and burn them onto a DVD and then watch it on a DVD player.
Anybody know?

My cameras are: (Canon)
PowerShot A70 and S2 IS

I have InterVideo WinDVD Creator which came with my computer. It seems to work pretty well. You can create main menu & sub menu screens from jpeg files and you can import various file types including avi, wmv, mpg, mpeg, etc. You can also divide long videos into segments by scenes or by time for scene selection in the sub menu. The only problem I have with it is that you can't rename scenes. To do that you would have to segment the video and rename each file. But it's good for what you are looking for because it will use the file name for the scene name and once you burn it to DVD it will play in both DVD-R and DVD+R players no matter what format your DVD recorder uses. You can also use it to make a DVD slideshow with or without music. However, I haven't used that feature yet.

Winavi Converter

It is not clear what you mean by "regular non avi" files. Avi files are commonly used and played by most of the popular media players. If you want some thing with smaller file size for the same duration of video then open the avi files in the "windows movie maker" which comes with windows XP & sp2. Then "save to computer" in NTSC (high quality video) form as wmv file.

Most DVD burning software (that comes with your DVD drive or computer) lets you make DVD's using .avi files without converting them to another format.

watson10 wrote in post #2473227
Most DVD burning software (that comes with your DVD drive or computer) lets you make DVD's using .avi files without converting them to another format.

Sorry to disagree but DVD players cannot play Motion-JPEG AVI files.

The DVD-video format uses a special form of MPEG2 file. Any DVD authoring package I know of will convert AVI, MPEG2 and some other formats into this special format.
Pre-converting the AVI file to a compatible MPEG2 format can save a lot of time if you end up doing multiple iterations trying to get your DVD to your taste.

For NTSC (North America etc.) you will want 720x480 at 29.97 fps. Your camera will have produced a 640x480 at 30 fps file so every frame will be decoded from Motion-JPEG scaled up from 640 to 720 and then be re-coded in MPEG2 format as either CBR (Constant Bit Rate) or VBR (Variable Bit Rate). VBR allows high quality to be maintained if your disk space is tight. The audio may also be converted from PCM to LPCM or AC3 at 48kHz sampling.

For PAL (Europe etc.) you will want 720x576 at 25fps. The same process as NTSC but audio should only be MPEG or AC3.

The conversion process is computationally intensive hense the desire to pre-convert. In addition you may choose to edit your AVI files and save the output as DVD compatible MPEG2 this will maintain high quality and save lots of disc space compared to AVI files.

There are other video formats which are more compact than MPEG2 these include WMV, XVid and DivX but these highly compressed formats while giving excellent playback quality are not easily edited or converted and are not playable on "normal" DVD players.

Hope this clarifies.

We just did what you are talking about. We had a pile of short *.AVI files and created a DVD for family members... Christmas present. Fortunately, the computer(s) we have here have DVD writing software as part of their Brand. In our case it is the SONIC product. When you open the writing program you have choices of Audio, Data, Copy... and Video. The software does it's magic and the resulting DVD-player-capable DVD works just fine, like a 'rental movie'. If your computer can write DVD's... maybe you HAVE this kind of a program...someplace you have not looked Good Luck.

I use ConvertXtoDVD.

Thanks for the info! I'll check it out, the program on my laptop and movavi video suite and smart soft video converter. There's a 20 dollar difference but I need to read up on it more.

If you want to do something a little fancier, there is this product that I stumbled across.

http://www.photodex.co​m/products/proshow/

The quality that you get when importing video and photos into a DVD is amazing and real simple to use. PM me if you'd like to see a sample of what we have made with our photos and video.
Min

Yeah, thanks.

Why not just buy a DVD recorder and just plug the cam into it ? They have DVD Recorders now for less then $100 and generic blank DVD's are cheap now also. The only draw back is that its raw footage so if you want to add sub titles and special effects its not an option. You would have to go back and upload it to your computer and then edit and then burn the final product. I still prefer to do this then to upload it to the comptuer first because its faster IMO and safer as I have had the computer crash on me while uploading and had to start all over......not fun.

acura nsx pilot wrote in post #2477565
Why not just buy a DVD recorder and just plug the cam into it ?

#1 Even with basic editing s/w you can get much more control of the end product using a PC.

#2 Your camera outputs composite video (NTSC or PAL) which mushes up the B&W and Colour information into a much lower quality than both the Camera and the DVD format can reproduce. You won't see much of a difference on a normal TV but on a PC monitor or on a HDTV you will. Best keep the chain all digital, you will be sorry in the future when you upgrade your TV if you don't.

Yes, I'd rather upload the video on computer, burn it and then view it on DVD. That sounds like less work.

MaxZoom wrote in post #2478474
#1 Even with basic editing s/w you can get much more control of the end product using a PC.

#2 Your camera outputs composite video (NTSC or PAL) which mushes up the B&W and Colour information into a much lower quality than both the Camera and the DVD format can reproduce. You won't see much of a difference on a normal TV but on a PC monitor or on a HDTV you will. Best keep the chain all digital, you will be sorry in the future when you upgrade your TV if you don't.

I know you get much more control of the end product when you upload to the comp and process it thru software.

Unless your cam is HD or triple ccd its not going to look great anyway on any set let alone a HDTV

Most DVD recorders have a firewire port now and its what I use