Making DVD's

I have been putting my movies on CD's and playing them through Windows Media
Player. The quality of the picture isn't that good on the PC, and I think it
will be better if I burn the movies to DVD, is this true?

I'm considering buying an external DVD player from Ebay. Is there any
specific software that I need to purchase, or does MovieMaker take care of
burning movies to a DVD?

I'd appreciate any input, thank you!!

Can you trust purchases made on eBay?

You will need to get DVD burning software, which comes with DVD burners
bought at real stores like best Buy and Circuit City.

"stockcerts" <stockcerts@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6AC563DE-B42C-4EB0-BA7E-D90DB14ECBFC@microsoft.com...
>I have been putting my movies on CD's and playing them through Windows
>Media
> Player. The quality of the picture isn't that good on the PC, and I think
> it
> will be better if I burn the movies to DVD, is this true?
>
> I'm considering buying an external DVD player from Ebay. Is there any
> specific software that I need to purchase, or does MovieMaker take care of
> burning movies to a DVD?
>
> I'd appreciate any input, thank you!!

Thanks Jerry. It sounds like you're not an advoacte of saving money. You
can purchase the same items on line at such sites such as Ebay as you can
brick and mortar stores, quite often for much less money.

"stockcerts" wrote:

> I have been putting my movies on CD's and playing them through Windows Media
> Player. The quality of the picture isn't that good on the PC, and I think it
> will be better if I burn the movies to DVD, is this true?
>
> I'm considering buying an external DVD player from Ebay. Is there any
> specific software that I need to purchase, or does MovieMaker take care of
> burning movies to a DVD?
>
> I'd appreciate any input, thank you!!

You'll need a DVD burner in addition to a player... and it might have DVD
burning software bundled with it.

No, Movie Maker doesn't handle any of the process steps needed to author or
burn a DVD.
--
PapaJohn

Movie Maker 2 - www.papajohn.org
Photo Story 2 - www.photostory.papajohn.org
Photo Story 3 - use the menu branch at www.papajohn.org

..
"stockcerts" <stockcerts@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6AC563DE-B42C-4EB0-BA7E-D90DB14ECBFC@microsoft.com...
>I have been putting my movies on CD's and playing them through Windows
>Media
> Player. The quality of the picture isn't that good on the PC, and I think
> it
> will be better if I burn the movies to DVD, is this true?
>
> I'm considering buying an external DVD player from Ebay. Is there any
> specific software that I need to purchase, or does MovieMaker take care of
> burning movies to a DVD?
>
> I'd appreciate any input, thank you!!

Hello there,

I'm guessing you meant "an external burner" and not player.....I just purchased
two Dual layer burners from the internet...Sony D22A. They work perfectly.....I
did not need extra software as I already had some, but was all the same
surprised that none was included in the box.

Having made a few enquiries I discover that that if you buy an OEM product you
will almost never get any supporting software and if you buy a Sony product you
get no tech support and NO firmware updates. I have an email from them to that
effect...would you believe the email continues...."we release a new model to
the market"

At first I was quite shocked by that....and then I considered how much the
drives cost....around UK £48 and how much they cost in PC World (add a £100),
so I am not that much put out by their remarks (even though I still think they
are out of order)

DVD Software...Dazzle DVD Complete (if you are aiming for a single layer
burner) Nero 6 Reloaded (Great and does Dual Layer very well with no problems
at the layer boundary as some have reported)

If you had not guessed Movie Maker does not burn DVD's but the above two
programs do a passable edit of video as well as capture...so you could stay
with just the one program if you wished.

--
Best Wishes.....John Kelly
www.the-kellys.org
www.the-kellys.co.uk
Check out free video hosting at www.the-kellys.org
----
\|||/
(oo)
----------ooO-(_)-Ooo-------------
All material gained from other sources is duly acknowledged. No Value is
obtained by publishing in any format other peoples work

It's not that I don't like saving money - I don't like buying other people's
used and abused equipment.

"stockcerts" <stockcerts@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:975EDDB4-4F3F-4863-BCB6-0C012AAD5655@microsoft.com...
> Thanks Jerry. It sounds like you're not an advoacte of saving money. You
> can purchase the same items on line at such sites such as Ebay as you can
> brick and mortar stores, quite often for much less money.
>
> "stockcerts" wrote:
>
>> I have been putting my movies on CD's and playing them through Windows
>> Media
>> Player. The quality of the picture isn't that good on the PC, and I
>> think it
>> will be better if I burn the movies to DVD, is this true?
>>
>> I'm considering buying an external DVD player from Ebay. Is there any
>> specific software that I need to purchase, or does MovieMaker take care
>> of
>> burning movies to a DVD?
>>
>> I'd appreciate any input, thank you!!

Thanks for the info John Kelly.

I just did some MM work on the weekend. I normally copy it back to my
digital video camera, but this time it was quite distorted. Not sure why.

Thinking about trying DVD. I ended up creating a big WMV file (60 MB for 17
min).

Will a DVD burner take a WMV as source? What's the best source to burn a DVD?

Thanks!

Hello there,

Its not so much the burner you need to worry about...its the software that
will (might) come with it that will cause any problems....basically the
best possible format is DV-AVI. If you use WMV (assuming software will
accept it) you will cause the software to convert a compressed format file
to be expanded and then re-compressed into the new format....this is not a
good idea.

If your finale ambition is to create DVD's then you need lots of space on a
hard drive.....one hour of DV-AVI can in the extreme reach 16GB...you will
need twice that space whilst editing......the DVD authoring software will
reduce it to an MPeg (VOB) which with any chapters (menus) and other fancy
tricks you will automatically progress towards, must fit inside 4.5GB (Not
4.7 as the label suggests)...or, you may want to go along the route I took
which was to quickly move into Dual Layer disks in which case you can
double all of the above figures....I am presently wrestling with two
files...one is 38GB and the other 39GB.....once all of the dross has been
removed it will all go on one dual layer disk.

If you stay with single layer then Dazzle DVD Complete is my favorite but
you might have trouble getting a copy as the company as such no longer
exists....and if going down the Dual Layer route then Nero 6 Reloaded is a
must have.......I am very impressed with it.

I had many people tell me that there were faults with dual layer technology
such that at the boundary there would be all sorts of glitches in the
picture and sound....moving to Nero 6 solved all of the minor problems I
had with DVD Complete....it did not understand dual layer disks.....I am
now able to create a dual layer disk on which it is quite impossible to
tell where the change over occurs (for which I am forever gratefully...her
indoors you know....I dare not tell her they were not as good as I thought
they would be)

So, hope that helps a little

--
Best Wishes.....John Kelly
www.the-kellys.org
www.the-kellys.co.uk
All material gained from other sources is duly acknowledged. No Value is
obtained by publishing in any format other peoples work

Hi John,

Out of curiosity.... what DVD authoring program are you using and are you
happy with it? I'm trying to decide what to get since I need to be able to
incorporate chapters into my 60 minute videos.

Thanks

Randy

"John Kelly" <hidden@hide.away> wrote in message
news:uZ64G792EHA.1260@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> Hello there,
>
> Its not so much the burner you need to worry about...its the software that
> will (might) come with it that will cause any problems....basically the
> best possible format is DV-AVI. If you use WMV (assuming software will
> accept it) you will cause the software to convert a compressed format file
> to be expanded and then re-compressed into the new format....this is not a
> good idea.
>
> If your finale ambition is to create DVD's then you need lots of space on
> a
> hard drive.....one hour of DV-AVI can in the extreme reach 16GB...you will
> need twice that space whilst editing......the DVD authoring software will
> reduce it to an MPeg (VOB) which with any chapters (menus) and other fancy
> tricks you will automatically progress towards, must fit inside 4.5GB (Not
> 4.7 as the label suggests)...or, you may want to go along the route I took
> which was to quickly move into Dual Layer disks in which case you can
> double all of the above figures....I am presently wrestling with two
> files...one is 38GB and the other 39GB.....once all of the dross has been
> removed it will all go on one dual layer disk.
>
> If you stay with single layer then Dazzle DVD Complete is my favorite but
> you might have trouble getting a copy as the company as such no longer
> exists....and if going down the Dual Layer route then Nero 6 Reloaded is a
> must have.......I am very impressed with it.
>
> I had many people tell me that there were faults with dual layer
> technology
> such that at the boundary there would be all sorts of glitches in the
> picture and sound....moving to Nero 6 solved all of the minor problems I
> had with DVD Complete....it did not understand dual layer disks.....I am
> now able to create a dual layer disk on which it is quite impossible to
> tell where the change over occurs (for which I am forever gratefully...her
> indoors you know....I dare not tell her they were not as good as I thought
> they would be)
>
> So, hope that helps a little
>
> --
> Best Wishes.....John Kelly
> www.the-kellys.org
> www.the-kellys.co.uk
> All material gained from other sources is duly acknowledged. No Value is
> obtained by publishing in any format other peoples work

Hello there,

Prior to buying a couple of dual layer burners (Sony D22A) I was using Dazzle
DVD Complete for everything in this area. DVD Complete has an excellent encoder
and a pretty nifty chapter creation style and look and feel. You do not have to
follow the given menu format and you can change several features of each menu
button...what it points at, what it looks like, is it animated or not...how
long is the animation etc. It has a very customizable encoder as well.

But there is a problem....it will create a two hour DVD but it can't burn it
and, Pinnacle bought the company and scrapped all of the dazzle software in
favour of their own. I am told that the equivalent Pinnacle software is not
very good...I have not seen it myself.

I am fortunate in that a close friend owns a software distribution company and
I get the pick of the samples. When I first experienced the dual layer problem
he sent me Nero 6. I installed it primarily to get around not being able to
burn a dual layer disc...my other now dated software Easy DVD/CD was also not
able to properly deal with a DL.

Having got around my early problems I started looking more properly at Nero and
found the update to "Reloaded" Since then I have used it to edit a video,
create chapters and burn Dual Layer disks and I like it. It does not have the
sophistication of the DVD Complete encoder but I am all the same quite pleased
with it. I may have missed something in Nero, I don't think you can create the
familiar opening screen where you select Play or Scenes or Additional Material.
DVD Complete has all of those attributes as well as the ability to play a video
prior to the first options screen. In other words DVD Complete is Complete
(except for DL

I have removed Easy DVD from my system and kept DVD Complete as well as Nero 6
Reloaded. as a result I now have a very wide base to work from.

--
Best Wishes.....John Kelly
www.the-kellys.org
www.the-kellys.co.uk
Check out free video hosting at www.the-kellys.org
----
\|||/
(oo)
----------ooO-(_)-Ooo-------------
All material gained from other sources is duly acknowledged. No Value is
obtained by publishing in any format other peoples work