Burning Home Movie

[RivaLiva]

I have a few home movies in .avi format and I would like to burn them to a DVD that is playable in a standard DVD player. I have a DVD burning that I use to back-up the DVDs I already own, so I am familiar with it and software for that but not sure what to do for the .avi files. I use DVD Shrink for the DVD movies. What software do I need for the files on my computer? I have Nero if that will work

[goldtoes]

I have always used nero to burn videos to DVD, such as home videos.

[RivaLiva]

They work in your standard DVD player too?

[goldtoes]

mine always do

[BiPolar_Nut]

Weather it will play on a standalone DVD player will depend on the player itself. Some brands/models only read +R's, some only read -R's, some read both, some read neither. I at one time had 5 different non-computer DVD players (including oddball stuff that'd play DVD's like a PS2) and only one would play my +R home-burns.

Oddly, the most "homeburn-friendly" DVD player I have is a $50 Apex WalMart special bought several years ago. It actually had a standard computer-type IDE DVD drive inside.

I forget thr URL, but I recall visiting a website where you could look up your make/model and it'd tell you what formats it'd read.

[Wake up CALL]

Every standalone DVD player will play DVD's recorded in the -R format so that is the safest route.

[BiPolar_Nut]

[ QUOTE ]
Every standalone DVD player will play DVD's recorded in the -R format

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely incorrect. Perhaps most or all new after a certain date maybe? Every standalone will not play -R's.. I know I used +R in my original statement, but part of my decision to buy a +R burner several years ago (before the +/- Sony came out) was that 2 of my standalone players would not play -R's.

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Every standalone DVD player will play DVD's recorded in the -R format

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely incorrect. Perhaps most or all new after a certain date maybe? Every standalone will not play -R's.. I know I used +R in my original statement, but part of my decision to buy a +R burner several years ago (before the +/- Sony came out) was that 2 of my standalone players would not play -R's.

[/ QUOTE ]

I rarely use absolutes but in this case I did, if you had standalones that would not play -R DVD's only two things are possible.
1) The DVD's were not finalized properly or were somewhat damaged
2) Or the players were defective

[BiPolar_Nut]

I did some research, and even grep'd some 4 yr old IRC logs trying to find the site I used to check brand/model media compatibility (to no avail).

What I discovered was that the players that didn't play -R's actually were capable of playing them, but their firmware didn't understand some of the bits that define what kind of media it is reading. A firmware update fixes those issues. I do not know if all players having that problem could have their firmware updated by the end user, but it seems many could.

I still don't think 100% of players can play -R's as some may not be end-user upgradable...but in my last post I thought there were a good chunk of older units that would never play -R's...perhaps even 15% of units more than 6 years old. I was misinformed. I think it'd be closer to < 0.1%, so basically you're "correct enough". I still disagree on the absolute...but that's just me being a nit.

Edit: figures, as soon as I posted that, I found a player that doesn't do -R but does play +R and VCD/SVCD here

2nd edit: FWIW, that one is firmware upgradable by the end user.

Last edit: Did a little more digging and 2% of the small sample size (5 of 250 models) I checked that did support +R did not support -R.

[Wake up CALL]

I wasn't trying to be nitty, just informative, sorry if I came across otherwise. I really appreciate your PC answers and nearly always agree with you there, it is just that I came across an area where I felt better informed and wanted to be clear that -R is the standard in DVD's and other formats are the exception.