[GeorgeT]

If I'm using My DVD or My DVD Express, and the sizing indicator for a new movie burn shows that it will exceed the size of one blank disc, how do I get it to burn the movie to as many discs as required for the full movie? I tried it for a VCD burn and it simply stopped after burning to one disc.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[sknis]

GeorgeT, on Jan 19 2007, 05:03 PM, said:

If I'm using My DVD or My DVD Express, and the sizing indicator for a new movie burn shows that it will exceed the size of one blank disc, how do I get it to burn the movie to as many discs as required for the full movie? I tried it for a VCD burn and it simply stopped after burning to one disc.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Do not go by size of file. Time is the controlling factor. From that first burn, you know about how much time will fit on a VCD. You would have to break up the movie into sections to get it onto several discs. Do that in MyDVD. Add the video, select it and then edit it to cut it down to the time limit based on your VCD (From start to time '1"). Burn that to disc. Repeat by cutting out what you already have on the first disc (start to time "1"). Now make another going from Time "1" to Time "2" and cutting out anything that extends beyond Time "2". Repeat as necessary. Remember unless you overwrite your original video, you are not changing it so you can use it as many times as necessary

Are you really trying to burn a movie to a VCD? As you probably know, visual quality will be bad. SVCD will be good quality but much shorter time on a disc. You didn't say but I guess that you don't have a DVD burner -- that would be a great investment. You can get up to a little less than 2 hours on a DVD at good quality (one hour at best quality).

For that VCD, be aware that not many players will play that format so make sure that the one that you are going to play it on will play it. Did you try with that first VCD?

This post has been edited by sknis: 20 January 2007 - 01:57 AM

[GeorgeT]

sknis, on Jan 20 2007, 01:55 AM, said:

Do not go by size of file. Time is the controlling factor. From that first burn, you know about how much time will fit on a VCD. You would have to break up the movie into sections to get it onto several discs. Do that in MyDVD. Add the video, select it and then edit it to cut it down to the time limit based on your VCD (From start to time '1"). Burn that to disc. Repeat by cutting out what you already have on the first disc (start to time "1"). Now make another going from Time "1" to Time "2" and cutting out anything that extends beyond Time "2". Repeat as necessary. Remember unless you overwrite your original video, you are not changing it so you can use it as many times as necessary

Are you really trying to burn a movie to a VCD? As you probably know, visual quality will be bad. SVCD will be good quality but much shorter time on a disc. You didn't say but I guess that you don't have a DVD burner -- that would be a great investment. You can get up to a little less than 2 hours on a DVD at good quality (one hour at best quality).

For that VCD, be aware that not many players will play that format so make sure that the one that you are going to play it on will play it. Did you try with that first VCD?

Thanks for the detailed instructions. I'll give it a try.

As for the VCD vs SVCD or DVD question, I used a VCD based on the time and native resolution of the "movies" (volleyball matches) I was working with. And yes, my DVD player handles VCDs just fine.

Now for the next problem, which I hope you can solve. Roxio just can't seem to burn a DVD from wmv, avi, or mpeg files no matter what the heck I do. I have 2 DVD burners. An internal one on my SONY FE550 laptop, and an external 16X burner. The program (MyDVD or MyDVD Express) completes the burn fine, but when I try to play it either on my two burner drives or on my TVs DVD player, they all just go into infinite grind mode. When I do a Windows Explore on the burned disc, there are video files out there, but nothing plays using WinDVD, or Windows Media Player 11.

I've ruined 5 discs and killed about 12 hours trying to convert several wmv, avi, and mpeg files into DVDs. No luck so far.

Any ideas?

[james_hardin]

GeorgeT, on Jan 20 2007, 11:43 PM, said:

Thanks for the detailed instructions. I'll give it a try.

As for the VCD vs SVCD or DVD question, I used a VCD based on the time and native resolution of the "movies" (volleyball matches) I was working with. And yes, my DVD player handles VCDs just fine.

Now for the next problem, which I hope you can solve. Roxio just can't seem to burn a DVD from wmv, avi, or mpeg files no matter what the heck I do. I have 2 DVD burners. An internal one on my SONY FE550 laptop, and an external 16X burner. The program (MyDVD or MyDVD Express) completes the burn fine, but when I try to play it either on my two burner drives or on my TVs DVD player, they all just go into infinite grind mode. When I do a Windows Explore on the burned disc, there are video files out there, but nothing plays using WinDVD, or Windows Media Player 11.

I've ruined 5 discs and killed about 12 hours trying to convert several wmv, avi, and mpeg files into DVDs. No luck so far.

Any ideas?

VCD's, they may work on your Player but if you distribute them to others, do not be surprised if some find them unusable.

For your DVD burning problem we would need some more details on the project settings you are using.

There should be no problem with any of the files you mentioned and one would expect the output DVD to be able to play somewhere… You said there were "video files" on the disc. Were they xxxx.VOB files in the VIDEO_TS folder?

You should also get a disc or two of DVD RW media so you can use them to play with then erase and reuse.

[sknis]

Also roll back to WMP 10 and IE 6 if you have WMP 11 and/or IE 7 installed. Both have been known to screw up programs for some people not only the Roxio ones.

If you are burning to DVD (as opposed to CD), and have EMC 8, open DVD Info Pro and run that program to see if there are write errors on the disc.

This post has been edited by sknis: 21 January 2007 - 05:36 AM

[GeorgeT]

james_hardin, on Jan 21 2007, 03:41 AM, said:

VCD's, they may work on your Player but if you distribute them to others, do not be surprised if some find them unusable.

For your DVD burning problem we would need some more details on the project settings you are using.

There should be no problem with any of the files you mentioned and one would expect the output DVD to be able to play somewhere… You said there were "video files" on the disc. Were they xxxx.VOB files in the VIDEO_TS folder?

You should also get a disc or two of DVD RW media so you can use them to play with then erase and reuse.

Yes, There were VOB files in the Video_TS folder. Here was my process and settings:
1) I opened MyDVD Express, set disc format to DVD, and created my menu
2) I hit Add New Movie and selected my avi file on my hard drive
3) Once the icon for the avi file appeared on my meni, I hit Create disc
4) the Burn project menu came up, and I selected Burn to Disc, selected the Sony DVD drive, confirmed there was sufficient space on the disc, entered the new disc label, did not check save disc image file, did not check create folder set, hit Burn.
5) waited 2+ hours for the conversion/burn
6) after it said 100% complete, I hit OK and removed the new disc, put it in the DVD player and listened to it grind...Nada

[sknis]

GeorgeT, on Jan 21 2007, 04:53 PM, said:

Yes, There were VOB files in the Video_TS folder. Here was my process and settings:
1) I opened MyDVD Express, set disc format to DVD, and created my menu
2) I hit Add New Movie and selected my avi file on my hard drive
3) Once the icon for the avi file appeared on my meni, I hit Create disc
4) the Burn project menu came up, and I selected Burn to Disc, selected the Sony DVD drive, confirmed there was sufficient space on the disc, entered the new disc label, did not check save disc image file, did not check create folder set, hit Burn.
5) waited 2+ hours for the conversion/burn
6) after it said 100% complete, I hit OK and removed the new disc, put it in the DVD player and listened to it grind...Nada

Did you try DVD Info Pro to see if there are burn errors?

Just for trouble shooting purposes. When you go to burn, select image file (iso) and uncheck the other options. Name the iso file and select where you wan ti to be made. Default is c:/ top directory. Let the file encode. When it is finished, open Disc Copier and preview the image file. If it looks OK, then copy that image file to the DVD blank. Once that is done, try playing it on your DVD player. That way you will know if it is the encoding, the burning or the process where your computer both encodes and burns in one step.

Also, in the future, use MyDVD rather than the Express. Many people have complained about the Assistants (including me) but have no problems with the programs on the left side of the Home> Applications page.

This post has been edited by sknis: 22 January 2007 - 05:48 AM