Burning Dvd Help

[Minnie123]

Hello. I just recently bought this product and I'm a little confused with creating my own menu to make a DVD. The only thing I see are the ones that are from Roxio itself but I wanted to create my own menu with my own music. Is that possible? Because I know a lot of other devices do that but I really don't want to go buy another one and this product is already great for me since it's so easy to work with. But I just don't know how to create my own menu for DVD. Another question is when I go to MyDVD Express to burn my movie that was from a VCD, it won't let me burn because it says the file is too big. Which it actually isn't because when I look at it it's only 2 GB, whereas my disc is 4.7 GB. Can someone tell me what's wrong? Thank you.

[Minnie123]

I seem to have not gotten any help about my other question. Quite disappointed but it's ok. Anyways I've been having a problem playing my movie on any DVD's I own. It won't play the movie and I tried burning the movies on creator classic too but it didn't work. My movie won't play so can someone tell me where I can burn .dat files? I don't want to use MyDVD express because it eats up the capacity of the disc where the disc size is 4.7 GB but it won't let me burn everything when the movie size is only 2GB. Can someone please help me?

[Jim_Hardin]

Minnie, I got these 2 Topics combined because they are closely related…

 

You have a common misunderstanding about DVD Movies.

 

You think they are files on a disc but in reality they are video files that are placed into an internationally recognized format which is Authored to a disc!

 

The difference is that MyDVD Express is the only program in the Red Box Suite that has the ability to do that!

 

If you took a file from a VCD there is no way that file could possibly be 2 GB!!!

 

A VCD is burned on a CD which can only hold 700 MB… Said file would be 1.3 GB too large for any CD…

 

DVD Movies are based on TIME. This will give you a basis of what you can expect to fit:

 

4.7Gb:

HQ = 1:06

SP = 1:37

LP = 2:22

ELP = 3:04

 

8.5 Gb:

HQ = 2:00

SP = 2:57

LP = 4:19

ELP = 5:35

 

Since you are starting with a relative poor quality (VCD = mpeg1) you will want to stick to High Quality! Don't use the default of Fit to Disc.

 

I strongly recommend you get a disc or 2 of DVD RW to use while learning and to experiment with since they can be erased. Don’t use them for final projects because they do wear out and fade over time…

 

Most people will not know that the ‘movie’ files on a VCD carry a .DAT extension:

 

 

As far as background in MyDVD Express, by right clicking in the preview area, you can add your own picture, artwork or movie clip by selecting Change Menu Background…

 

But you can only combine that with one of the 5 Styles that are included. You can make up some good ones on your own and keep in mind that a menu is only on long enough for the viewer to return to their seat

 

I wouldn’t waste a lot of creative juices on something that no one will remember.

 

Try some of this stuff out and post back with questions. You can’t expect a lot from a $30 cut down version of a $100 suite, but we will be happy to help you get the most out of what you have!

[Minnie123]

Thank you for answering! Yes it was actually a VCD file. The movie contained 4 vcd's so that's why I said the total file was 2 GB. Is there a Roxio product that is able to burn the way I mentioned? Where I'm able to burn .dat files without losing the capacity size? And not burn in MyDVD Express?

[bimicher]

Thank you for answering! Yes it was actually a VCD file. The movie contained 4 vcd's so that's why I said the total file was 2 GB. Is there a Roxio product that is able to burn the way I mentioned? Where I'm able to burn .dat files without losing the capacity size? And not burn in MyDVD Express?

 

You cannot burn a video DVD the way you want. All you will have is a data disc which no DVD player can play. Your only option is to use myDVD Express. The file size of your source is irrelevant - it is the timelength that matters as Jim had pointed out.

 

How did you combine the videos from 4 VCD discs into one file?

[Minnie123]

myguggi,

 

I didn't combine them into one file. It's different files but just the same movie that came in different discs. I was just wondering because a lot of people I know was able to put about 8 episodes of a certain tv serial into one dvd disc. Which the in total the files were equal to 4 GB so I wanted to do the same for this but the program doesn't do it as you stated. I don't know what kind of program they used but I just didn't know if Roxio had a program like that it or not. Since I really want to use a program that can put in a lot of episodes into one disc like they did.

 

EDIT:

 

I forgot to mention that all the episodes were about 1 hr and 30 mins or below. But all of them were in the one hour time.

[Jim_Hardin]

Do a test burn with a DVD RW disc and set MyDVD Express to SP.

 

This is based on the chart I posted above and the Time you provided. Just burn one and watch it to see if the quality will be acceptable to you...

 

If so, you will have the option to add 4 movies as 4 seperate Titles or to add the 4 at once as One Title.

 

There is the other option using a 8.5 GB @ HQ quality. But to do that, you have to make sure your burner can burn DL media. (in the home app menu, Tools - Disc Info)

 

Still you would want to test first with an RW. They don't make an 8.5 RW so only add 1 VCD for testing.

[Minnie123]

Thank you Jim! I will give it a shot sometime soon and give an update on how it went. Hopefully it works. Thank you for all the help everyone. I really appreciate it!

[Minnie123]

Is there any different between DVD+RW and DVD-RW? I don't want to get the wrong disc.

[Jim_Hardin]

The differences are invisible to the user. That is why I did not specify ‘plus’ or ‘dash’ in my posts

 

I prefer Plus Media but in 8 years I have only hit 2 Players that balked on Dash media and one on Plus…

[Minnie123]

Thank you Jim! I will try it out ASAP to see if it works okay =)