Make the perfect avi to DVD

[The-Wappy-One]

I've seen alot of people wanting to know how to convert avi's ect to dvd and some have audio lags ect and i dug up this old guied but it is old but works a treat i still use it now (not as much as i have myth tv on a old pc )

All credit goes to spacedkadet a old clan m8,

Converting AVI 2 DVD

A guide by spacedkadet.
18/09/2005

Contents
1.What you will need
2.Setting up the software
3.Converting many files into a structured dvd
4.shiznit & stuff


Chapter 1

Ok so you wanna convert films my way? You will need:
I.dvd2svcd < This is a free programme that is the main interface for the avi to dvd compliant mpeg conversion.
II.Tmpgenc plus. < Not free.
III.Tmpgenc dvd author < Also not free
IV.Video codecs such as divx and xvid installed
V.Aspi layer for your version of windows.


Chapter 2

Now you have installed the above software I will show you how to set them up.

I.Tmpgenc plus (the main converter) doesn’t need setting up so just install it 
II.Install the video codecs and aspi layer if you haven’t already.
III.Dvd2svcd takes a fair bit of setting up and explaining and will be the largest part of this guide. We shall do this now..


During install of dvd2svcd you will come to a screen asking in which mode you would like to start the programme up in. Choose avi to dvd and continue. In a screen or two’s time you’ll come to an option for avisynth asking you to choose associations. Select both notepad and mediaplayer.
Ok after a couple more next you’ll be finished.
Load the programme and you will be taken to the main window of it which will be on the “about” tab. You’ll notice that the programme has many tabs at the top which need attention.

Ill try and make it a bit easier by first showing which tabs can be ignored and won’t be needed. The tabs “Avi Hints, log, About, Matrix, subtitles
And pulldown shouldn’t be needed (maybe you wanna add subtitles but I never have so I’m gonna ignore that one in this guide ).
So lets start getting the initial configuration on certain tabs in place and how to change important options.

The Audio Tab.
First off make sure that the “Do not convert audio” box is unchecked so that all options are available. Nothing much here should need changing as long as the addresses to besweet are correct. Leave audio priority 1 to English, output mode to stereo and bitrate of audio 1 to 192. You shouldn’t need to visit this tab again unless specific problems arise such as more than 1 soundtrack is needed but that shouldn’t really happen.

The Frameserver tab.
Complicated one this is but as long as its right it wont need to be changed again. Make sure “LanczosResize” is selected in the top drop-down box. Make sure the “Resize to” drop-down box is set to DVD. Make sure that avi editing is turned off and that’s pretty much it for this tab.

The Bitrate tab.
This is an important tab and one that you will use every time so pay attention Max 8000 and min 800 – leave them alone. The “CD Size” drop-down box is the one we are interested in. This box determines the output size of the mpg file. If you converting a single disc avi to dvd then simply select 4350 dvd+r. That will make a nice mpg file that will fill a blank dvd using the best bitrate. If your making a dvd from a 2 disc avi movie then you’ll need to click in the box and manually enter the file size of 2200 this will make a mpg that will take up half the dvd (you do it again with the 2nd disc to make a full movie). If your making a dvd of episodes of a programme or more than 2 files then choose a filesize that you want. For example if you want to add for instance 6 episodes to a disc you’ll need to divide 4400mb by six which in this case is 733mb. Enter 733 and then you’ll be able to fit 6 episodes on one disc. I hope this is clear.
The Encoder tab.
This one is where you choose which video encoder you want to use. I prefer tmpgenc plus as it gives a great output in a good time. So put the bullet in the tmpgenc item at the top and then make sure the path to the executable is correct (something like C:\Program Files\Pegasys Inc\TMPGEnc Plus 2.5\TMPGEnc.exe)
Now set “Rate control module” to constant rate CBR. Now set “Motion Search precision” to Highest quality (you want it to look good right?) Other boxes in this section can be ignored.

The DVD image tab.
This allows you to make a full dvd image file (iso) that is ready for burning. This is only any good if you are converting a single file movie. I use it though when doing these as it is so quick and easy. Set the bullet to dvd author and then you can edit the time spacing you want to make chapters at (the default is 120s). If you don’t want to make a ready-to-burn image just put the bullet to “No image”

The Misc tab.
Click on default output button and choose where all the files that are in use will go. I always use desktop so I can see what I’m doing but you could use the default one or make a folder somewhere. Other options here aren’t needed but you can change input and output types here in case for example you want to output an svcd.

The Conversion tab.
This is the main tab where you load your file and choose your main options. First off you will need to load an avi file so go ahead and load one already!.. 
The avi loaded will either be pal (English) or NTSC (just about everywhere alse). Now here comes a slightly tricky bit if the avi is pal then great no action will be needed and you can go onto converting. But if the avi is NTSC then you have a couple of options, firstly you can tick the “NTSC to pal” box but this “May” make the audio go horribly wrong, the only way to be sure is to convert and see. However if your TV is capable of playing NTSC then don’t convert as you’ll get a perfect conversion (most TV’s do work with NTSC these days). I don’t convert to pal I just leave as NTSC and don’t have any problems.
You also in this tab have the option of aspect ratio’s. Now I’ll admit that I don’t fully understand the whole aspect ratio thing but I do know that if the avi has top/bottom borders then I choose 4:3 no borders. Where as if the avi is full screen and I want borders I set to 16:9 borders added. This is up-to-you really and after a conversion you may not be happy with what the output looks like so you may wish to convert again using the other setting. Oh and you should never need to use interlacing option unless the outputted file has large lines through it (I’ve never had that).

Once ready you can now hit the big green go button and then confirm it.

N.B this method can make a lot of files on you hard drive and can take a lot of space. For instance if your converting a single disc avi movie with DVD image option turned on it can use as much as 18gb of space. Once conversion is complete you can delete all the outputted files except for the main ones. If your making a dvd with more than one Mpg file then after converting the first avi remember to rename the mpg or it will get overwritten when you convert the 2nd one/ 3rd one etc..


Chapter 3.

Now you have your many mpg files you want to know how to make a nice dvd with them. This is where tmpgenc dvd author comes in. Install it and open it up. Now click on create new project then in the next window click add file. Now browse to the folder where your mpg’s are and load the first one up.
As if by magic you’ll be transported to the ADD CLIP window,
You can click the “chapter cut edit” button to start adding chapters to your file (remember you will need to do this for each file you add). If you are making a DVD where each file is only say 30 mins long then you may not want to add chapters as each new file will be a chapter in it’s own right.
If however you want to add a chapters you have several options. You can add them at a specific intervals (i.e every 10 mins) by clicking “ADD” in the bottom right and setting the interval option to 10 or you can set insert to say 3 and it will add 3 chapters at equal distances.
Your other option is to manually add your chapter points, to do this move the timeslider along to the point you want to make a chapter and click the “add current frame to chapter” button, repeat this until you have added all the chapters you want.

Now click on the “create menu” button at the top. This is where you can get all artistic and make some nice menu’s. There is too much here to go through but I will show how I do it. From the left drop-down box I choose “blue” as I like its simplicity.
Now click the “menu display settings” button and choose “only track menu” and the bottom to boxes set to “display main menu” and “display track menu” respectively. Close that window. In the main window clicking on the “untitled track 1” writing will bring up an edit box as will double clicking the main blue window area.
Once you have the menu’s how you want them (you can even build a totally new scheme and use motion menus etc but they are out of the scope of this guide and you should use the help options of the programme to learn how) you are ready to click the output tab at the top. This speaks for itself, just choose a location to create the files to and click on begin output.
After conversion you will have the option to burn the dvd or just close. Personally I close the programme then burn the files to dvd using nero.





Chapter 4.

Thanks for reading my guide. I hope you find it useful, it’s not to in depth (only took about 2 hours to do) but I hope it helps you to create some nice dvd’s from your existing avi’s 


Spacedkadet….