I want something that will let me make menus, with music in the background, etc... I had software already, but for some damn reason, I can' find it, and I do not remember what it was called. I thought it was packaged with my NERO software, but Nero Vision won't convert .AVI to MPEG2 for some damn reason.

Any other software?
TIA!

mpeg2 isnt dvd format... .vob would be DVD format, .vob's are a combination of uncompressed video and audio, what you're talking about is past this DVD step, you've already compressed or captured the video in compressed format, i think you would be better off using SVCD software - smaller files, quicker burn times, cheaper media, blah blah




you'll spend a pretty penny for any production software, i wouldnt know any off the top of my head


here's a question that should make a big difference on which you choose, will this be viewed on home DVD players or computers?

TMPGenc to convert the avi to mpeg2and TMPGenc DVD author to put the menu's etc in. These are not free programs, but are available(bittorrent)...<--wink
Slow as fuck tho last avi i converted with TMPGenc took like 4 hrs, but outstanding quality.

My copy of Nero 7 does DVD authoring very well from AVI files. It uses their music in the menus but I'm sure that can be edited. It will also automatically screen the movie for different chapters.

Older versions of Nero don't have theose features, I'll be updating to 7 shortly.

Actually, DVD's are mpeg2... .vob is just the file extension used. .vobs are mpeg2 compressed video, and the audio is also compressed, usually in a dolby format. Even the upcoming HD-DVD and Blu-Ray video will be compressed in mpeg4 format. Uncompressed video is way too impractical for anything outside video editing.

I recently made a dvd for my parents and their friends that ride with them, of their latest motorcycle road trip. A little over 3 hours of raw footage, tapered down to a 2 hour dvd. There's about 56 gigs of 3 hours of raw footage sitting on my hard drive, that then got compressed to 4.38 gigs of 2 hours of mpeg2 video/audio for the DVD.

As for software for making menus and such, I've used Adobe Encore DVD recently, and it's fairly straightforward if you're at all familiar with their Premier/After Effects line of video editing/compositing products. If not, it may take a bit to get used to.

I've never used the Nero, or Roxio offerings... I've always found the "so simple your grandmother could do it" type software to be severely lacking in anything resembling features.

svcd is also mpeg2 though? what i meant to say is, .vob is (dvd media) what you will have to convert it to because you cannot just slap any .mpg (mpeg2, the technology behind the media, or format) onto a dvd and hope it works.


edit* lets not try to get everybody confused here...

http://www.videohelp.com/glossary?V#VOB
http://www.videohelp.com/glossary?M#MPEG-2
http://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=283492 - there's a good look at it

Actually, a dvd compilation app that's worth anything will do the conversion for you, with pretty much any filetype/compression used. You could import quicktime videos into a dvd compilation program, and it will convert to the necessary mpeg2 standard, and create the .vob's as needed.

Then again, I've never used the incredibly simple ones, only a couple higher end ones, and personally I prefer Encore DVD. So I suppose if you're using a simple application, it will need the files in the correct format first, before it can put the dvd together.

That being said, there's a number of applications that will convert divx/xvid encoded .avi's (divx/xvid is mpeg4) into DVD .vobs for burning onto a dvd, for people that want to watch their movies on a tv but their dvd player doesn't support divx/xvid. I believe there's a free one called DVDSanta, though I've never used it.