I have a lot of videos that I plan to edit, combine, and burn together onto a DVD. Which video file type would be best to save to (AVI, MPEG (which layer?))? Which file type is the highest viusal quality? I don't mind waiting to burn at a higher quality that takes longer.
When burning to VCD, AVI files work fine but MPEG doesn't work.
What happens with DVD? Is NeroVision best for this kind of burning?
I am no expert but I have done a lot of AVI conversions to DVD. I have found that it depends on the quality of the AVI files to begin with. The better the quality and the better conversion tool you use the better the DVD quality will come out. AVI or Divix, I believe is MPEG-4 but don't quote me on that. The only this you have to watch out for is AVI video formates are in a different aspect ratios and can cause some problems. I have never had any problems converting MPEG-2 to DVD. I use Nero to burn the files but I wouldn't use Nero to do the actual conversion as there are far better and free programs out there that will do this. Hope this helped
Most software out there today, that claims to take AVI files and transcode them directly to DVD without errors, is probably lying to you. AVI files are written with codecs. That means, technically, they're compressed files. So, you're unzipping the file as you're playing. MPEG is uncompressed video and audio data, hence why it tends to be much bigger. Ideally, use a program to decompress the AVI file to MPEG. And then use whatever "DVD Authoring" software you're most comfortable with (different software has different features, capabilities, learning curves, etc.). On your computer, AVI is better, but on DVD, MPEG is better. There are also some attributes you'll want to specifically select for your MPEG: closed GOPs (group of pictures), 720x480 height, 29.97 Frames Per Second (Drop-Frame Rate), 48000 HZ audio, 192 kbit audio stream, above 1600 but no more than 7000 kbit radio for data, etc., etc..
For MPEG decompressing, I use TMPGEnc Plus; it has a special option to automatically set all these proper variables perfectly for a DVD. In the past, I have used Cucusoft, Nero Transcoder, VideoConvertMaster, Total Video Converter, My Video Converter, and about a million "video converting" programs out there. TMPGEnc Plus was ideal for "MPEG-izing" my AVI files.
