This guide shows a popular method used to convert a AVI to DVD. You may have created a home video of you and the kids, and have captured this into the popular AVI format. I am sure there are plenty of other methods available, and a large amount of different programs that could be used, however for those who like to use the popular programs, this guide shows how. If you have never made a DVD before, this guide will help you understand the process.

Tools
Vdub MP3
Vdub 1.5X
Headac
Nero Express (Nero Vision)

Why so many, well I thought I would include the worse scenarios.. "But what if" I hope you will be able to skip the parts you don't need to use, if your not sure see my other guides for an explanation.

Source
The AVI maybe one that you downloaded, some wedding photos you friend made, but he made a bad copy of it, or during the downloading process it got messed up. Any AVI you get, no matter what the source, you should always check it for faults. Playing the AVI will not show any faults, and most Media Players will skip through them. The file in this case has a variable bitrate for the audio (VBR) but we don't know this yet !

Load the AVI into Vdub 1.5X. Do you get a VBR warning !, if you do then quit and load Vdub MP3 instead. If you make any changes to the length of a home movie that has VBR and save the changes you will have lip sync problems.
See guide for fixing bad frames

Start
You need to know what your dealing with, take a look in Vdub to see what the video and audio codec is
File > File information
That will show you the codecs that were used to make the file, if the audio says 5 channels > Unknown then you have an AC3 sound track, and need to save that out using audio > direct stream copy > SAVE WAV and convert it later with Headac. If you cannot load the AVI, you have missing codecs. You could also use Gspot to find the information.

Vdub MP3
Load your AVI into Vdub MP3 and check for bad frames if none are found you can quit this program and switch back to the normal Vdub, if there are bad frames, you need to remove them using my other guide then save another copy out ready for further work.

Headac (If AVI has AC3)
See guide, for more information
So your AVI has been checked for bad frames, and now you have a copy of the AVI that plays good and has no bad frames. Since we are dealing with a AVI that could have AC3 then you may need to convert it.
Use the normal Vdub and load your AVI now select
Audio > Direct stream copy
SAVE WAV
Rename that .wav to .ac3 and use Headac to convert it to a .wav

If the audio is MP3 you don't need to save it out using streaming, you can use full processing mode instead.
Audio > Full processing mode
SAVE WAV

So now you have the AVI which has no bad frames, you have a WAV file produced with Vdub or Headac and are ready to convert using TMPGEnc.

TMPGEnc
First click the "load" button and load a DVD template, then browse for the AVI for the video and browse for the WAV for the audio.
Click Start, let it run for a few minuets then stop. Check the output to make sure it plays ok. If there are any problems, you need to fix them now, not let it convert and hope to fix them later. Mpeg 2 are difficult files to repair, so its best to get them right now.

Nero Express
This is a simple program to use, and lets you do a whole lot of things, you may want to add several small movies, or just one large one.

You need to install the DVD/SVCD plug-in its not free !, if you have it missing you wont be able to continue.



Select Burn video To > DVD Video, you can see above the DVD plug-in is installed.
Next click the ADD button to add the file(s) you made with TMPGEnc
Note, they need to be around 1.5Mb, small files will fail to load.



If you only have one large file, you can continue, or add more here before moving on.



On the next screen you can change the title, change the background colour, and a whole lot more. I have selected Button frame, and choose a star. Click next to continue.



The next screen lets you test out what you have done, Notice in this example the list shows "1. Chapter 1" you can rename that at the beginning, if things are not looking right, click the back button.



From here, you need to select Burn to > I chose burn to hard drive. If you have a DVD writer, you would now burn the disk.



If all has gone ok, you have made your DVD, or in this example there will be a folder on my hard drive called "Video_ts" containing the VOB files (Your DVD movie) and its setting files.

Video_ts
Video_ts.bup
Video_ts.ifo
Video_ts.vob (Menu)
Vts_01_0.bup
Vts_01_0.ifo
Vts_01_1.vob (Main Movie)

Some of those files will be the menu that is first played, before you play the main movie..

Now you can play your holiday movies on your DVD player and impress your friends..
Sundays will never be the same again..