NOTE: This guide, while still working, is very outdated and uses an older and complicated method to achieve an otherwise easy task. Luckily, AfterDawn has many other guides that use free or commercial software to achieve this task and in 2008, it has never been easier before. Here are your options...
This is by far the easiest and fastest method. It will take an AVI file (or MKV, WMV, OGM, FLV, .DIVX, MPG etc.) and convert it to a DVD ready to burn, complete with chapters, subtitles and a motion menu (all optional), all in a few clicks. As of March 2008, this software item has had 212,000 downloads.
This guide is another excellent method to convert AVI (or MKV, OGM) to DVD using the freeware tool, Avi2DVD with either a freeware video encoder or a commercial video encoder. This guide arguably produces output of a small bit better quality than ConvertXtoDVD (if using CCE SP), but it will take more time. It produces a DVD ready to burn with optional subtitles and chapters. As of March, 2008, Avi2DVD has been downloaded 718,326 times.
If you have CCE SP, this guide will arguably create the best quality DVD when it is finished of all the options. CCE SP is a very expensive MPEG video encoder but for what it does, it does it fast. Unless you have CCE SP, you are better off with one of the above options.
You "can" technically continue this guide but it will take a long time and it is an outdated method, therefore one of the above is highly suggested. You may also want to learn how to join two AVI files, if your video is in two or more parts. You can find that and many other great articles in our Guide section.
Now you should burn the DVD-Video disc. We recommend that you follow these instructions on how to do it.
Notes
If you have your subtitles in any other format, you might need to convert them to SubRip's SRT format in order to follow this guide to the letter. If you wish to convert VobSub subtitles (which are images) to SubRip format, you can use a tool called SubResync which is included within the VobSub package.
Also, it is possible to create anamorphic 16:9 movies using this guide, but as it requires bit more knowledge about aspect ratios and changing aspect ratios correctly, we recommend that only people familiar with these issues do it. If you decide to try, please don't spend your DVDRs to burn these discs without trying them out first. Most of the software DVD players can play DVD files directly from your harddrive, with no need whatsoever to burn the DVDs to DVDR for testing purposes.
Version history
v1.0 -- dRD, 19th November, 2003 -- First version online.
