Folks,

I'm compiling a few short films that last about 3 mins each.

I'm using Prem Pro and I want to export / make them to go onto a DVD which I will menu up and so on.

Really I wondered what would be the best codec to use and any other tips any one could give me.

I have been using Microsoft AVI DV as they seem to give a reasonable quality with a smaller file size. Is this an advisable codec to use?

Cheers,

Chris

To make a DVD playable in a standalone DVD player you must adhere to the DVD standard and produce DVD compliant video and audio streams.

Typically this involved encoding as MPEG2. Your DVD authoring software or Video Editing software should have DVD presets for you to use.

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Thanks for the advice that's great.

When I do MPEG2 encoding I seem to get a seperate audio file from the video file. I assume this is correct?

Yes, this is normal. Your should import both of these files into your dvd authoring application.

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Just to add and (hopefully) clarify a little bit.

Having a seperate audio file to the video file is how you can add multiple soundtracks to a DVD and let the user select the 'language' to play.

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...Just to add a little to the nuggets of wisdom above, the specific "codec" (and there are a few) matters less than getting the AVI encoded to a dvd compliant mpeg2 . Your dvd authoring program will " know " if this requirement has been met and will not normally allow a non- compliant file to be included in the authoring unless it (itself) reencodes it. This is how you can get mpeg2 files ( DVD compliant) from different sourced and still sucessfully author a DVD with it. I frequently finsh small projects from different video editing software/ photo slide show making software and then put them together in Ulead DVDWS2 ( my prefered dvd authoring software ) and it seems ( so far) to have worked well

Thanks folks, I never thought of seperate audio files allowing different languages. I've always wondered how it was done.

Tried encoding and everything is great.

I have a quick intro which plays when the disc first goes in. This then goes to the main menu.

Odd though that on my DVD at home it jumps into one of the film about 20 seconds in. It just seems to be my DVD player, everyone elses seems to work fine.

Ah well.

Cheers - Chris

Hmm... your dvd player was ( like me) a closet rum drinker in a past life Seriously, welcome to the club .Some players( usually older or cheaper) seem to decode dvd menus (etc) better than others. it really is hit or miss .I have a Pioneer dvd s75( niether old nor particularly cheap) which i used to believed would play any thing..Recently it let me down only to be upstaged by a small portable Tevion from Aldi. Make a few more dvds and see how it goes
Good luck

Cheers Senu will do.