VHS to PC to DVD with menu ...

[judder]

I am in the process of converting all my old VHS recordings to DVD. I've got my first 90 minute VHS tape onto my PC in a 5Gb file. I used the software that came with the analogue-digital converter to author the DVD with a menu. Having burned the DVD I find that it works fine in my PC, but not in my DVD player. Is it something to do with the 5 Gb file size? I seem to recall something about DVD files not being allowed to be greater than 1Gb.

Also, is there a good, cheap (or free) piece of software which will enable me to take a 5Gb clip, quickly divide it up with motion menus and burn to a DVD which will work in my DVD player?

Thanks and best wishes y'all.

[DIEGO7-5]

For a cheap solution you can try winavi video converter (www.winavi.com) but please note it will recompress your 5GB file.
It will also create motion menus. The demo puts a watermark on every frame.

There is also free software that will do this but as far as i know they all use still frames or text menus:

FAVC (http://favcfavc.googlepages.com/)

DVDForger (http://download.videohelp.com/dvdforger/)

DVDFlick (http://www.dvdflick.net/)

Good luck :)

[setarip_old]

Hi!

Since 5Gb is greater than the capacity of a single-layered DVD ("DVD-5"), I presume you've burned a double-layered DVD ("DVD-9"). If this is the case, your problem very likely lies in one of three areas:

1) The burning program you used did not create a proper "layer break", which is absolutely imperative for successful playback on standalone players. Use IMGBurn.

2) You used burnable D/L media other than the Verbatim D/L DVD+R. Thusfar, Verbatim D/L DVD+R has proven to be the only consistently successful D/L burnable media.

3) If your burner doesn't do so automatically, you should set the "booktype" to "DVD-ROM". If necessary, you should be able to change this setting from within IMGBurn

[judder]

Thanks for the replies. The software is Intervideo WinDVD Creator which came with the hardware. Once the movie is edited with menus etc., the 'build movie' section offers quality settings (i.e. time which will fit onto a standard DVD). I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that this sorts out any necessary compression to ensure the whole movie fits to a single disk.

However, I have also tried building the movie with maximum quality and then using DVD shrink to compress to a single disk.

I think it's a software issue to be honest. Another thing I've noticed is that the captured video plays nicely on the PC in its mpeg format with quality comparable to VHS, as expected. However, once I use the software above to build the required .vob .ifo and .bup files, the playback (from the hard drive on the PC) is very jerky with a noticeable reduction in quality.

I'll try some your software suggestions in the next few days, but if there is a well trusted and reasonably powerful piece of software in the commercial market (for a reasonable price), I'd be happy to get it. Does winavi do a professional job?

Thanks.