How to make an AMV DVD?

[smoothcriminal6]

I have an increasing collection of downloaded AMVs on my PC, but it's a lot of work to lug it around to show my friends who don't have hi-speed internet. I would like to burn DVDs, but the software I use is having trouble encoding the videos. I use WMP with codecs and plug-ins, and it can play the videos, but Windows DVD Maker can't make a DVD out of them. Any advise (besides buying more software)?

[Kariudo]

If you don't want to be able to play them in a dvd player then you should just be able to toss them on a dvd (you'd be making a data dvd)

if you do want to play them in a dvd player, get DVD Flick (it's free).

I haven't tried just putting some amvs (in their various containers and codecs) into DVD Flick and then see if the dvd worked in my ps2, but single layer dvds are cheap

[Qyot27]

DVD Flick is nice in many respects, although the menu system leaves a lot to be desired. I especially like the ability to add multiple objects at once and have them automatically parsed to separate tracks with the name of the file as the name of the track. You might take it for granted, but years of using TMPGEnc DVD Author (which has a much nicer, if still simple, menu system) makes that kind of functionality a godsend. For the record, I still use TMPGEnc as my main solution because there are some unique eccentricities to DVD Flick I'm not comfortable with (like only allowing full - and maybe half - D1 when DVD completely allows for CIF/VCD resolution).

My advice - bone up on what makes a DVD compliant, encode all your videos to the MPEG-2/AC3 combo beforehand, and then hand it over to the authoring program. DVD Flick does allow straight copying of MPEG-2 - it's in the main configuration options.

To actually do said encoding, I use:

• AviSynth (filtering/resizing/fps manipulation)
• wavi & aften (to extract the audio and convert to AC3 - the two can be piped together to save HDD space)
• mencoder (to optionally convert the script to HuffYUV-YV12)
• HCenc 0.24 beta (to do the actual encoding to MPEG-2; I have a slew of custom profiles to suit 16:9 and 4:3 video at all three standard framerates and several quality levels)
• DGPulldown (optional; only necessary if the video is 25fps)
• mplex1 or mplex (to do the final muxing of the video and audio into one file; I only use mplex when dealing with the output of DGPulldown, or if I decide to test out 720p/1080p MPEG-2s)

If I have to deal with surround-sound audio, then I also use faad to decode the stream (all of the 5.1 stuff I've encoded came from the Apple Quicktime Trailer site, which only uses AAC), and if necessary, WaveWizard to resample to 48000kHz. aften accepts a standard 5.1 WAV file, and so long as you make sure to use a higher bitrate than the 192kbps you use for stereo AC3 (384kbps or 448kbps are industry norms for 5.1 AC3, although I do mine at 576kbps), it's fine.

To make all of that easier to batch together, yes, it is command-line only. Some of those solutions do have GUIs made for them though. wavi I'm not so sure about, but you can extract the audio from the script with VirtualDub and give it to EncAC3toWAV (which is a frontend for aften). VirtualDub can also be used in place of mencoder since HuffYUV-YV12 can be encoded with ffdshow's VFW interface. HCenc has a GUI (not for the beta, but for main release versions), as does DGPulldown. Unfortunately I don't know of frontends for mplex1 (although it is apparently based on bbmpeg) or mplex, but they're simple enough to use so...

[smoothcriminal6]

Wow- I guess nothing is ever truly free! Did I mention I'm an AMV viewer, not an editor? (I was looking for a drag and drop solution)

I have an abundance of blank dvds, so I will give the first one a try. If that doesn't work, carrying my laptop over to my friends will be a lot easier than all those steps of encoding and separating and recombining.

Still, thank you for the very thorough response!

[smoothcriminal6]

Well, DVD Flick worked well. It took a few hours, the videos lag a little, but its acceptable. Tomorrow I'll try TMPGEnc.

[BasharOfTheAges]

TMPGEnc DVD Author 3 is what I use for burning DVDs for cons and such - it works pretty well.

[Tab.]

just buy sonic scenarist bro it's pretty cheap

[TheTsunami]

Just finishing up my first video and trying to burn it to dvd to confirm that everything works properly. It is set as interlaced, 29.97 fps, rendered to mpeg-2 using TMPGEnc but fails to play after burning with DVDFlick and TMPGEnc DVD Author 3. DVD Author shows two errors when attempting to burn:

- The clip's video bitrate is too high for DVD-Video. The current video bitrate is 12000 Kb/s. However in a DVD-Video the video bitrate should be lower than 9800 Kb/s.

- The clip's total bitrate is too high for DVD-Video. The current total bitrate is 12384 Kb/s. However in a DVD-Video the total bitrate should be lower than 9848 Kb/s.

What setting is needed in the avs script before running it through TMPGEnc so that the mpg will come out to a playable bitrate?

[TheTsunami]

Nevermind, figured it out.

[Scintilla]

And for those reading this thread who want to know but haven't figured it out:

What setting is needed in the avs script before running it through TMPGEnc so that the mpg will come out to a playable bitrate?

None: the bitrate is controlled not by the script, but by your TMPGEnc settings themselves. If you're using VBR or ABR, one of the bitrate settings should be "Maximum bitrate" -- make this no higher than 8000 Kbps (this is what I was always told, but apparently according to TsunamiX's DVD Author, you can go as high as 9800 Kbps). If you're using CBR, set the bitrate no higher than 8000 Kbps.