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Marina2006

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Create auto run Divx movies with menus

I am looking for software which I can use to create auto run Divx movies with menus. When I keyed that into a google search I received an overwhelming amount of responses I was wondering whether there is a particular application which is considered particulaly good. I am looking for something user friendly aimed at the lay person.
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Merete
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Marina2006

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I & several friends have a DVD player for television which has DivX, XVID playback. I also have a multiude of  video's downloaded from the Internet in DivX files. So rather than purchasing a DivX player for my TV my intention is to burn the video's to disc in .avi files. This eliminates the need to convert to VOB before burning.
The appeal of this is cleary that I will save a lot of time in the converting and burning process not to mention the space I will save having to use fewer discs, for example a 12 part TV series would require 12 discs in VOB SP files as oppossed to 2 discs in .avi. (I assume the quality will be adequate).
I live in Australia and we are going with HD DVD in the future.
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We are indeed Merete, can't wait until I get to your stage won't be long now.
There's a couple of things to consider here:
<I live in Australia and we are going with HD DVD in the future.>
Well, you'd better take a look at the specs for the only DivX supported HD DVD players -- from DivX' own site: http://www.divx.com/products/hw/browse.php?c=7
"Full HD" as it is being called by the retailers in Australia is 1080p. That means that the player must be able to read a disc that is encoded in 1080p (progressive) and be able to output 1080 scan lines (progressively scanned -- not Interlaced) -- full frames @ one frame every 50th of a second or often expressed as 50 full frames per second 1080p/50. And the monitor MUST have a native  resolution of 1920 x 1080 (not just accept 1980 x 1080 -- then downscale it -- lots of dishonest specs out there).
Look at all the Divx HD players commencing with the Avel Linkplayer2. First of all just -- cutting through the crap -- it can't display 1080p only 1080i (interlaced -- half frames per second).
Secondly it doesn't have MPEG's H.264 codec, which will be (AND CURRENTLY IS) the main encoder for most of the mainstream movies -- SO THEY WON'T PLAY.
The Buffalo only supports Divx -- and nothing else (now there's a deal)
...and the I-O Data supports Divx and Microsoft's VMV9 codec -- but like all the other DivX HD players only can get up to 1080i playback -- not 1080p.
Note that NONE of these players support H.264, which is the main codec on all the mainstream HD DVD and Blu-Ray players -- AND NONE CAN DISPLAY 1080P.
Re encoding 6 x AVI movies onto a DVD. That may be fine for a restricted resolution. But the maths just doesn't add up here. Full resolution avi files are MUCH LARGER than MPEG-2 files. To  prove this just capture some DV or miniDV footage -- it captures in the default DV AVI file format with full DVD resolution. You're looking for 720×576 PAL resolution -- and that's only Standard Definition (SD). You just can't get 6 x avi's with that resolution onto a DVD unless you have compressed them first OR GREATLY REDUCED THE RESOLUTION -- and then re-made avi's with that reduced display resolution. Meaning you've shrunk them and then are stretching the pixels to fill some monitor. But you will never have anything near the resolution of an AVI  or any raw format encoded directly with MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 AVC/H.264. And you will NEVER GET FULL HD.
Hey Merete, what is the display resolution of the 6x avi files that you put on the DVDs?
RE:
<(I assume the quality will be adequate).
From Dictionary.Com:
ad·e·quate:
" 2. barely sufficient or suitable: Being adequate is not good enough."  
Yes I would be interested in your experience Merete, regarding resolution both for your 68cm (26") and anything larger you may have tried your discs on.
fredshovel thank you for your info but 1080p TVs are very expensive here and will be for some time I would think  and we only have one brand on the market (I don't recall which)
We have only one DVD player on the market as well I think which has 1080p (Panasonic) in terms of our free to air TV my understanding is that it is SD and real high definition is not on the agenda in the foreseeable future and whilst Foxtel calls itself digital is actually analogue.
As you can see my knowledge is not very technical I have provided a link to the HDD recorder I am interested in (LG RH298H) and would be very interested in your comments regarding it potential limitations.
http://au.lge.com/products/model/detail/___rh298h.jhtml
Please save you time fredshovel and disregard my previous comment I would love a recoder from the DivX site, I have looked quicklyonline  but can't seem to find in Oz any idea if and where they are sold here.
Hi to answer>
Marina2006:
Yes I would be interested in your experience Merete, regarding resolution both for your 68cm (26") and anything larger you may have tried your discs on.

Well dont laugh I had little to work with but did resolve it.
Hubby likes to record bike racing off austar.
Running a media player on my pc to tv the reolution on the secondary screen (TV)  in the display settings is 1024x768 same as my desktop.
 using nvidia gforce GT6600. Clone mode
 using s-vidia cable out with audio left n right with an extender so that single line audio out cable is split into left and right (red and white)
because my TV has only rca and scaart cable the divx player has the scaart cable and the rca is conected to new vcr,
using the video and audio in lines on the vcr from pc.
 then the vcr is running to austar set top box and and stereo amp, austar is rca to tv and stereo amp for dvd.
TV  tuned to vcr on channel zero
VCR on AVS2 is pc.
TV on channel one is austar  cable tv.
there you go confused ahaha works very well.
---------------------------------------------
I can answer your question regarding the  recorder.
Most dvd recorders with a hard drive support playback of divx formats, data dvd which I do,
I have 6 divx avi on one dvd disc.
Mine is a Grundig but there is others.
I found mine on ebay.
My Grundig divx dvd player
http://www.dealsdirect.com.au/p/grundig-dvdcd-multimedia-player-super-slim-hdmi-divx/
I found mine on ebay. I like the brand name
Grundig DVD Recorder / Player GDR 5404
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Grundig-DVD-Recorder-Player-GDR-5404_W0QQitemZ260145069360QQihZ016QQcategoryZ32864QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Others on ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/DVD-Player-DIVX-MPEG4-MP3-Multi-Zone-Brand-New_W0QQitemZ180143315949QQihZ008QQcategoryZ3316QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Sansui-DVD-Player-with-HDMI-and-DIVX-BRAND-NEW_W0QQitemZ150147407617QQihZ005QQcategoryZ50600QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


Thank you Merete thats fantastic, perhaps you can help me with something else.
I have downloaded torrent files each around 350MG 640 x 368 DivX YV12.
I would think you have used such files how do you treat them what do you convert them to etc, on my 22" PC monitor I have a NVIDIA GeForce 7600GS video card they look great as is I wonder what will be my experience on a larger screen?
ooo nice card  jealous
mine cost a handfull is only 7 months old so will stick with it.
they shoudl look fine on tv as is, quality on the tv depend on s-video cabl use only the gold plugs.
I dont do anything with them, why convert them?
 this  res  usually has great quality, I do hate the 68 CM  tv with this thin screen running thru the center,
 oneway I can enlarge it, I use media player classic divx version to play my movies from pc to tv and in its settings. r/click the screen during movie playback look down the list>>  PAN&Scan and set it to scale 16.9 TV.
This makes it a big larger without damaging the the quality. Cant expect too much with avi.
media player classic.
http://www.divx-digest.com/software/media_player_classic.html
I also have VLC player
http://www.videolan.org/
But if your interested in scaling aspect ratios.
This guide is intended to help you understand how aspect ratios work, how to figure out what aspect ratio your video uses, and finally, how to figure out what resolution to resize to, when converting video from one format to another like AVI to MPEG (VCD, CVD, SVCD, or DVD), or MPEG to AVI.
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/determining-aspect-ratios-and-resolutions-t174200.html

what programs do you have for converting and editing and  to what  are you thinking of converting to
if i may ask?
the more an avi is processed the more it loses the quality in my opinion.
I just burn to dvd as data discs using Nero.

Hope that help you
Merete :)
Thanks again.
I have actually left the .avi files as is and burned with Nero as data.
I thought I might add a menu (for someone else) with some of the software mentioned earlier .
<in terms of our free to air TV my understanding is that it is SD and real high definition is not on the agenda in the foreseeable future and whilst Foxtel calls itself digital is actually analogue.>
Well, I'll reply anyway -- couldn't resist.
Australian DTT (Digital Terrestrial Television) is regulated by the Aust. Government. It's the law that each free-to-air channel must transmit 1040 hours per year of High Definition TV -- or roughly 20 hours per week -- advertising time is included in the quota, but news is not -- news is not allowed because even though the anchorman in the studio is shot in HD -- all the news footage is SD. There are currently no live sporting broadcasts in HD -- and up until 2006 there was only one HD Outside Broadcast van capable of producing live sports in HD (housed at NBN in Newcastle NSW). The Aust. specification for HD is supposed to be 1080i/50 -- which is 1080 scan lines with 1920 pixels each. But they cheat on this. A couple of the major stations only transmit 1080 x 1440 and two (SBS and Ch7) transmit in 576p (progressive) -- and some how get away with calling that HD. There's usually a HD caption shown when a channel is transmitting HD -- for instance McLeod's Daughters (yech).
Foxtel originally had analogue cable transmission -- but around 2004 went digital -- and foxtel's satellite system has always been digital -- but you're correct, it's all SD.
I think I got confused with needing analgue for Foxtel with a PC TV tuner (this may also be incorrect of course).
Thank you for the info.