The Life Hacker

HOW TO TURN
THOSE .AVI’s YOU’VE COLLECTED INTO ENTERTAINING DVDS!

This is just one way (of many) to make a dvd out of all the .avi’s that you are finding all over the Internet (we don’t need to know how you found them) or all those digital movies that you are taking with your digital camera. This is the technique that I use, it is the most stress-free way to get it done that I have found.

SOFTWARE:

ConvertXtoDVD3 - Go the the website for more information. You can download a trial but it will have a text line at the top of the DVD for the first 5 minutes of the DVD, so I recommend you get the full version.

HARDWARE:

My Laptop is a 1.7 GHZ
DVD Rewritable Drive & Nero Installed
Blank DVD in the Drive and Ready to go!

If you are installing ConvertXtoDVD for the first time, it will ask you if you want PAL or NTSC. If you are located in America, choose NTSC or you will not be able to view the PAL in your dvd player unless your DVD is PAL.

STEP 1: Open the ConvertXtoDVD software. To find your video, select the green plus button and select your video files.

STEP 2: Find your files. When I create a dvd, I put about 1.5 GB on it. By the time your .AVI’s have converted to VSO, you should be able to fill up one blank DVD.

STEP 3: Now that you have added all of your .AVI’s it is time to customize some of your other settings.

EXPLANATION OF SOME OF THE SETTINGS:

GENERAL: Pay close attention to the output folder. I usually click the folder (the one I circled in Orange) and create a folder on the Desktop called “DVD” that way if something goes wrong and the DVD doesn’t burn at the end of the encoding process I can still use Nero to burn the VSO. It is also a good way to remember where the DVD VSO ended up when you were done. You will want to delete when you have your freshly working DVD in your posession, these files take up 4.8 GB on your hard drive!

CHAPTERS - Allows you to insert a chapter when you want one. You can also uncheck it if you don’t want chapters.

MENU - Choose a menu style that you like. If you have more than one .AVI you will be able to specify what style of menu that you want. There are many other choices to select such as loop. If you select the arrow, you can preview different menu styles. These menus have worked really well for me. If you want to get some customization into your menus, simply create your own using your own images. What I do is copy one of the folders located in
C:\Program Files\vso\ConvertX\3\templates, rename the copy and customize the images inside! When you re-open ConvertX, and search for your theme it will find it. Just keep to the format of the files in the folder, there are image and sound files. I think that this is great if you wish to give a DVD away as a gift. I use Photoshop to edit my files and keep all the images the same size so that nothing is skewed when you go to use your new theme.

SUBTITLES - Allows you to choose a default language for subtitles. I usually just leave this at the default.

TV FORMAT - My DVD player is NTSC so I usually just leave this at the default.

BURNING - Make sure your DVD burner name appears in here. In the past with other software I have had a problem locating my dvd burner and the files were converted left in my output folder and I had to re-open them in another program. In the past with other programs I have installed Nero Burning Rom and this little problem never
occurred after that.

SOUND EFFECTS - I usually just leave this the default. This depends on you however. Maybe applause for the DVD being successfully done?

ENCODING - Allows you to choose the medium recommended setting or low or high. I have been using
high all of this time and didn’t know it. My dvds turn out great though. I see that ConvertX recommends you use the medium setting. It takes up less resources on your pc.

AUDIO - You can increase the sound on your audio if desired.

STEP 4 - Once you are pleased with your setting, hit the convert button and away she goes! Enjoy impressing your friends and family with your DVD creations!

NOTE: Your results may be different, I will also feature other techniques that may work for you later on!