A good free DVD authoring program?

[taparoo]

For some reason my DVD-making program that came with my computer has refused to work, so I've come to the all-knowing peoples of the technobabble forum. I'm looking for a program, preferably free, that can create a DVD from .IFO, .VOB, and .BUP files. I'm looking for a program that can make a DVD that's playable on a DVD player, not something that can put those files as data on a disc for back-ups (as I've done many times trying to figure out how to do this). Your help is very much appreciated.

(and I'm sorry if this has been posted before, which it probably has, I just haven't been able to find a thread that covered this...)

[slewofboots]

you need to go buy yourself a copy of Nero. Otherwise, try to find a much more time consuming (and posbbily difficult) solution here:
www.videohelp.com
most burners come with Nero, or most PCs come with a dvd burning solution, what's the problem?

[taparoo]

Originally Posted by slewofboots

you need to go buy yourself a copy of Nero. Otherwise, try to find a much more time consuming (and posbbily difficult) solution here:
www.videohelp.com
most burners come with Nero, or most PCs come with a dvd burning solution, what's the problem?

The program that came with my PC is called MyDVD LE (made by Roxio, i think). Every time I open it, it brings up one of those 'send error report' windows and it says it needs to shut down.

[davidsss]

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling MyDVD? It should be somewhere on the discs which came with your computer.

DS

[slewofboots]

Originally Posted by davidsss

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling MyDVD? It should be somewhere on the discs which came with your computer.

DS

Good idea! Roxio will work to burn a DVD once you get it reinstalled. If you remove it completely, reinstall and it still does this, you may have a problem with your operating system. Have you ever got MyDVD to run w/o errors? Is this a Dell PC?

[taparoo]

Awesome. Re-installing it worked like a charm. That seemed obvious enough . Thanks a million.

Another problem seems to have arisen, though. I was under the impression that I could make DVDs that I dl'd from here (i.e. with files like .VOB format) with MyDVD. When I go to add these type of files (.VOB) it brings up a message that says "Runtime error: minute out of range -3". I'm puzzled here. Is it impossible for me to make DVDs like that from MyDVD?

[slewofboots]

Are you starting the DVD project by creating a Video "compilation" (or whatever MyDVD calls your project)? Use the DVD burning Wizard to start a video project. Read the manual or, the program probably has some kind of Help menu with an "online" manual of sorts.

Anyway once you get that done you should see a folder called VIDEO_TS (and probably also an AUDIO_TS folder, ignore it - it's just there to retain compliance with old-school DVD players) into which you toss all the contents of the VIDEO_TS folder (i.e. .vob files, etc.) you downloaded, then just burn it.

Remember a standard, single-layer DVD+ (or -) R holds a bit less than 4.4GB. So if you downloaded something larger , you'll need to either use DVDShrink to shrink it down (you'll need to read tutorials - that program's use isn't easily explained) to 4.4GB or use a dual-layer DVD. Does your burner support dual-layer?

-Slew

[taparoo]

Originally Posted by slewofboots

Are you starting the DVD project by creating a Video "compilation" (or whatever MyDVD calls your project)? Use the DVD burning Wizard to start a video project. Read the manual or, the program probably has some kind of Help menu with an "online" manual of sorts.

Anyway once you get that done you should see a folder called VIDEO_TS (and probably also an AUDIO_TS folder, ignore it - it's just there to retain compliance with old-school DVD players) into which you toss all the contents of the VIDEO_TS folder (i.e. .vob files, etc.) you downloaded, then just burn it.

Remember a standard, single-layer DVD+ (or -) R holds a bit less than 4.4GB. So if you downloaded something larger , you'll need to either use DVDShrink to shrink it down (you'll need to read tutorials - that program's use isn't easily explained) to 4.4GB or use a dual-layer DVD. Does your burner support dual-layer?

-Slew

I'm reading the supported video file types in the help window and I don't see .VOB files anywhere in the list. So maybe it doesn't support those types of files? I'll explain what I do in the program, maybe that'll help...

I open up the program, get a choice of "new project", "direct to disc" (for capturing video from an external source/video camera>to computer), "edit disc", and "open project". I click on "new project", which gives me two options: "DVD-video" and "Video CD", so I click DVD-video which takes me to a screen where I can edit the menu, and the options on the left read "add files", "capture video", "get recorded tv shows" and "new slideshow". So I click add files, and I try to open one of the .VOB files in the VIDEO_TS folder and it won't let me, that window that I told you about pops up. I've also tried opening the whole VIDEO_TS folder which didn't work, and I've tried dragging and dropping VOB files into the screen and dragging the VIDEO_TS folder to the screen which doesn't work. And I'm pretty sure the data limit on the DVD isn't an issue because the program says that there's 4.7 gigs of memory on them and the VIDEO_TS folder I'm trying to burn is 4.12 gigs.
Hmmm...

Originally Posted by taparoo

Awesome. Re-installing it worked like a charm. That seemed obvious enough . Thanks a million.

Another problem seems to have arisen, though. I was under the impression that I could make DVDs that I dl'd from here (i.e. with files like .VOB format) with MyDVD. When I go to add these type of files (.VOB) it brings up a message that says "Runtime error: minute out of range -3". I'm puzzled here. Is it impossible for me to make DVDs like that from MyDVD?

What program do you use for burning data DVDs? If you got the files from this site, they've already been authored and do not need any more work...unless you only want part of the video on the finished DVD--don't do any more authoring on them! You've got several options for burning video DVDs from the authored fileset you're working with.

Option 1 is that you take the files into your main burning program that you'd use for your data discs (I'm going to presume you've got Easy Media Creator alongside this MyDVD program, correct?), chose the video DVD option, plunk the contents of the VIDEO_TS folder into the VIDEO_TS folder in the program (I've never used the DVD feature of Easy Media Creator, so I merely presume it is like the other burning programs), and burn. This will create your standard video DVD that will work in a vast majority of standalones.

Option 2 is that you stick the VIDEO_TS folder and the stray text files into a data DVD project and burn that. The resulting disc may cause problems in some standalones, and I don't recommend this type of data DVD for video.

Option 3 (my personal favorite) is that you start up a data DVD project, put the VIDEO_TS folder in it, then create a new folder called EXTRAS_TS and stick your text files, artwork, md5s, and other miscellaneous artwork in that new folder. This will create a disc that will play in almost as many players as Option 1, and if you format the paths on your md5 file correctly, you can test the files without moving them off the disc.

Here's what the paths should look like on the correctly formatted md5 file for option 3:

8d50cba158b40a75dd32cada8964aef7 *../VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.BUP
8d50cba158b40a75dd32cada8964aef7 *../VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.IFO
e40bd45c55f783d519c2a5c9aa088e98 *../VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB
e11aaf0c14501bbf15d776a34218c205 *../VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.BUP
e11aaf0c14501bbf15d776a34218c205 *../VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.IFO
da29301176f55de40d79be5cba560d06 *../VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB
99ba41ff0fec88e3def109b6cb824dcb *../VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB
6c20fa2d2232106310d61dce30cd3e29 *../VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_2.VOB

[taparoo]

That worked! All I had to do was slap the files as data on a disc. I feel very stupid now. Thank you guys so much! I really appreciate the help.

[slewofboots]

yeah, remember that a DVD is simply regular old data (obviously a special format, .vob) just stuck in a video_ts folder on the root (i.e. lowest folder level) of the disc.