Did a Bittorrent download of Divx - How do I burn it to CDR?

[Muse]

I did a Bittorrent download yesterday of Rick Prelinger's Panorama Ephemera, an 89 minute sort of video collage of Americana presumably so basic it can escape people's consciousness (so ordinary you don't think about it). Anyway, I've not seen it yet, just heard about it. The download was legal, AFAIK. Anyway, now I have this panorama_ephemera.avi file and want to burn it to a CDRW. If I like it, I'll just do a disk copy to CDR. I have Nero 6 Ultra. How do I do it? Do I just start a new ISO compilation and drag the file in there and burn? There's a couple of Video CD modes available, Video CD and Super Video CD, so it's just plain confusing to me, a virtual neophyte. Well, I've copied a lot of audio CD's and backed up data to CDR, but I don't know video. Help appreciated!

 

[Crusty]

If you want to play it in a dvd player then you need to transcode it into a VCD of some sort, but if you just want to back it up, then just write the .avi file to the cd.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: MCrusty
If you want to play it in a dvd player then you need to transcode it into a VCD of some sort, but if you just want to back it up, then just write the .avi file to the cd.

Woops. Looks like I'm making a backup right now, then, to CDR. Damn! How do I transcode it using Nero? I have some freeware video utilities, too. Any links, words of advice, appreciated.

 

[duragezic]

Yeah Nero will just burn it to the cd as .avi. I don't have a DVD player so I've never done the conversion, but it's very popular. Check out this page . If you can't find what you need on that website, then... ahh.. well you will find it.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: duragezic
Yeah Nero will just burn it to the cd as .avi. I don't have a DVD player so I've never done the conversion, but it's very popular. Check out this page . If you can't find what you need on that website, then... ahh.. well you will find it.

Yeah, I guess it's DVD2SVCD (I think that's the name). But ya know what? The AVI plays on my PC OK and the CDR with the AVI plays OK in my Philips DVP642 DVD player (bought for around $60). Maybe it's already been "transcoded" to play in DVD players. Like I say, I'm very very raw in video technology. I have another CDR with an AVI that I downloaded by Bittorrent, Fahrenheit 911, and it seems to play fine also, just burned as an ISO by Nero Ultra. However, my Bittorent download of Bowling for Columbine doesn't play! Maybe it's just not in the right codec for my players (I have two DVD components, aside from my DVD burner in my PC).

 

[Nithin]

dvp642 has divx support. your avi won't play in non-divx dvd players. it has not been transcoded.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: MCrusty
If you want to play it in a dvd player then you need to transcode it into a VCD of some sort, but if you just want to back it up, then just write the .avi file to the cd.

Don't know why, but it does play alright burned to CDR as an ISO in my Philips DVP642 DVD player (which I bought for under $57, after MIR last summer). First tried burning it to a CDRW, but Nero reported that the disk didn't have enough room. Guess there's a little more room on my CDR's. The file is 708.7 MB.

BTW, it was by far the quickest Bittorrent download I've done (my 3rd, I guess), and probably well worth it: Rick Prelinger's "Panorama Ephemera." The BT download took probably 5-6 hours. You can do a Google search on it and read very positive reviews and find the link to the (legal) download.

Edit next day, after viewing the divx: I withdraw any endorsement I made for the Panorama Ephemera divx. I didn't like it except for a few moments here and there.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: Nithin
dvp642 has divx support. your avi won't play in non-divx dvd players. it has not been transcoded.

Oh, I dig what you are saying. It has to be transcoded to play in DVD players that DON'T support Divx (Mpeg4), right? Yeah, I knew the Philips supports Divx. So does my Momitsu V880, my other DVD player.

Anyway, for some reason neither DVD player will play my Divx of Bowling for Columbine. It does play on my PC, though.

 

[duragezic]

Wow, I never knew DVD players could play divx files. Neat. Well, saves you the hassle of converting to VCD/SVCD (not sure about the difference, but VCD should work on all DVD players) at least.

 

[Carnage4]

www.doom9.org has some nice encoding info
www.vcdhelp.com has what your player will support

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: duragezic
Wow, I never knew DVD players could play divx files. Neat. Well, saves you the hassle of converting to VCD/SVCD (not sure about the difference, but VCD should work on all DVD players) at least.

It played well enough in my Philips DVP642 last night. I suppose it might be better quality than a transcoded VCD or SVCD if the transcoding is anything like what happened when I tried to burn a DVD of my digicam generated AVI's! Man, the degradation was soooooo disappointing. I still have to find a suitable workaround for THAT problem. TMPGEnc, maybe...

I withdraw any endorsement I made further up the thread for the Panorama Ephemera divx. I didn't like it except for a few moments here and there.