Burning DVD's
 

Just picked up a Sony DVD Burner, got a few questions as to what I can and can't do.. I got a full tv series, .avi format.. can I burn however many will fit to dvd, in a way that they will play on a dvd player? and second, im getting a dvd iso off a torrent, if I use nero to burn image, will that work in a dvd player as well?

First thing I would check is if your DVD Player supports DivX. If it does and those AVI's are DivX encoded, you should just be able to burn a normal DVD-ROM w/ AVIs and it should play. Granted I never have done this personally (I don't own any DivX enabled DVD Players)...

As for a DVD ISO, personally I wouldn't use Nero. I would use DVD Decrypter or Alcohol 120% (preferably the former). Then if it's a ISO of a DVD Video, then yes, it'll play.

My DVD player is reviewed here.. http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_DVP_NS7...2.html?tag=nav

you read it and tell me if it'll work with the avi's. Second, no nero huh, so which would you recomend, DVD Decryptor? Whats wrong with Nero? Im not meaning to do this full time or anything, just for this one movie I dled.

http://www.dealtime.com/xPF-Sony_DVP_NS725P

Didn't even have to check out the player, it's a Sony so right there I can say it won't playback .avi files. I usually don't advise converting .avi to DVD but in this case since it's just for a few episodes I recommend getting your hands on Nero somehow. I rarely deal with that program but I believe Nero Recode should do the job for you. A request may be in order but it's the simplest way of converting .avi to DVD files.

Leme know why you don't recomend it? I want to know if recoding them or w/e to get them to work is more of a waste of time, and if it'll just lower the quality.

As you have guessed, it will indeed lower the quality. Your AVI files have already been reduced in quality from the original source, since they will have been compressed with a lossy video codec such as DivX or XviD. Transcoding them to MPEG-2, which is required in order to make a video DVD, will only further lower the quality.

All that said, the process will work, if you use a program such as NeroVision Express to convert your files, but you will be left with an ugly picture full of macroblocking and other artifacts. I'd be far more inclined to use a computer with a graphics card that has a TV-Out connection, or better still, a modded xbox. That way you get the best quality possible picture from the files you have.

I went with a modded xbox. It's not too expensive, and it's an amazing piece of kit. It never fails to play any video files that I've attempted to use with it.