I'm a writer/director who has a short film on MiniDV. I have transferred it to my PC via IEEE, and would like to edit it and create a DVD of it using just my CDR burner. Can it be done? If so, how?

-- Phar Fingerz (PhatFingerz@hotmail.com), January 16, 2003

Answers

You can create a DVD on your computer, but you won't be able to burn it as a DVD using just a CD burner. Even burning a DVD mpeg2 stream to a CD as an XVCD won't run in DVD players as the bit rate of DVD mpeg2 streams is too high to be read from CD media.

If you are looking to create a DVD for distribution, you'll have to create a master either on DLT ($1500+ for a machine) or on a DVD burner that can burn masters. Most DVD burners can not burn masters, even though they may burn disks that can be played in DVD players. Currently, I think that only Pioneer makes an affordable DVD burner that burns masters; their new burner has a list of $299.

Cheers,

-- No One (no@one.com), January 16, 2003.

No One's answer is not exactly correct. You can burn DVD format to CD-R media. However, very very few standalone DVD players are capable of playing such discs. Also, at bit rates of 4000 Kbps, which is fairly low for DVD video, you get about 22 or so minutes of video on an 80 minute CD-R. If you use a higher bit rate, you will decrease the recording time as it will take more space on the CD-R. http://www.doom9.net has some guides on making your own DVDs to various media including CD-R. DVD format on CD-R is commonly called "miniDVD". miniDVDs are playable on any computer with a software DVD player. In fact, you can play them on a CD-R drive if you install a software DVD player. You'll need to decide if the limited recording time and the inability to play miniDVD on most standalone DVD players is worth doing or if you need to invest in a DVD burner.

-- Root (root@yahoo.moc), January 16, 2003.

What a jerk!

-- Lee (Lee@singnet.com), January 17, 2003.

I would LOVE to star in that one also. In fact, I've seen the movie he directed with Vin Diesel. It was cool!

-- Miriam Rivera (MiriamRivera2@hotmail.com), January 20, 2003.

Damn, I've been trying to contact Phat, but he said he NEVER posted that stupid answer about the 'NEW MOVIE'. -Sorry Phat, I though you wrote it.

-- Miriam Rivera (MiriamRivera2@hotmail.com), January 20, 2003.

TOO BAD.

-- CRUELA DEVILLE (MIRIAMRIVERA2@HOTMAIL.COM), January 20, 2003.

O.K.

-- CAT (FOURLUCKY1@AOL.COM), January 20, 2003.