my philips dvp642 died after nearly a year of use. the replacement dvd player someone was kind enough to get me is a Toshiba that doesn't play avi/divx/xvid like i'm used to, so i've been researching a dvd burner. i've got boatloads of avi movies and the prospect of converting everything we want to watch seems a bit tedious. what little experience i have with converting avis for vcds makes me wary as it has taken quite a long time on my PIII 800. granted, i was using Nero, which i have since learned is quite slow in that regard. but i realize that conversion speed is dependent on cpu power, which i am admittedly lacking. is it worth getting a dvd burner to watch my avi movies, or will the conversion times negate the benefits? i'm leaning towards the dvd player route, though a dvd burner would be nice for increased storage. thanks, puthupa
The conversion from AVI to MPEG2 or MPEG1 loses quality in video. Also keep in mind you have a PIII with 800MHZ. I think your best bet would be to, buy a new dvd player that supports xvid and divx, and to get a DVD burner so you can store more Video files on one disc.
I agree about the capability of reading AVI files. Having a DVD player capable to play AVI files is very nice. About your question, as often it happens, the answer to your question is [bold]'..depends on what you'll to do with it!'.[/bold] If you only plan to convert low/middle quality AVIs, the answer is 'converting a 600 MB AVI into a 720x480/576 DVD movie is a waste of time. A DVD burner is useless'. If you'll convert about 4-6 movies into (S)VCD movies and author them into a DVD containing 4500 MB of (S)VCD movies (800 MB = either 80' [VCD movie] or approx 50' [SVCD movie]) or do backup your DVDs (or your games burned on a DVD media) as anti-scratch measure , the answer is 'yes, a DVD burner is a good thing'. It's you the duty to answer yourself...
i agree - i am utterly spoiled by having the dvp642. the quality wasn't the best, but our tv is crap so it was quite doable. the dvd player we have now was a well-intentioned gift tht will require some tact to return. out of curiosity, how long would the conversion take? Nero took something like 5-7 hrs the few occasions i tried, but i don't profess to having known what i was doing at all. i don't necessarily have to author SVCDs of the avis and then burn them to dvd, will i? couldn't i just burn several avis like i burn a data disc on cd? i definitely want a dvd burner and i've got my eyes on the BenQ DW1640. time to find the dvd player recommendations here. thanks for the replies.
