What do you guys use that works well? I basically just have a bunch of AVI and MPEG movies that I want the ability to burn to a DVD. I know they need to be converted and dont want to deal with making menus since its just a movie.
I used to have a sweet free program that basically you added the files, click PAL or NTSC and then let it go and it burned it into one simple dvd image. It was free and off the Afterdawn forums but cant seem to find it anymore.
Windows Movie Maker? Used it once and it worked well.
convertXtodvd free and works awesome. get a copy from btjunkie
http://www.xilisoft.com/avi-to-dvd-converter.html
I’ve used this several times. Whole movies or multiple episodes of a show all set up easily. Drag and drop setup. Just make sure your burn speeds are set correctly.
Also:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/3677083/Xilisoft_avi_to_DVD_converter_v3.0.26___keygen
Thanks for the tips. I did find WinAVI on usenet with a portable version. Burned a dvd. Converted 2 videos to a dvd it in 10 minutes. Seems to play right on my computer, going to try on a dvd player tonight. Even made a dvd menu with chapters which was impressive.
I basically want the ability to take a few videos and throw them on to a dvd for some people.
I know it’s not exactly an answer to your question, but I just ended up buying players that can handle AVI/Divx.
I’ve got a $40 Philips for the basement that plays anything you throw at it, a $200 Philips HT system for the bedroom that does the same, and just bought an Oppo 981 for the main theater system in the living room.
Keeps from having to deal with all of the transcoding and stuff like that. Just burn data straight to CD/DVD, and play away.
Ahhh, but my solution above won’t help you here.
I just use the full version of Nero and it takes any video files I’ve thrown at it and converts and burns them to a playable DVD. You can also create menus on the DVD with Nero.
Ya thanks for your input. I just output from my laptop to my TV for movies but this is the portability to other people’s “standard” dvd players 
I used to love Nero but it now has about 20 different programs it tries to install. How fast is it? Is there a quick way to just add them and let it rip or do you have to make a menu?
That is one thing that really impressed me with WinAVI that I tried. Added 2 1 hour long avi dvdrips and it converted them to a DVD in 10 minutes.
It’s pretty slow. I’d say its about a 1:1 ratio (movie length vs encoding time). It automatically makes a menu for you, but you can edit it if you want. Not sure which version I have, I just know its Nero Platinum something or other (I’m at work now, so can’t check). For copying and ripping I use DVD Fab.