Another DVD Question

[jpub]

Okay, so I've got some video files (avi) that I want playable on a DVD player. Ideally, I want to burn a DVD-Video disc complete with a menu.
I know Apple has a nifty program that does this free with MacOSX, is there a *good* freebie program for Windows anyone knows of?--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

[Xenoproctologist]

Not really...
Problem is, MPEG-2 and AC3 encoder patents cost money to license. So that "free" Apple program really isn't. And any free, easy to use utility will get hit up for protection money.

That said:
If you have Windows XP Media Center Edition or one of the prem-o versions of Vista, DVD encoding should be built in.
Reasonably current versions of the Nero Burning Rom suite should have DVD burning somewhere between "everything" and "the kitchen sink".
You can use a fairly wretched and unusable chain of free utilities to cobble something functional together. (see www.doom9.org/index.html?/mpg/avi2dvdr.htm; I think HC and QEnc are the free encoders)

[jpub]

Dangit.
My version of Nero Burning rom will burn the DVD Video, but it only seems to want to burn DVD Video files (ie VOB, etc).
--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel
"Camaraderie, adventure, and steel on steel. The stuff of legend! Right, Boo?"

[Xenoproctologist]

If it's Nero 6 or 7 OEM or Essentials edition, they offer a DVD authoring plugin thing for $25 or so, though I don't know if that gives you menu creation capabilities. Or, you could bite the bullet and upgrade to Nero 7 Ultra Enhanced OMGWTFBBQ Edition for some undisclosed amount presumed to be less than the "special" (read: regular) online price of $80.

[ordnance11]

I'm afraid Xeno is right. For a Nero 6 or 7 version you'll need the DV author plug-in. With that, you can burn any video file for a dvd player.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Morganite]

I happen to have a version of Nero that includes the NeroVision Express dvd authoring program. I haven't used it too much, but for simple things it's functional, and you can do quite a bit to make the menus look different ways... but they all boil down to a selecting movies from a list. If you want to do more involved things, it's probably not going to be sufficient.
DimadSoft has some products that allow editing various things once you have dvd format files (a couple of them free), but you have to really know the dvd command language if you wanted to do anything fancy. And of course none of them do the encoding. But something might be useful to fill in for inadequacies of some other program.
-Morgan."Mikuru-chan molested me! I'm... so happy!"
-Haruhi, "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
---(Not really)

[kestrel404]

I like the Slysoft's CloneDVD & CloneDVD mobile. It will convert just about any media you can play on your PC into a DVD that will play on any standard DVD player.
Yes, it costs money, but as posters above have noted, all software that can write MPEG-2 costs money because the patents are still in force. However, the programs on the site have trial periods (granted, a few of them are crippleware, so you only get limited feature sets), so if this is all you're going to be doing with it, you're golden.
If you do buy, the bundle pricing is a good deal.
Also, AnyDVD is excellent for getting heavily DRMd discs to play on your computer.
"Not this again!" Minerva said. "Albus, it was You-Know-Who, not you, who marked Harry as his equal. There is no possible way that the prophecy could be talking about you!" - Harry Potter and the Method of Rationality, Chapter 84

[VladimirTherin]

"gui for dvd author" for menus.
svcd2dvd for cross encoding to a dvd-kosher format
( despite the name, it should do anything you can download)