Convert any file to DVD using WinAVI (with permanent subtitles)

Tools: WinAVI 7.1, VobSub 2.23 Site 2, Nimo Codec Pack Site 2

For convenience install in this order: WinAVI, Nimo and then VobSub. Nimo Codec Pack contains all of the essential codecs (e.g., Xvid, Divx) required to decode your video files so that they can be converted to DVD format.

1. Open up WinAvi and click on the DVD button and choose your AVI/MPG file(s):

2. You can now arrange the files in the order they will play on your DVD player. Keep in mind that you probably don't want the total length of all of your selected video titles to be greater than 2 hours or the quality loss will be noticeable. You can also create a folder on your hard drive called "output" for the DVD files or browse to one:

3. Next click "Advanced" and keep these options in mind:

You may want to change your aspect ratio to 16:9 if you have a widescreen TV, but I leave mine at 4:3 for the highest compatibility. The film appears in letterbox format if it's widescreen. When you're finished, click OK.

4. All that's left to do is click OK on the previous screen from step 2 and it'll start encoding your video into standard DVD format with no menu, one title after the other with a chapter every 15 minutes. It should take 1/2 the length of the film to convert (pretty fast compared to other methods).

5. Permanent Subtitles: If you want permanent subtitles, just make sure your SRT or SUB file is in the same folder as your film and also has the same name (e.g., film.avi, film.srt). When your film is being converted the VobSub icon should appear in your system tray and you can click on the "Preview" checkbox to make sure they're showing up. Here's a VobSub guide if you need extra settings help other than the default options (these worked fine for me and produced great subtitles). To make it as simple as possible, move any other language subtitle files into another folder and rename the one you want to the same name as the film.

6. Now burn your DVD files with your favorite burning program. I use Nero. You can test your DVD files by dragging and dropping the VIDEO_TS.IFO file onto Windows Media Player Classic. You can also test VobSub by playing your film using this program and whatever WMPC shows should be what your DVD should look like. WMPC should be included in the Nimo Codec Pack but you can use the link above to download it directly.