I am a novice at this dvd burning lark and need some advice i have just recently burned an avi file which i downloaded from kazaa ... it took 20 yes 20 hours to convert and when it finally completed the picture was upside down ?????? why is it taking so long and why is it upside down ?? any help would be much appreciated !!!!

You downloaded a DivX. You converted it with Nero. That's your problem in a nutshell. This is a known problem with Nero. Either install a current DivX codec or try using something like TMPGenc to convert. Nero's encoder is considered to be very poor. It's also very slow, as you discovered. Are you really making a DVD out of this file? DivX is a lossy codec and not something I would consider a real good choice for conversion to DVD unless you don't care too much if the final result is blocky.

You are very lucky that this is a known problem so you could get some pointers on it. Your message did not provide either of these details, so you are lucky that I happen to know exactly what you are talking about. For future reference, the less you tell people about what you did, the less likely you are to get help.

I am actually using V.O.B instant cd/dvd 6.5 but i assume that the same would apply, where do i get hold of TMPGenc and how do i use it ??? please be gentle with me
p.s Thanks for the help !!

Never heard of the software you used, but you can get TMPGenc at http;//www.tmpgenc.net. There are some guides to using it at http://www.vcdhelp.com. I have read that sometimes loading the most recent DivX codec you can find will fix the problem you described. I'm not really into DivX so I can't provide any better details. http://www.divx-digest.com and http://www.doom9.net might be good places to get DivX info. I have read about a few desperate guys who fed their DivX downloads into Virtual Dub and used Virtual Dub to flip the video image prior to encoding. That's an advanced task and might be too complicated for you to do, but if nothing else works you can try that. I think Virtual Dub can be found at http://www.virtualdub.com (not sure about the .com part - try .org or .net if you can't find it. Doom9 should have a copy in the Downloads section.).

Tmpgenc is a Good Newbie Program to use as it is pretty Easy to learn the basics of it and I have never heard of anyone getting an upside down picture useing Tmpgenc....

Thanks Guys i have just downloaded tmpgenc and it all looked as though it would be ok ...... and then <boom> tmpgenc said file is unsupported i have double checked and the file is actually Xvid and i have the right codec for that......... it has also popped up a wonderful message saying error in Kernell32.dll ??? what the hell is this and why is it happening to me ?? i feel like tearing my hair out !!! any suggestions ??

There are some things you have to Know about tmpgenc as you will Run into certian Problems with it from time to time and if you don"t know how to deal with them You Will Tear your Hair out...lol ,OK..First off Tmpgenc doesn"t like Xvid files Very Much, Well It isn"t the Files them selves it doesn"t like the XviD codec ,So you should delete the XviD codec unless you use it for something else like Compressing files to XviD, and Download and install the "FFDShow Mpeg4 Decoder" and configure it to decode XviD files ,This should take care of an error you will get when you are encodeing which is something to do with ntdll.dll..To get rid of the "Can Not Open Or Unsupported" Error go to "Options" to "Enviromental Settings" to "Vfapi Plugins" and Raise the Priority of the "Direct Show MultiMedia File Reader" to "2" ...And Tmpgenc doesn"t like Some Audio formats namely VBR Mp3 and AC3 audio so if you get a File that uses either of these audio Formats you will Need to extract the audio from the Avi file to Wav format then use the Wav file as the audio source in Tmpgenc, There are Lots of Programs that can Extract the audio from an AVI file but Virtual Dub or AVI-Mux are a couple common ones..This is one of the Biggest reasons why Downloaded Movies suck for trying to make (S)VCD or DVD"s Out of and Because Many use Non standard Frame Rates and Resolutions..I have downloaded files that had Frame rates of 12.5fps and 14.95fps so trying to convert these to 29.97fps is a real hassle and it looks like crap...well anyways Good Luck

nice one guys thanks for the help it seems that most of my software doesnt like the xvid format .... so i tried a divx and a standard avi file and it was fine guess i will have to stick to downloading these or get the ffd mpeg 4 decoder i think i will leave you alone now !!!!!!! thanks from a greatful noobie

The 3 web sites I mentioned in an earlier post (everything except the Virtual Dub site) are excellent places to get information about various things in the video world. Just a word of warning - Doom9's forums can be useful, but the majority of the people there are extremely arrogant and few are helpful. A few years ago I did have a problem with the DVD2SVCD software and got some great help, but I've also posted a few questions that no one ever answered. Always search the forums at Doom9 before posting as if you dare to post a question that has already been asked, you will regret it. People on this forum are generally more friendly and less hung up on answering the same questions over and over again.