Need to put an MP4 onto a movie DVD. Best way to do this?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a short (10 minute) MP4 film that I need to get onto a DVD that would be playable in a standard DVD player hooked up to a TV. I’m trying to figure out the best way of going about this, that 1> doesn’t cost anything and 2> gives the best quality (or least degradation of quality).

I have Nero Vision Essentials, which would burn to DVD but of course can’t handle MP4 files. I also have VideoPad (video editing freeware) which I could use to convert it to another file format.

So… am I better off trying to find free DVD writing software that can handle MP4 file format? If so, any recommendations? I don’t need a lot of bells & whistles, it just needs to reliably produce disks that play, and doesn’t try to sneak in malware.

Or, am I better off converting the MP4 to a different file format and using Nero for DVD writing? If so, which file format would give me the best/least degraded a/v quality? (Nero supports a number of formats, avi, asf, mpg, mov, wmv among them, and VideoPad can export to any of those formats.)

Thanks.

2

I use either FFmpeg or DeVeDe depending on my mood. FFmpeg is quick and dirty while DeVeDe has more options.

3

For an actual video DVD, you don’t have a lot of options as far as format goes. Just pick the 720px width, keep the audio at 384 kbps A3C, and then use the highest bitrate for the video that will still fit on the disk. If the video quality is not up to snuff, you can lower the audio bitrate, but don’t go below 192 kbps. Don’t change the video’s frame rate unless you have to, and, in that case, prefer integer divisors (e.g., if it was originally 60fps, use 30 fps [60 / 2] not 24 fps [60 / 2.5]). Also utilize any advanced encoding options that increase quality. And I recommend at least the “smooth” setting if available.

DeVeDe may do this automatically, but I thought I’d give you the best recording options, anyways.

Since DeVeDe supports a menu, I definitely propose putting one in, even if it’s just an image with the word play on it that you select. A DVD without a menu just feels wrong. And the menu won’t take up much space.

4

Awesome, I knew I could count on the Dope. All my Googling never turned up DeVeDe; just a few other free programs which had, shall we say, very mixed reviews.

Thanks!

5

The program I’ve used with a lot of success is DVD Styler. Not only does it allow you to create DVD’s that play in any DVD player, you can also create menus for DVD navigation. Creating basic menus and getting your MP4 encoded are pretty easy with this.