HOW TO BURN MOVIES WITH NERO VISION EXPRESS

Once you have your .avi files edited and saved, you can burn them off onto a DVD with very little trouble. This process is going to use a lot of your hard drive in order to work, so don't start it until you have a couple of hours where you can leave the computer alone, since much of its memory will be in use. Close all programs not needed (Windows Messenger, Outlook Express, etc). 

Open Nero Vision Express.

Click Make DVD > DVD Video. (If this option is not showing up, it means the software cannot find your DVD-R drive. It may not be plugged in via the USB port.)

Choose "Add Video Files." Only do one movie per disk unless there's a lot of room, or you're recording off edited television series episodes. (You can do up to three with medium quality, but I prefer two episodes at a high quality.) If you do more than one .avi file, make certain they are in the proper order.

From here you can do several optional things. One is to Create Chapters, where you decide where chapters begin and end. If you have time and know what you want, this is a neat way to organize your disk. If you want it to do it automatically, click "More" at the bottom of the screen, then select "Create Chapters Automatically." You can also "Edit Your Movie" by adding special effects (home videos mostly) or trimming scenes, but it's much harder to use than other software and doesn't do as good of a job when cutting things. So at this point, I'd click Next.

Here will be your menu page.

As you can see, I already have a menu that I made in Adobe Photoshop. Make sure your image is big enough to come out clearly on your television screen. Allow for margins (you can see them in the dotted lines on the image). There are options for how big you want the selected episode windows to be, whether they should have borders, what color they should be, how the font should look, and other things. Just click inside the dotted lines, and you'll see a new menu on your right hand side.

Never have the blue bar go past the dotted red line. That line indicates how much data or media a normal DVD can hold. Don't go over it! 

Once you have the menu looking the way you want it, click Next. Up will come a screen that allows you to see what the menu will look and sound like your television. You can select the movie or an episode and watch a few minutes to make certain it looks all right on your screen. Then click Next.

On the next screen, choose "Burn to" and select the right drive. Open the drive and put a blank disk into it. Once the hourglass goes away (the drive is being recognized and readied), hit BURN. Watch it for a couple of minutes to make sure no error messages pop up, then leave the computer to do its work and go occupy yourself with something else. It will take about an hour and five minutes per hour of media on a normal computer. Higher speed computers will go faster.