Advice please 1. Making CD's 2. Editing Video

I have never been successful making CD's on my computer. I am hoping
to find some simple program that will allow me to drop in songs and
then just burn to CD. Like to be able to do menu and any features
recommended by others who have done it for a while.

Sordo...

Best burning software: "Nero"

jimstevens...

I will go that way. Thanks

El Castor...

Go to Yahoo Shopping and do a search on "Nero 6". You will pay under
$10, plus shipping. Version 7 is out, but Version 6 will do what you
want just as well. What you are getting is the OEM version which is
bundled with after market CD and DVD writers. Resellers unbundle the
software from the drive and sell it separately -- practically for
free. Last time I checked, it was upgradeable to the latest version by
downloading a patch from the Nero web site. This is the best deal in
the universe for commercially produced software.

jimstevens...

I have heard a great deal about Nero as a DVD writer and nothing but
good things. I did not realize it also did CD's. I will look at it
first. As to shipping, I will buy online if possible as that is
easier.

Exactly what you mean by "drop in songs", I'm not sure. Nero will burn

jimstevens...

Just an expression. I have group of songs and decide to put them onto
a CD. I know how to do that with video and bought ConvertXtoDVD. Just
load the items you want and then arrange them in any order you want.
Write whatever title desired, use any desired image as backdrop for
menu, set the fonts for title and individual items listed and it will
produce the item reliably.

Nero will burn

Rita...

I have used Nero and agree it is far better than the burning
software that came bundled on my computer. Should I wish to
burn in the future, I'd definitely get it.

As for "drop in" songs, as I recall Nero works like most burning
software in that you select the songs from the place they are
stored on your computer, expanding the directory of the C
drive until you get to that place. Not exactly complicated if
you know your way around your C drive and know where you
have stored the mp3s you want to burn.

Jean Smith...

Doesn't it all come down to dragging the folder with the photos to
the drive icon? That's what we did with someone's Katrina CD while
camping out at the seabee base in Gulfport.

jimstevens...

I can do that. Thanks.

MP3's to a data disk which can be played in any CD player that
understands MP3's, or I believe it will convert the MP3 to a standard
CD audio track before burning it -- or you can do the conversion with
any number of freeware programs, and then use Nero to burn the CD.

jimstevens...

ConvertXtoDVD does that to video. Takes DIVX, XVID, AVI or whatever
else and produces the IFO, VOB and what ever files needed.

Rumpelstiltskin...

I'll be taking back a DVD/CD player that supposedly plays MP3's
to radio shack today. This is the second player I've tried that won't
play my MP3 disks, which my old, regrettably now defunct, KLH
player has no problem with. I'm not going to buy another one now
unless I can try it in the store to see if it can recognize the MP3
Disk. I do have MP3's on the front end of my disks, and data files
on the ends, but the KLH had no problem with that. Maybe the
problem is that both these DVD/CD players I've tried will run
picture files too, and the non-MP3 tracks make the player think my
MP3 disks are picture disks. I'm going to see if there's still such
a thing as a CD/MP3 player that's not DVD and other things as
well as being a music player.

Here's a web site that has everything you could ever want to know
about burning CD's and DVD's -- also editing, converting formats --
whatever. They are oriented more towards video, but have a forum which
also has a discussion section devoted to audio. With over 5,000
threads just about ripping and burning audio, any question you could
possibly ask will have already been asked and answered a dozen times.
(-8

jimstevens...

The website?? My eyes are not so good. :)

Second task. Want to be able to easily edit various kinds of video.
Cut out bits or add bits in. Have a wedding DVD I reworked but did it
badly with some monster crippleware that came with Sony VAIO (Adobe
Premier Standard). This program was ok for editing but unstable in
output. It showed the audio and video tracks and allowed snipping out
bits and such but produced a real monster file that was much too big
for DVD. I have found that oftentimes there are better programs
available for free or mininal fee that are also much smaller then
these giant commercial things. I am convinced from commentary on Sony
sites that they loaded this Premier Standard as a dog to get folks to
upgrade and spend several hundred bucks.

Sordo...

I don't do video......

jimstevens...

It is pick and shovel learning process. I can do a lot of tasks and
just learned how to bust open DVD files that are up to four GB and
shrink them down to something smaller. Take five good fishing DVD's
and reduce them to one saving a lot of space. Sacrificing a bit of
quality is of no concern. But, editing video I have failed at.

Have to edit wedding video.

Appreciate varied advice on these two jobs.

El Castor...

"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into."
Jonathan Swift

Rumpelstiltskin...

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the
argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves" -- Wm. Pitt the Younger