avi file not accessible

[gspapabear]

I am totally new to burning DVDs so please bear with me. I am trying to open an avi file in DVD Movie Factory 3.5 Suite. (I have purchased the MPEG2 Pack) When I go to open the file so I can burn it to DVD for playback on my home DVD player I get the message that the file "cannot be accessed". The odd thing is that it plays in the preview in the open file window and I can open other file types. What am I doing wrong? The file plays fine in Windows media player. Am I trying to do something that can't be done? This is a high def video file that I pulled off the net. (Truth is I missed last weeks episode of LOST and would like to view it on something other than my small computer screen.)

Do I need to try to convert the avi file to some other type? I don't care if I lose the high def as long as I get it to the size of the TV screen.

[DVDDoug]

"AVI" does not tell the whole story. AVI is a "container" format that can hold various compression-formats.

The Read This First... post at the top of the forum tells you what we need to know in order to help you.

HD is new in Movie Factory 5, so you might try downloading the trial version. But, I doubt that the file is really HD, because it would be huge... maybe 20GB. (And, you can't put HD on a "regular" DVD.... I should say, if you do, it won't be compliant, and won't play on most DVD players.) For information about what resolutions and bitrates are allowd for DVD, check-out DigitalFAQ.com.

You could try a 3rd party conversion program to convert the file to AVI/DV or MPEG-2. One program you can try is SUPER (FREE !!!)