Video vs. DVD

nancyd · Post by **nancyd** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 3:46 pm

Hi,

I recently created a ULead Video and used "Share" to create .mpg files to copy each to a DVD, associating menus and creating my movie.

I am making copies for folks and the following question was asked of me:
"Is it video or DVD?"

This confuses me since the video that gets created using ULead can be placed on a DVD - so my answer would be "Yes" and "Yes".

My question to you...

Can any video on a DVD be played both on a computer and also on a TV DVD player?

Might this be what the question is referring to?

Thanks in advance!

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 4:31 pm

From VideoHelp.com

DVD stands for Digital Versatile/Video Disc. A DVD-Video disc must have MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video files. DVD-RAM has the best recording features but it is not compatible with most DVD-ROM drives and DVD-Video players. Think more of it as a removable hard disk.

So to answer your question of "is it video or DVD", the answer is "yes", as most DVDs as we know them are DVD-Video.

I'm not sure if your people asking the question really know what they are asking.

Could they be comparing VHS (video) to DVD?

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Wed Dec 02, 2009 7:22 pm

If you've created a menu, then you've created a video-DVD. This is the most-standard format, and it's the best format if you're going to distribute copies.

If you simply copy or save your video files (MPG, AVI, etc.) on a DVD, then you're created a "data disc" with video files on it.

A video-DVD has a particular structure/format with a VIDEO_TS folder and an (empty) AUDIO_TS folder. It will play on any DVD player (although some players have trouble with some "burned discs"). It will also play on a computer, as long as the computer has a DVD reader and DVD-player software.

A data disc with video will play on a computer as long as the computer has the proper software/CODEC for the particular format. There are many formats and many format variations, so this can be tricky unless you choose a popular format like WMV, which all versions of Windows Media Player can play.

nancyd · Post by **nancyd** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 5:09 pm

To Black Lab and DVDDoug

Thanks for your responses and clarification!

Sometimes, dumb questions can trip you up and for a period of time makes you believe you're the dumb one until someone smart focuses you back on common sense.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:03 pm

I feel like that all the time!

Hooterville · Post by **Hooterville** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 10:39 pm

What is the best format to save a file on your computer that you are later going to burn DVD's from?

WMV?

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 10:57 pm

Hi

Mpeg 2 files are used to burn a Standard DVD.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 10:59 pm

Most definitely not! WMV is a good high quality presentation format which doesn't take up much space. But it can be difficult to edit and convert to other formats.

A DVD requires mpeg-2 (or in limited circumstances, lower quality mpeg-1). That is the international standard for DVD video. So notionally the best format to keep for later burning to DVD is mpeg-2. In another sense, though, potentially the best format is DV/AVI. It is high quality, non-lossy, and easily editable. But in practical terms, it is also huge (13 GB per hour of video) so unless you have large hard drives (internal or external) it is not really a practical format for storing many hours of video in.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Fri Dec 04, 2009 1:14 am

The confusion comes about due to slang.
a "DVD" is a disc that holds computer data.
This data can take the form of photographs, music, videos, spreadsheets, word documents, setup files, text files and anything else that can be stored on a computer hard drive.

You will notice that amongst that list I included videos.
Those videos can be in a variety of forms such as MPEG files, Flash, WMV, DivX, WMV and lots more. All of those formats can of course be played with a computer providing you have the necessary software installed.

A special format was devised to enable you to play videos in standalone players connected to your television set. These are termed Video-DVD but like I said at the start slang has reduced this to "DVD" which now you know is not quite correct because all those other video formats do not play in your standalone DVD player.