Tong Family

_Great questions from my buddy Dan about how to get formats back and forth_
Say Rich, what’s the best way to:
# Burn .WMV files onto a DVD in DVD format?
# Produce a photo slide show video?
Well, there is the best way and there is the easiest way. So, easiest way answers are below that I’ve gathered from a ton of sites
# WMV to DVD. Well, this is an easy question to answer conceptual, but hard as heck to actually do. WMV is a special Windows Media format, so you have to uncompress it and then recompress it in the native MPEG-2 that a standard DVD uses. The tools that exists are really primitive, but assuming you have enough hard disk
# Photo Slide Show. I’m glad you asked this since I’m about to do one for Jon Roberts. Reportedly the absolutely best way to do this is with iDVD on the Macintosh. I have a Mac, but haven’t figure this out yet. The simplest way to do it is with the built in tool that Windows XP has (it is actually a licensed version of Roxie as I understand it). It lets you drag JPEGs and then you can set it to music. Then you have to convert it into MPEG-2

So that’s the conceptual answers, here are the step-by-step guides:
h4. WMV to DVD
Buy a product call “DVD Ripper”:http://www.dvd-ripper.biz/super-dvd-creator.htm that claims to do this. I haven’t tried it, but there is a trialware tool that lets you experiment. Its the number one hit on google so worth some time.
If you want a step-by-step guide for something that I know works, here it is:
# WMV to MPG File. Buy from “Pegasys.com”:http://pegasys.com. They make a product called Tmpgenc Express that is a very popular shareware tool that is now a commerical product. See “DVD Guides”:http://www.dvd-guides.com/content/view/55/59/
# MPG to DVD. DVDs need to be authored with some wierdo files and folder structures and right now you need a special tool to go from a simple MPEG-2 file (a .mpg) and convert it into the zillions of .vob, .ifo files. I use “DVDLab”:http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/ for this purpose, but it is kind of wierd and widgety, but lets you create menus and make the DVD look really nice. Again, there is a trialware version, but you essentially suck in a .mpg, create some nice DVD menus and then compile a DVD.