Here is a walkthru using Nero 7 to Fix the +rw aspect ratio problem as well as incorporating 3-4 8cm discs onto 1 12cm Dvd. Please note that although you can combine any format discs using this method, I can only confirm that the +rw media recorded in widescreen is presented in its proper aspect ratio.

1st thing is we will be using the "Nero Vision" portion of the Nero 7 ultra edition so lets open that, {which should be under the sub directory "Photo and Video",thats where it is on mine, your mileage my vary}.
The first page we see asks "what would we like to do?".
Choose "Make dvd" and then "Dvd-video".
The next page should say "Content" around the upper left of the page and "what would you like to do?" in a smaller window to the right side.
1. Before we begin here we must go down to the bottom of this page and click on the tab that says "More".The option you want to click on here is "Video Options".
2. You will now see 2 tabs, the 1st being general and the 2nd being dvd video.Under general we are concerned with the "Nero smart encoding" pulldown. We want to make sure that is "Disabled".There has been some sync issues regarding this so better to turn it off.If not,use at your own risk.
Now under the "Dvd-video" tab there are a few settings that you will need to choose based on your preferences:
1. Aspect Ratio - Automatic
2. Transcoding Quality - 1st pulldown menu we see here is for "quality setting".If you plan on using a dual layer disc and want the best bang for the buck I would choose the "high quality"setting. I have used the standard play and high quality setting and have found that using high quality did give a sharper image overall.
3. Sample Format - Automatic
4. Encoding mode - High Quality 2-pass VBR
Thats it on there,click ok and were done with that. It will now ask if you want your changes to be the new default,click ok and that will take you back to the main page.

Now, over to the right under "what would you like to do" you will see an option to import disc.
Take the disc you made from your 403 and put it in your pc.Click "Import Disc" and you will see a menu pop-up asking you to select the titles you would like to import.
Click the "select all" button in the middle of the pop-up and click "OK".A small window will come up telling you its importing titles from the disc {this can take a few minutes}.

Ok,Now that the disc is done being imported you will see a thumbnail of your movie in the main window of the "Content"page.Here it will also give you some info such as the title,the resolution and the aspect ratio.

First thing we have to do is change that title as "Title 1"is quite bland for a movie on a dvd. Lets say we name it "Disc One".
To do this just right click on the file and go to "Rename" and type in the new name.Simple as that.
Now, the next thing we want to do is create chapters.
1. Right click the file and and go to "Create Chapters".
2. For the easiest way to create chapters I recommend you let the program create them for you.To do this, click on the 2nd to last button on the right{its blue}, and a pop-up will open up. You will be able to choose the sensitivity and also the chapter length.
Ok, now that thats done it will bring you back to the "Content" page.There in the main window should be a thumbnail of our "Disc One" video with the chapters we just made.
1. Right along the bottom but above the "More" button you will see a bar with the total space used.
2. Next to that is a pulldown menu. If you are going to burn your final project onto a standard Dvd it should say "DVD"in this tab, or "DVD-9" if you are using a dual layer disc.
3. Keep repeating the above steps for the rest of your discs until you run out of space to record on the Dvd your going to use.
4. Once were all done with that and have a full amount of content for our disc lets click next and create some menus!

First thing you will see on this new page is two windows. The window on the left has all of our footage that we named earlier and the window on the left has a bunch of default pics we can use for our background.We want to make sure that the pulldown menu on the upper left is set for "Main Menu"and the pulldown on the right is set for "Title and chapter menus".

Right below the window that has our footage you will see a bar with the words of whatever pic is being used for your background{The "Header" bar}. In this bar is where we will be typing the name of our DVD. We'll call this disc "Test Project".

After typing in your Dvd title you can go ahead and save your project at this point.The next thing we want to do is click the "Edit Menu" button underneath our "Header" bar.We are now at the edit menu page. The first thing you will notice on the right is a menu with the text "What would you like to change?" We will take most of these one at a time.
1. Layout - Depending on how many discs you were able to fit in your workspace,this will give you a simple layout options of how the main chapters are going to be arranged. In other words, remember the 1st disc we did named "Disc One"? That will be on the main menu and your next disc that you named will be here..and so on.
2. Background - Here we have the chance to change this to whatever we want.On top you will see 3 choices of what you can use."Solid color",""Picture or "Video".For this project we will be using "Picture".Click on the middle option and you will see quite a few generic pictures to use for your background.If none of those suit your needs and your want to use your own pic simply click on the top blue button on the left {the Circle} and then "Browse for pics".Once you have found a pic that you like you can also add a song to play by clicking on the blue button under "Browse for audio" right below the background pictures. Find an audio file you like and it will play while your at the main menu or scrolling thru the chapters menu on your dvd. Impressive!
3. Buttons -{{First off let me say that if you get confused about buttons all they simply are is borders to frame your thumbnails of your videos.Your thumbnail is actually the button itself and all your doing is just making it look a little fancy}} Here we have the option to change the default button for our project.Click on each button and it will give you an instant change that you can preview in your "Main Menu" window. Once you have chosen your button from this section there still are few things you may want to try. You can animate your button,which means when your playing back your dvd the thumbnail clip will play for about 10 seconds. One thing to remember is if you added a song that it will only repeat 10 seconds of that too! The other thing you will find here is the "Text and Numbering" layout.This section is pretty self explanitory as this is where you have the option to decide how and what order you want your clips arranged and numbered.
4. Font - Here is the option to change the font for your title.This will also give you the option to change the color as well.
5. Header/Footer text - Here is where we have the option to change the title name if we wish and also to put a description and the bottom of the page as well {the footer}.

For our purposes now we will skip the the other few things as we have covered the important ones here. If you wish to try out the others make sure you save your project first so you can always revert back.

Click next and that will bring us back to the "Select Menu" page.Once again up top you will see the pulldown menu above our project window with the words "Main Menu".What you are looking at is the discs from the 403 on the main page.

Now we'll use the pull down and open up our first disc, to see how "Disc One" looks with the chapters in place and the new buttons we chose. You may find that your chapters run into two pages and you want it on one. If thats the case, click "Edit Menu", then go into "Layout". Just as we did with the main menu.

Repeat this with the other menus until your satisfied with your layout.Click next and lets preview!

On the preview page you will see your project and a big remote control next to it. This is how it will be played on your dvd player. Test your chapter functions and your menu functions with the big remote and make sure everything is setup to your liking.Once you have confirmed everything is ok click next and your off to burn!!

Congratulations on your dvd.!!!!!!

Great job! Thanks for the detail.

any idea if this will work, or am i going to have to upgrade (i would already know but the 403 is a christmas gift for my wife)

Hi,
I "think" it should be the same for both. If anything there may be just slight differences. I had ver. 6 for years but never really used the dvd authoring portion of it. Perhaps someone who has 6 installed could give it a go and see if theres anything different? If all else fails i'm sure you wouldnt be left hanging {LOL}. If you would need help with 6 you can always ask.

i'm actually giving it to her this weekend, so i should know soon!

Any of you try to get ahold of Nero's technical support? I bought Nero 7 three weeks ago and cannnot get the program to effectively make DVD's. I have written sales@nero.com and techsupport@nero.com and they do not respond at all except for an auto e-mail that states they will contact me shortly. I called their US offices and after waiting an hour for someone to answer the guy there, Perry, told me all of their tech support is in Germany, where they are headquartered, and he had no way to see what the hold up was. I have to take my software back within a week to get a full refund and I am guessing they won't be back to me in time. I would be very careful in buying from Nero based on this fact alone.

I must first of all thank vidjunkie for posting the step-by-step guide which I found very useful.

Last night was my first venture into the world of DVD making and was quite excited by the prospect I have to admit. I managed to successfully create my own DVD and (with the help of the instructions) managed to include my own picture as a the background for the menu, a different style of 'button', my personal choice of background music and had a little play with the fonts too.

I was a little take aback at the amount of time it took for the system to scan my video to create the chapters but when it did finish the scan was most impressed with the results an accepted all suggestions.

I then clicked through the wizard to get to the burn stage and managed to burn a DVD in about 4 hours which again, I was quite surprised at how long this would take. Anyhow I left it on overnight and almost by magic when I awoke the next morning my DVD was sitting proudly in it's tray ready for me to test downstairs in the living room.

The family were gathered around with sleep still in their eyes as I insisted that the first premier be witnessed by my wife and our 10 month old daughter who I have to admit seemed more interested in the remote control.

I stuck the disc in and waited for the TV to jump into life... Surprisingly the menu I had lovingly created the night before appeared on the screen to the delight of all. However, (surely you knew this was coming) the screen froze after 6 seconds and we were left hanging there being teased by a menu and not being able to play anything... I reassured the family that this was just a technical glitch and that a quick restart would sort out the problem. However, on the second try the same problem occurred...

Deeply frustrated at being so close but also being so far I tried again. This time I as soon as the menu appeared I hit OK on the first chapter and amazingly the video started to play. We watched the clips for a while and I was able to skip forwards and back using the remote but when I eventually returned to the main menu after 6 seconds the screen froze again (I should also note that the music in the background stops as well...

On a separate note... I had recorded the films onto 16:9 format and had expressly set this in the DVD setup in Nero but when playing did actually start it was in the 4:3 format. A little playing around with the aspect and zoom of the TV managed to get something resembling 16:9 but I would have thought it would play in the recorded format be default anyway.

All in all, I'm still very impressed by the results and will be carrying out some more tests tonight. However, does anyone have a similar experience or suggestion?

Cheers

Details:
Recorded on Sony DVD205e
Settings set to 16:9
Recorded on Memorex 8cm DVD-R/W
Burned onto Sony 12cm DVD-R

I downloaded the trial version of Womble Video Wizard DVD yesterday and did a quick DVD of the video off of 3 miniDVDs from my 403 camcorder. The program has the wierdest user interface that I've seen in a long time, but it did get the job done.

Here is basically all that I did...

1. I opened the DVD maker part of the program.
2. Using Windows Explorer, I selected all the files that were in the "VIDEO_TS" subdirectory of a miniDVD and dragged/dropped them into Womble's window that said "Drop in video files or a wbp file.
3. Repeated the previous step for the files from 2 more miniDVDs. [All 3 miniDVDs had been copied as-is onto a harddrive.] There was no problem with having duplicate file names in the video list in Womble. (Such as "VTS_01_1.VOB being in there 3 times.)
4. Selected one of the two basic menu templates that show thumbnails of the videos on the menu.
5. Hit "export" and wrote the files for a DVD into a new VIDEO_TS directory. [See note at bottom.]
6. Used Nero to write a DVD using the files in the previous step.

That's all there was to it. The output DVD is pretty basic. It makes chained menu pages pointing to the "chapters" which are the VOB files that you had originally. Four chapter thumbnail selections on each menu page, with "next" & "previous" to navigate between them.

The program passed-through the 16:9 video and the ac3 5.1 audio with no regeneration. [These files were as-recorded without editing.] Creating the files for the new DVD took less than 5 minutes and burning at 8X with Nero took about 9 minutes.

Forgot to mention this -- the miniDVD's original menu structure comes in as just another chapter and plays as a very brief video. That was kind of useless, so I deleted those three chapters before exporting the DVD. Also, all still pictures on the miniDVD come in as one chapter. When you play that chapter, they go by pretty fast -- it would be nice to find a way to have them show as so-many seconds per picture.

I found the information on this thread very helpful!

However, I see that all the responders are coping the disk from the camcorder to a 12cm disc. However, I want to edit the files before I copy them to a 12ccm Disc. How is this done and where in the timeline is it done? Before the files are inported on the the hard drive, after the inport into the hard drive but before the software copies them to the new 12cm disk or after the 12 cm disc is created. ALso, what software do all the users prefer?

THanks for a very helpful site and thread!

You would edit the files after they are copied to the computer and before they are copied to the new disk. Best bet is to use the software that came with the camcorder to copy them to the computer as mpeg files, then use any video editting software that can handle mpeg files with AC3 5.1 audio.

This was posted in another thread on 8/16/2006...

I would just like to add that the reason to disable smart encoding was that when it was enabled,on some machines it was tested on,the audio/video sync were completely out. The smart encoding feature is there so you can fit your project on a dvd and not have to shrink afterwards.There is ABSOLUTLEY nothing wrong with doing a two pass encoding as the max bitrate for dvd is 9800 kbit/sec. Although, "Most Hollywood DVDs use VBR and have an average bitrate of only 3.5 Mb/s. However, they use much more powerful MPEG-2 encoders and have trained compressionists (yes, that is a real job) tweak the video scene by scene to get top-notch results. You probably won't get Hollywood quality at 3.5 Mb/s, which is why its recommended at least 6 Mb/s, but even 3.5 Mb/s average VBR encode will probably look not bad".Whether you use 2 pass or one pass you are still RE-ENCODING your original source.Heres a little blurp about one pass cbr vs. two pass vbr:
"Constant bitrate (CBR): CBR gives much faster compression yet is less efficient, so will usually give you larger file sizes. If your video is rather short (under 30 minutes) then you can use CBR at a high bitrate without worrying about space.
2-pass VBR: This option uses a variable bitrate where more bits are allocated to scenes that need them, while reducing the bitrate for rather simple scenes that do not require many bits. As a result, the compression is much more efficient (no bits are used that aren't needed) and the file sizes are smaller. The disadvantage is that VBR is much slower to encode. This options uses two passes. The first pass the encoder goes through the video and calculates how many bits to allocate to each part of the video. No actual encoding is performed during the first pass. The second pass is when the video is actually encoded. VBR is useful for when you are trying to cram a lot of video onto the disc yet you don't want to skimp on the bitrate to fit it all (and you also have a lot of time on your hands)." The best way to combine your mini-discs to one dvd is to use the original .vobs from the source and go from there. Please remember the walkthru was mainly for correcting a problem with the aspect ratio with the +rw format. Hope that helps.

vidjunkie: Let me quote you the following directly from the Nero Vision program about smart encoding:

"If smart encoding is enabled, video and audio material that is complaint with the destination format will not be re-encoded. If it is disabled, all the material will be re-encoded regardless of its properties."

This guide is about merging material from several mini-DVDs onto a standard size DVD. All of the video material on those mini-DVDs is already DVD compliant. The purpose of re-encoding video material would be to make the video material DVD compliant, but since it already is compliant, re-encoding is a destructive step. All that can be accomplished by re-encoding is a degradation in video quality or (as happened to us) the material got ruined. All of your comments may be correct if we were talking about video material that was not DVD compliant and therefore needed to be encoded to become DVD compliant, but this is not the case here as the mini-DVDs already play fine on DVD players. We don't want to mess with the video material at all other than to merge it all onto a single DVD and create new menus to accomodate the combined material. Therefore, and I say this quite emphatically after ruining several hours of video material that we no longer have on mini-DVDs to re-burn, if one is going to use Nero Vision to merge/transfer material from mini-DVDs to standard DVDs you must turn on smart encoding so that Nero will leave your video material alone and not re-encode (i.e. degrade or even ruin) material that already plays just fine on DVD players.

This is a link to a full DVDRemake tutorial to combine two, three or more mini DVDs into one full sized DVDs retaining the original menus and quality...with pictures and everything!
Merge or Combine DVDs retaining menus and quality.

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