The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    (probably) stupid Disk Drive question

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by ozymandias, Nov 30, 2008.

  1. ozymandias

    ozymandias Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    44
    Messages:
    210
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    My T400 has a DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim (Serial ATA). With this am I able to burn DVD-Rs? I want to burn things I can watch on a regular DVD player.
     
    ozymandias, Nov 30, 2008
    #1
  2. Patrick

    Patrick Formerly beat spamers with stiks

    Reputations:
    2,284
    Messages:
    2,383
    Likes Received:
    93
    Trophy Points:
    66
    Yup. As long as you burn the dvd in the right format!
     
    Patrick, Nov 30, 2008
    #2
  3. HankB

    HankB Notebook Geek

    Reputations:
    28
    Messages:
    89
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    16
    Not at all a stupid question and not one I know the answer to.

    One factor is the player. Some players are more flexible in the formats they can play. The other side of the equation is the recording format. A third part is the codec used to compress the video and audio. I find the variety of formats a bit bewildering.

    Creating a DVD you can watch is (I think!) called authoring and you might start with this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_authoring.

    I haven't done much of this so I don't know if I'm overcomplicating it or not.

    HTH,
    hank
     
    HankB, Nov 30, 2008
    #3
  4. jonlumpkin

    jonlumpkin NBR Transmogrifier

    Reputations:
    826
    Messages:
    3,240
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    105
    The T400 can burn DVD-R just fine. These are compatible with the vast majority of DVD players on the market (even my 8 year old sony that refuses to read CD-R [only CD-RW or factory pressed]). Most DVD players can also read DVD+R, and a handful (PS3 for example) can read DVD±RW.

    The key however is recording format. Most straight up DVD players can only play back files that stick to the very specific DVD (Mpeg2/AC3 in .vob containers) or VCD (Mpeg1/Mpeg audio).

    You will want to convert the videos you have on your computer to the right format. Most CD/DVD burning suites (Nero, Roxio, etc.) can do this for you. However, my favorite is DVD Forger. It is able to process almost any video file, allows you to create custom menus, aspect ratio flags, multiple titles, and is a very flexible (albeit not the simplest) option; best of all it is also freeware.

    You will want to create a DVD image in .ISO format. I would recommend single layer as they are cheap and usually compatible. DVD forger will automatically pick a bitrate for you based on the length of the video (you should keep the recording under 2 hours if you want decent quality on a single layer DVD). You then need to burn the .ISO file to a DVD as an image; I recommend using ImgBurn for this.
     
    jonlumpkin, Dec 1, 2008
    #4
  5. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

    Reputations:
    4,982
    Messages:
    34,001
    Likes Received:
    1,415
    Trophy Points:
    581
    The ThinkPad recording software that came with your machine should have no trouble burning an .ISO file. I personally like CDBunrerXP. It's lightweight, does the basics well and is free.
     
    ZaZ, Dec 1, 2008
    #5