Quote Originally Posted by raynerj1 View Post
I don't use the MS video maker thing myself, Does that create a menu file?
Yes it does.

I have tried burning short DVDs to a CD, but DVD players have real trouble with that. It gets real frustrating when you use an entire DVD just for 90 seconds worth of commercials.
You are speaking miniDVD which as you say, playback is ony possible on some players. This is because the DVD Player must be able to identify the CD-R/W miniDVD as a ordinary DVD-Video disc, many players identify CD-R/W as VCD, SVCD or CD Audio and not DVD-Video.
Blank discs have embedded information on them which describes the manufacture, the type of disc and power calibration details for the burner to interpret, and is why Firmware upgrades for burners are necessary in order for new blank media to be accepted and written to.

From doom9.org:
miniDVD is basically a DVD on a CD. A miniDVD can contain bitrates up to 10mbit/s (audio and video combined). Video is MPEG2 of course.. preferably VBR and audio can be MPEG1 audio layer 2, raw uncompressed PCM or AC3. Video quality can be up to an actual DVD level if you accept the limited playtime of a CD. You can create DVD-like menus as well. The drawback is miniDVDs will only play on PCs and on a very limited number of standalone players.
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At the end of the day, blank DVD's are the same price as blank CD's (sometimes cheaper the CD) - so for me at least there is no issue about space/time not used.