How to combine and loop to files to play on DVD?

February 5, 2012 5:50 AM

I have a .mov file and an .flv file that I need to burn on DVD so that they both play one after the other in a continuous loop. I have an XP computer and an iPad 1. Is there any freeware out there that can do this for me?

This is for a work event and the DVD will need to play on a standard DVD player. How do I do this? Do the files need to be converted then joined together in order to automatically play one after the other or can they remain as two separate files? Is there a free application out there that will do this painlessly?

Follow up question..if I can secure a laptop that will connect to the tv we're using and thus play a data burned data DVD (or even a burned cd) how would I again get the files to play in a loop? And would they still need to be converted or could I just play and loop them through something like VLC?

posted by gfrobe to computers & internet (7 answers total)

You could try something like MPEG StreamClip, which is free and does a whole host of different kinds of conversion stuff.
posted by brina at 7:28 AM on February 5, 2012

Have a look at DVD Flick.
posted by robtoo at 8:03 AM on February 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

And would they still need to be converted or could I just play and loop them through something like VLC?

You would not need to convert them to DVD-Video format and could use the originals. For portability and cross-platform utility (it doesn't matter what OS the laptop attached to the TV runs) VLC is probably the way to go.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 8:04 AM on February 5, 2012

(I should clarify that it doesn't matter which platform you're on as far as learning how to do the looping in VLC: obviously you won't be able to download the Windows binary and run it on a laptop running Ubuntu, for instance).
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 8:12 AM on February 5, 2012

Not freeware, but the easiest thing to use right away for this would be

Ashampoo Burning Studio

You can download the 10 day trial version there, and it will work fully without limitation for 10 days. If you register your email to get an additional 30 days trial, they will send you an email with a discounted price.

With this, you only need to drag your MOV and FLV into it, and it does all the conversion and resizing to make a disc playable on any DVD-Video player, all automatically at the best quality possible to fit the disc. (Plus it has all the other normal disc burning features and more.)
posted by caclwmr4 at 8:43 AM on February 5, 2012

I should note there are totally free versions of this Ashampoo program out there as promotion, but those do not have the automatic DVD-Video burning capability. The free versions can make a DVD-Video disc from files which have been converted and formatted properly some other way.
posted by caclwmr4 at 8:45 AM on February 5, 2012

Devede is a nice program for windows/linux that takes in a variety of video formats and outputs a DVD image for burning. It allows a variety of customization, quality levels, looping, self starting DVD, etc. I've found it to be among the most forgiving of different input formats. .flv and .mov should be ok, though once in a while, there are gremlins in what should be an otherwise kosher file that can be very difficult to suss out.
posted by 2N2222 at 9:55 AM on February 5, 2012