I am looking for a good way to convert MiniDV tapes, with SD content, to standard DVD format. I don't need to make any fancy menus or chapters in the DVD, I just want one MiniDV tape per DVD in the best quality possible, and to be able to play it in any DVD player. Are there some good free programs to accomplish this?

Thanks.

Do you have a stand alone DVD recorder? If so then you can just hook up your DV cam to it via Firewire. No programs or downloads needed or fancy menus to be made. You can set it and forget it for an hour while your footage is transferred. PQ will be pretty much the same. As I have no experience using a computer to accomplish this task, I have no recommendations for that method.

What kind of computer you are using? If you are on a PC with Windows XP, you can use the included Windows Movie Maker to capture and edit your video. You will need different software to encode it as MPEG-2 and burn to DVD. If you already own a copy of Nero, the included NeroVision Express program will perform these tasks simply, but depending on your Nero version you may need to purchase the "DVD Video" plugin separately. There probably are free solutions also, but I'm just not familiar with them.

I'll try some of these suggestions. Is there a way to keep the time stamp information but not have it intrude on the video?

Thanks.