A friend of mine recently published a book, and was thusly interviewed on a local PBS show, which I had my Win7RC Media Center record in high def.

I thought it would be nice to give my friend a copy of his appearance on DVD. Now usually, I just right-click on the media I want to burn to CD or DVD inside of Media Center, or (if I am using a remote) navigate to Actions and select Burn/CD or DVD there.

But then I learned that because this show was recorded in high-def OTA using a type of encoding called h.264, it can’t be burned directly to a video DVD from inside of Media Center – a known limitation.

I could burn the file to a data DVD, which could be played in a Vista + TV Pack or Windows 7 PC, but I wanted to burn a DVD my friend could stick in his run-of-the-mill DVD player.

As if on cue, PC Magazine published a how-to for this very task. (I found this article, BTW, because it was highlighted by the Microsoft Windows Facebook page, which I am a big fan of.)

The only problem?  The article only discussed burning dvr-ms files to DVD, which is the old format that Vista Media Center used to record TV. Windows 7 RC and Windows Vista+TV Pack versions use the newer format, *.wtv file format, and this is what my friend’s appearance was recorded in.

So I set about trying to figure out how to convert a *.wtv file to *.dvr-ms, which I knew I could then open in Windows Live Movie Maker and output it as a *.wmv, which many DVD burning programs can work with.

There’s a ton of conversion programs that come up when you run a search on this, but the thing to know is if the show you recorded is not copy protected, you can convert it to DVR-MS with a simple right-click in Windows 7. Fellow enthusiast (and Clubhouse member) James H had a great post on how to do this.

Once I did this, I realized something else. Windows Live Movie Maker Beta can work with the WTV file itself.

Though the conversion to DVR-MS was easy enough, I didn’t even have to do it. Instead, I added the *.wtv file to Movie Maker, then published it as a *.wmv.

WMV is great format with excellent quality, but my friend would have to watch it on his Windows PC, and I wanted to give him a DVD he could watch on his regular old DVD player.

I knew I could move the file over to my Vista set-up, where I use Sony Vegas for advanced editing and DVD authoring, but again, as if on cue, Microsoft Windows Facebook guy highlighted a new article on How to use Windows DVD Maker program with a WMV file.

Talk about easy! It even offered a variety of cool menus for the DVD.

So, in a nutshell – burning non-copy protected h.264 TV to a DVD for my friend:

1. Record the show using Windows Media Center

2. Open the recorded show file in Windows Live Movie Maker Beta, then republish as a *.wmv.

3. Burn the *.wmv to DVD using Windows DVD Maker (or the program of your choice).

Also, buy my friend’s book while you’re at it. Good times.

*   *   *   *

New to Windows Media Center? Start here. or here.Or even here.

*   *   *   *