general help please

I need some general help with burning movies onto a cd-r. Can someoen give me some general programs that i should use? I know that svcd needs to be mpeg-2 and vcd mpeg-1. But what program do i use? Can i just burn them directly onto a cd, or does it have to be burnt with a special program.

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/
http://www.videohelp.com/
http://www.doom9.org/