Burning .avi movies to DVD cds?

Hullo,
I’m new to this whole movie thing, but basically after downloading them, I wanna burn my movies onto a DVD R disc so I can play them in my DVD player. Will this work? Or do I need to change the format of the file first? Thnx for helping out...and be gentle, I know a lot about comps but not this particular area!!

im still learning too!.
yes you have to change avi to dvd format.
try to find vso divxtodvd program,its free and will give you an idea of wots wot.