DVD making software

Hey all,

Recently got a DVD burner with my latest upgrade. I want to pretty much take AVIs and similar video files and make a DVD that can be played on DVD players such as the PS2. (In other words make my transformers collection onto dvds so me and my friends can remember the 80s together) What program should I use? Free is preferred, but I'm not cheapI'll pay if its worth it. I'm looking for something user friendly just because I'm feeling lazy and don't want to read hours of readme files; if nothing is "user friendly" then just gimme the best!!

Thanks in advance

I don't know about good software, but avoid VSO's CopytoDVD like the plague. It triples the size of the video files before getting them ready to burn, meaning it takes me 2 DVDs to hold something that is only 1 DVD's worth of memory normally.

Have you tried DVD Shrink? Oh, right, you want to master a DVD from different formats to DVD... Hmm... That software only recompresses real DVDs so you can make a backup copy.

OK, spoke with my old man, who does stuff like that all the time. He said go with Cucusoft. Not free, but cheap & worth the money he said.

-AT

Thanks, downloaded the trial version, if all goes well i'll be buying and endorsing it!

DVD making you might want to try Elby Clone DVD and winAVI

Well it turns out i had easy software in my own archives afterall. I recently opened up my MSI GeForce 5950 box , cuz i'm a packrat and keep all the original boxes, and there i see a whole bundle of CDs; including Ghost recon and a bunch of winDVD applications, one of them being "WinDVD Creator." I'm making a transformers DVD as i write this, hopefully it works. Theres no converting to do with this program; it just tells you to drag the stuff you want into an editor, you choose your menu then click on "make movie" sweet stuff. Thanks for your suggestions ;)

NTI CD & DVD Maker Platinum does a wonderful job too without increasing the file size, I was able to fit 45/52 episodes of Sealab 2021 onto 1 DVD, previously I was lucky if I got 10 on a DVD.

If you are serious about Video converting, look no further than here -

www.videohelp.com

This forum is the bom when it comes to advice and guiding.
If it is to do with Video, it will be there. Just a word of advice -
They are :swear: hot on pirate videos. Do not even mention the word or you will be banned!

On personal experience. I used quite a number of programs and found that there are some really quick and good converters which do not give you many options and on the other hand very sophisticated programs which can take 3-4 hours to convert a 1.5 to 2h video.

Then to my pleasant surprise, I learned that my firewire card came with Ulead suite. So it is free and does a good job.....

Good luck.

WWR said:

NTI CD & DVD Maker Platinum does a wonderful job too without increasing the file size, I was able to fit 45/52 episodes of Sealab 2021 onto 1 DVD, previously I was lucky if I got 10 on a DVD.

Click to expand...

NTI just gives me mpeg files, it won't let me create DVD menus or anything like that. I making mpegs aren't a problem, i just want to be able to create DVDs with a menu and stuff like that to be played on a real DVD player, not a DVD drive on a pc.

And damnit, now my WinDVD creator locks up whenever making a DVD. It never actually burns it and just says "WinDVD has encountered a problem and must shut down"....ughh

beretta9m2f said:

NTI just gives me mpeg files, it won't let me create DVD menus or anything like that. I making mpegs aren't a problem, i just want to be able to create DVDs with a menu and stuff like that to be played on a real DVD player, not a DVD drive on a pc.

And damnit, now my WinDVD creator locks up whenever making a DVD. It never actually burns it and just says "WinDVD has encountered a problem and must shut down"....ughh

Click to expand...

Right, unless you are using a suite which starts from AVI and finishes with the complete DVD, like Ulead or NVE, you will have to do everything manualy.
Unfortunately, these suits are not free. What you need to do is convert your AVI to MPEG (normaly one long file or maybe two or three....depending on settings) and then use a program like DVDStyler which allows you to Author your DVD (Author=converting the MPEG stream to a standalone, playable DVD file system, including extras such as menus). If you use WinAVI and the likes, you only get the product DVD which cannot be manipulated any further....

The bottom line is - (look, it is at the bottom)
If you want free, you need to work for it. On the other hand it gives you the highest control over your product.
If you want simple and ease - you need to pay and you loose some of the control.