How To: How to Burn Any Video File to a Playable Video DVD
With your BitTorrent addiction in full swing, you've filled hard drives with media but can't seem to figure out how to burn any of the videos you downloaded to a DVD. Sound familiar? It's a common problem, and there was a time that it didn't have many simple (or free) solutions. Luckily that's no longer the case, and today we're taking a look at two dead simple solutions for burning virtually any video to a DVD you can pop into your DVD player and enjoy.
First and foremost, there's DVD Flick, a free, open-source application that supports over 45 different file formats, includes subtitle support, and makes creating a DVD from most common (and even uncommon) video files a breeze. I detailed how to burn almost any video file to a playable DVD with DVD Flick almost two years ago now, but the app is better than ever. Since I last wrote it up, DVD Flick has added support for creating custom menu screens and has pushed out a load of bug fixes.
If DVD Flick isn't your thing, then check out Free DVD Creator. It's not open source like DVD Flick (we do love our FOSS), but it's still free, and it offers most of the same features as DVD Flick.
Also like DVD Flick, the Free DVD Creator wizard is dead simple to use. First select the movies you want to burn and arrange them in the order you'd like them to playback and appear on the DVD menu. On the next screen, you can completely customize your DVD menu screen. Once you've made it that far, just start burning. Free DVD Creator (like DVD Flick) will handle all of the file conversions necessary, then write the DVD-ready video to a DVD complete with your custom menu.
If you have trouble with the one step convert-and-burn (when I tested it, Free DVD Creator created the DVD but didn't immediately burn), just re-open Free DVD Creator and this time select Video DVD Burner instead of Create Video DVD. Then just point the Burner at the VIDEO_TS folder that Free DVD Creator made the first time around (by default it's located at C:\DVDTemp\ and hit Burn. That worked for me without a hitch.
11-11-2008, 10:56 AM
Linear Mode
