Beginners Guides: Making DVD Movies from Video Files
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Making a DVD out of your own video files (or home movies) isn't too hard. In fact, we'll walk you through the task step by step. - Version 1.0.0
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Video cameras have been getting more high-tech, more capable and more available to the average consumer. The result of this is that there are a lot of camcorders out there. Despite the advent of new technology like straight-to-DVD recording and purely digital storage, the majority of camcorder films still end up on VHS tape for viewing. Given the imminent death of the VCR (as soon as recordable DVD set-top boxes become an affordable item), we feel it's a good time to get a jump on converting your treasured home movies to recordable DVDs.
In a recent PCstats.com Beginner's Guide , we explored the process of turning your videotaped home movies into compressed video files for storage and display on your computer. We'd now like to present the companion piece to that article. In this guide, we will explore and explain the process of authoring DVDs from video files you have stored on your computer, that will play on any home DVD player. We will also run through some basic editing techniques to help you get the best out of your home movies.
How DVD-video disks work
DVD-video disks are the type of DVD you are likely most familiar with. Anytime you rent and watch a DVD, it's going to be some variety of DVD-video disk.
The video that is written to a DVD-video disk is encrypted in MPEG-2 format. This serves to reduce the size of the raw video to the point where it will fit onto a DVD while still preserving most of the image quality of the master copy. Your home DVD player is equipped with the necessary hardware to uncompress these MPEG-2 video files in real time in order to display the image on your TV. Compressed audio files are also written to the DVD and uncompressed and played in sync with the video to reproduce the movie.
If you've ever explored the contents of a DVD movie on your
PC's DVD drive, you will have seen something like this; two folders, VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS.
The VIDEO_TS folder contains all the compressed video and sound files, as well as the information that allows the player to access them in proper order. The AUDIO_TS folder is used for DVD-audio disks and is left empty for DVD-video, though it is always included for compatibility reasons.
The contents of a typical VIDEO_TS folder will resemble this:
The .VOB files contain the actual video and audio data, not to mention subtitles, extra viewing angles, pretty much everything you see and hear. They are up to a gigabyte in size and are numbered sequentially.
The .IFO files contain information about the .VOB files. Your DVD player will use these to locate and sequence the video and audio, figure out where each chapter begins and ends,
etc. The .BUP files are backups of the .IFO files.
The VIDEO_TS.IFO and .VOB files are the first items that the DVD player will access, and generally contain the menu, at least in the case of home-authored DVDs.
Creating a DVD from Files
The process of converting video footage to a DVD-video disk playable in any standard DVD player involves several steps. The first of these steps, digitizing the video, we covered in a previous article . After converting your footage from analogue to digital, you must convert it again to MPEG-2 format (unless this was done as part of the first step), then separate the video and audio streams into distinct files, then transform these files into the .VOB, .IFO and .BUP files that your DVD player understands, then finally burn the files onto a DVD disk.
Fortunately, many DVD authoring programs are available that can perform every one of these steps within the same interface, making the procedure novice-friendly.
What you will need:
1. A DVD burner and blank DVD disks (any format except DVD-RAM)
2. A DVD authoring and editing program such as: Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3, InterVideo WinDVD Creator 2 or IfoEdit (with AVI2MPG2 and TMPGEnc)
3. A CD/DVD creation program such as Nero 5.5+ or Roxio Easy CD and DVD creator (only needed if you plan to use the free DVD creation method outlined below. All the commercial DVD authoring programs we cover here include DVD burning as part of the package).
The above list of programs are the ones we used for the purposes of this article. There are many other excellent DVD-authoring software packages available, so if you already have a different one included with your DVD recorder, use that instead. Chances are it will work in a similar way.
Note that all of the above packages except for the combination of IfoEdit, AVI2MPEG2 and TMPGEnc are commercial products. They both have a brief trial period in which you can test them out, however. There are sadly few freeware solutions available, though we do detail one of them (using the above mentioned programs) later in the article.
Creating a DVD with Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3
Ulead sells several DVD and movie editing products, and these tend to be found often in DVD recorder software bundles. For this reason, and for their general ease of use, we figured it was a good idea to include a product by them in this guide.
Ulead's DVD MovieFactory 3 uses a very simple DVD creation process which is ideal for novice users, and thus ideal for this article. While it's by no means the fastest product out there (it can really crawl at times) it gets the job done with a minimum of unnecessary detail. Let's go through the DVD creation process: Start DVD MovieFactory 3 and choose the 'create video disc' option.
This opens up the first page, in which you can import and edit your video clips.
Make a DVD with Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3
Click the 'add video files' icon and locate the clip or clips that you wish to put on a DVD.
The clips will be added in order to the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. From here, you can change their order (by clicking and dragging). The next order of business is to add chapters to the clip or clips that you have selected, assuming that you want to be able to scan through your newly created DVD like you can with a conventional one. Click the 'add/edit chapter' button to do this.
If you wish, you can manually add chapter points by using the bar to scroll through the clip and then clicking 'add' where you want a new chapter. Otherwise, Click the 'auto' button.
If the clip is longer than three minutes, you will have the 'add chapters at fixed intervals' option as the default. Change this to whichever time you desire and hit 'ok' and the program will create chapters at each interval. Otherwise you can use the 'auto scene detection' option which will detect any major scene change and insert a chapter point. This can take a long time with bigger files, and the results will vary. Once you are done adding chapters, click 'ok' to return to the first screen.
Editing and adding effects
The 'create menu' button affects whether a menu will be created for the DVD. If selected, menu creation is handled on the next page. The 'enhance video' button gives you the ability to add transition effects, sound and animated text to your DVD. Go wild!
When you are sure you have all the clips, chapters and effects that you need for your DVD, click the 'next' button.
This brings us to the menu setup screen, where you can configure the menu that will appear when you pop the DVD into your player. The drop down box on the top-right allows you to select from a variety of menu styles, and you can add music, background images and customize the menu using the button along the bottom. Click on the text in the preview window to change it, and click the pictures to change which still shot from your clip you wish to use as a preview. The 'motion menu' option will animate these pictures for a brief period.
When you have something you like, hit 'next' to see a preview. From this next screen you can preview how the entire DVD will look and operate using the player controls at the bottom. Use the 'back' button to make changes. When you are satisfied, hit 'next' again. This brings us to the final screen, where you will burn your creation onto DVD. Click the 'output' button to begin the recording process and sit back. It's going to take a while. Once your movie has finished, drop it into your DVD player and enjoy.
Make a DVD with InterVideo WinDVD creator 2
InterVideo's WinDVD Creator, now in its second incarnation, is another full featured, fairly simple to use program for DVD authoring. It's a little more complex than Ulead's offering or other programs, and its interface is a little harder to figure out at first. Fortunately we're here to run through it, so start the program and choose the 'create DVD with existing video file' option.
Select the first clip you want to work on. This brings you to the editing interface.
The first thing you will want to do, especially if your clips are long, is split them up into individual scenes (or chapters) for easy searching with a DVD player.
InterVideo WinDVD step 1
To split up your scenes, right click on the small screen image of your first clip on the upper right hand side of the screen and select 'show video scenes...'
From here, you can use the program's auto detection function to analyze and set appropriate scene changes, create scenes at preset intervals with the 'by time' command or insert chapters manually with the jog bar under the preview window and the 'add scene break...' button. If you use the automatic scene detection, we'd recommend dialing the sensitivity way down (less than 10%) or you'll end up with an unreasonable amount of scenes. There is a handy 'merge' button which you can use to clean up after the auto-detection finishes though.
Once you have finished making your scenes, do not exit the interface. You need to drag and drop each scene into the sequence bar at the bottom of the screen in order for them to be saved. You will also need to delete the first item on the bar, which represents the original clip.
InterVideo WinDVD step 2
Once you have the scenes for your clip(s) set to your liking, you can add transitions, music, text or stills using the line of icons up the center of the screen. Now it's time to proceed to the authoring screen by clicking 'author' at the top.
The authoring screen is initially confusing, and is probably the weakest part of this package, even though it contains more options than the other products we use in this article. The icons along the right side allow you to change menu and button styles, add music and background images and even an animated background. With the row of buttons along the bottom, you can view what each page of the menu will look like, add text, preview your DVD in a software player and choose the stills that are used to represent each chapter.
Once you are satisfied with the appearance of your DVD's menu, click 'make movie' to move on to the final step of the DVD production process.
Here you can choose the format and type (PAL or NTSC) of your disk, and give it a label. If you live in North America, choose NTSC. Once you are satisfied, sit back as the program creates your DVD file.
Freeware DVD creation method
AVI2MPEG and IfoEdit
Up until now, all the software we've looked at has been commercial. Unfortunately, DVDs and the methods used to author and burn them are big business right now, so there are precious few freeware alternatives on the market. In fact we had to use a combination of four programs to complete this guide. IfoEdit will create DVDs, but it has none of the video conversion features that the commercial solutions offer.
This means that we need a way to convert our video clips into the correct MPEG-2 format for DVD video. That's where AVI2MPG2 comes in. Its only purpose is to convert other video files to DVD ready MPEG2 video clips, and it does it well. We still need one more program though, as those clips need to be split into separate audio and video segments for IfoEdit to chew on.
TMPGEnc does this easily. After all this is done, we will have a set of files which can be burned to a DVD using Nero, Easy CD/DVD creator or one of many other DVD recording programs. No fancy menus here though.
As you might expect, this section of the guide offers none of the user-friendly, streamlined interfaces of the other products we've looked at. The results are comparable though (you may miss the menus that the commercial products offer), and they're free, so let's take a look at the process:
Download IfoEdit, TMPGEnc and BBMPEG (with AVI2MPG2). Unzip each file to a separate folder. The first step is to convert your movie clips into the MPEG 2 format used for DVD video. Open the bbmpg folder and run 'AVI2MPG2.EXE'
Encoding with MPEG
Now click 'start encoding.' On the following screen, click 'settings' and go to the 'video stream settings' tab.
For 'video type' select 'DVD.' Also ensure that the 'frame rate' dropdown box is set for the correct mode, NTSC or PAL. If you are using PAL, you will also need to go to the 'advanced video settings' tab and change 'video format' to PAL. Click 'ok' when you are finished.
Now click 'start' to begin encoding your clip. Note that you may get an error the first time you try. Simply exit to the main interface and 'start encoding' again. It should work the second time. The encoding will take a while, so relax. When the operation has finished, click 'ok.' Your newly encoded clip will be located in the same directory as your old one.
Getting ready to burn
In order to burn your clip to DVD, you need to separate the audio and video portions into two different files. To do this easily, we will use the TMPGEnc program. This program is a full-featured MPEG encoder, but we're only going to use this one feature for now.
To split your video clip into audio and video streams, open TMPGEnc, close the wizard and go to 'file\MPEG tools.'
Select the 'simple De-multiplex' tab and use the 'browse' button next to the 'input' box to find your video clip (make sure to select the new MPEG2 file, not the old version. If the files look the same, check the file size. Your newly encoded file will be larger.). As the screen shows, an audio and a video file will be created in the same directory.
Hit 'run' to perform the operation. Once you are finished, it's time to prepare the clips for burning to DVD with the IfoEdit program. Navigate to the drive you keep your video clips on and create a new folder. Call it 'DVD' or something similar. Then, start Ifoedit and go to 'DVD author', then select 'Author new DVD.'
Hit the browse button (represented by a single dot) next to the 'video' and 'audio' boxes. Locate the .m2v (video) file and the .mp2 (audio) file you created in the last step. In the 'destination' box, enter the location of the new directory you just created. Hit 'ok' and Ifoedit will create the necessary DVD-video files in that directory.
Burning the DVD files to disc
The contents of that directory should look similar to this:
Now we have the necessary files to create a DVD, all that remains is to use a DVD burning program such as Nero or Roxio Easy CD/DVD creator to put it on disk. Whichever program your recorder came with should do fine. Let's take a look at how to do it with the most common CD/DVD creation program, Nero Burning Rom.
Creating your DVD with Nero (versions 5+)
Launch Nero and select 'DVD-video' as your new compilation. If you wish to label the DVD, go to the 'label' tab and add your choice of name. Click 'new.'
As you can see, the file system for your video DVD is already created in the left-hand pane. On the right hand pane, navigate to the directory you created for the Ifoedit files. Select all files in this directory and drag them into the 'VIDEO_TS' folder on the DVD (left hand side). Make sure that the files go to this folder and not onto the root of the disk. The 'AUDIO_TS' folder should always be empty. Now click the 'burn' icon and create your DVD as you would any other recordable CD or DVD. The finished project should be playable in your DVD player.
Creating your DVD with other DVD recording software
Since there are so many different DVD burning software packages out there, we are not going to go into specific detail about each one. Instead we'll create a list of the basic steps to follow with any DVD recording software in order to create your video DVD.
Step 1: Create a new 'DVD-Video' disk.
Step 2: In the window where you select which files to burn to your DVD, highlight all the .IFO, .VOB and .BUP files and place them in the VIDEO_TS directory of the DVD.
Step 3: Burn the DVD. If necessary, specify no multi-session. Enjoy your movie.
As I'm sure you've realized, using commercial DVD creation products is easier and more flexible, but there is something quite satisfying about creating a DVD yourself from scratch. With DVD blanks being so cheap now, you can afford to try out both methods and see which works better for your home videos.
We hope that you have enjoyed converting your video clips into DVDs with one or more of these methods, and maybe learned a little bit in the process. Check out the rest of PCstats Beginner's Guides for more projects.