How To Create Your Own DVD Movies

I’m sure at one time or another, you wanted to create a video file you had on your computer to a physical DVD, watchable on any standard DVD player. Maybe you wanted to create a DVD of that time you and your family went to Paris for vacation. Or how about creating a DVD of that time you recorded your son’s high school graduation and wanted to share it with all of your other family members? For the unprepared, this could be a daunting task. In the world of digital video, it can get complicated real fast. But fear not. In this article, I will explain how you can create a simple DVD out of the movie files on your computer without breaking a sweat and once again, this is all thanks to a free software that doesn’t cost you a dime.

When dealing with multimedia files in your computer, just like with MP3 files that you’re so familiar with, you need an application that can be able to playback those files. Fortunately with MP3 files, you can use the built in Windows Media Player. With multimedia files, it’s a different story. While some movies can be able to playback with WMP, there a host of other files that can’t be. This is because you don’t have the right ‘codec’ installed on your computer to be able to decode those files. To put it in simple terminologies, you can think of codecs as languages. If you don’t know the language I’m speaking in, how on earth will you be able to comprehend what I’m trying to say?! However, once you learn the language (installed the right codecs), than me and you can have a meaningful conversation or in this case, be able to playback the video on your computer because your computer now have the knowledge. You’ve probably experienced this at least once where you try to open a video clip of some video, but then either the video can’t play at all or sometimes you see no video but can only hear the audio. This is the perfect example of not having the right codecs. But enough of that. I’m sure if you’re not into multimedia technology, you have no interest in all this mumbo jumbo. If you want more information on codecs, visit this Wikipedia page. All you need to know is that DVD files needs to be in a certain codec or format in order for you to be able to burn it onto a DVD and be able to watch it on any standard DVD player.

That is easier said than done for the most part. But instead of rambling on, I will explain how you don’t have to worry about any of that by using a free software called DVD Flick. Although I have done some hardcore video editing and conversion in the past, I am by no means a multimedia guru so that is why I recommend this application with all of my heart. It really doesn’t get any better or easier than this. This software aims for novices who don’t care about the underlying geek stuff but rather just want to create a simple looking DVD disc of their movie. Therefore, if you want tons of customization options, you need to look elsewhere because you’re not getting them here. Instead, you be getting a nice drag and drop interface for you to add your movies. So, enough with the introduction! Let’s get in to it!

Download DVD Flick here.

# Customizing the Project Settings
Upon opening the application for the first time, you will quickly notice how simple yet elegant the interface looks like. But don’t be fooled. This is a very powerful DVD creator under the hood. First, we should customize the options so that we don’t have to set them every time we create a new project. Click on the Project Settings button at the top. Here you will see five different sections located on the left side. I will go over each one, however, there really isn’t anything that needs to tweaked out because this was designed to be as simple as possible for the end user.
In the General setting, you can type in a default movie title for all of your movie projects. You can of course change it anytime you make a new project by visiting this option menu again. I simply label my DVDs with a generic title like ‘My DVD Movie’. In the Target size setting, you can leave this set at ‘DVD 4.3GB’. If you will be using dual-layer DVDs, then choose the appropriate setting in the drop down menu. You can safely leave the ‘Encoder’ and ‘Thread Count’ options alone.

Next is the Video settings. You can leave all of the setting here to default. However if you are in PAL territories, than you would want to set the ‘Target Format’ to the appropriate setting. Otherwise, move on.

Next up is Audio. Again, you can safely leave all settings to default here. If you have a 5.1 surround sound system, then you can choose that option. However, your video file needs to be of 5.1 surround sound as well.

In the Playback setting, you can choose how you want the DVD to behave after it has finish playing a title and what to do after it has finish playing the last title on the disc. You can choose whatever option suits you best.

The last setting, Burning, is the most important so pay attention here. First, you have the option of either creating an ISO file or burn directly to disc after it has finish converting your movie files. An ISO file basically is the entire DVD folder structure along with all the files inside it. You would want to make an ISO file if you don’t want to immediately burn it to a DVD. If later you do feel like burning it, then you will need to use a DVD burning application to burn the ISO file. Once burned, it will function the same. Next, select the correct drive that will burn the DVD. In the speed setting, you can select the highest speed both your DVD burner and blank DVD disc support. If you are getting errors during the burn process, then lower this setting. The last four options are pretty much self explanatory. I usually leave them all unchecked.

Now with everything set, you’ll want to hit the ‘Save as Default’ button. Anytime you want to change any of these settings before burning a movie, you can do so but if not, then it will use the settings we have just defined.

# Adding your movies
Simply just drag and drop the movie files you want to create to a DVD into the application’s main gray area. You can re-arrange them or rename them as you please. Take note of the yellow bar on your left side as this tells you how much space you have left for the project. You can double click on each movie file for more options such as creating a chapter in each title every X amount of minutes or if you need to add a subtitle file, you can also do it here.

# Decide if you want to use a menu or not
We are almost there. Now, you’ll need to decide if you want to use a menu or not for your DVD movie. Click on the Menu Settings button on the top. If you choose not to, then as soon as your DVD loads, it will begin playing the first title. If you do want to use a menu, you then have the choice to select a title (for example, movie file 1, movie file 2, etc.) for view. Unfortunately, DVD Flick don’t give you a lot of options when it comes to selecting a picture for your menu. You are stuck with using 6 generic backgrounds. If you will be using a menu, then select the options ‘Enable Menu’ and ‘Autoplay Menu’. You can leave the other two options checked if you want to. You can then preview your menu by pressing the Preview button.

# Creating the DVD
After all is set, it’s time to finally begin making your DVD. Hit the ‘Create DVD’ button and it will give you couple of prompts. Read them carefully and hit OK. Now, you just wait for DVD Flick to convert your movie files into a DVD file and depending on what option you choose, either create a ISO file or burning it to a blank DVD. That’s pretty much it folks! Depending on how fast your processor and how much memory you have in your computer, the time to completion varies.

As you can see, this neat little application masquerades how difficult it can be to work with multimedia files. It gives you a nice and easy to follow interface. Now you can be making home made DVD movies in no time to share with your family and friends!