A decent free DVD\CD author

[GimpGuy2000]

Hi everyone. My question is this, does anyone know a decent FREE DVD\CD authoring\burning program? I am not looking for fancy, just maybe a title ability or some effects, much like Photostory. As well, if it would take a wmv and still create an svc, vcd or dvd playable on most dvd players and computers of course. I use Intervideo win dvd creator but just because it came with my burner, my son however, needs a program as well and I can't use this on his pc as it detects the specific burner to be installed. I appreciate any help.

Thank you,

Paul

[crystalchan]

Hi, Paul. There are lots of trial converter about DVD/CD authoring/burning program, so you can search them in google. BTW, you can also serach some free full edition software.

[guns1inger]

DVD Flick is free and will do most of what you want as far as DVD is concerned. To do create VCD or SVCD discs, so I can help you there.

If you are happy to a few extra tools then GUIforDVDAuthor will give you many features, however you need to be able to convert your video to DVD compliant mpeg first. It's not difficult, but it will take some effort and time on your part to get the hang of it.

The simplest, most reliable convertor is ConvertXtoDVD. It's not free, but if you are converting for DVD and want a nice, simple solution, this is the one I would recommend.

[GimpGuy2000]

Thanks all for the answers. I did try DVD flick but it keeps shutting down whenever doing an operation, tried it on 3 pcs and still won't work, not sure why. I have tried Google and the searches seem short on DVD authoring. I will keep searching though and if anyone has any more ideas or happens to come across something please let me know.

Thanks again,

Paul

[gsing]

So you are actually looking for AIO DVD-Converters. You'll find some free apps here
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/all-in-one-dvd-converters

For authoring/burning the combination of GUI for dvdauthor and ImgBurn is great (and free)
Regards

[GimpGuy2000]

So you are actually looking for AIO DVD-Converters. You'll find some free apps here
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/all-in-one-dvd-converters

For authoring/burning the combination of GUI for dvdauthor and ImgBurn is great (and free)
Regards

Thank you for the reply. I will give these a try tonight! Sounds great!

Thanks

Paul

[GimpGuy2000]

Hi all, well I am still searching. The last suggestions were a bit complicated for what my son needs. I ran into something called Fruit DVD or something on that order and the company is Digifruitevery. I don't know though, it is free and supposedly will do everything but the company website is never to be found. Seems a bit iffy. Has anyone heard of this company before? It's on freedownload center and others but as stated the company site doesn't seem to exist in the links. If anyone has heard of it or used it, please let me know. If I had another junker PC to try it on I would. I have done security software tests in the past but don't wish to go through it all if someone else knows it's a safe type software.

Thanks yet again,

Paul

EDIT: I was told DVD decrypter will create an iso which will play in a standard DVD player. So I can then create an iso of AVI or other formats and it will play? I thought DVD Decrypter was for copying DVDs which isn't what I want or want my son to do. This is merely to make a playable DVD image from video.

Thanks again

[EddyH]

only if you have a divx compatible dvd player ... the thing about the whole re-encoding, authoring, etc stages is that a regular DVD player only likes one thing, and that's standards compliant DVDs that contain specifically (and rather impenetrably) bundled up piles of MPG2 standard video (NOT "avi" or "divx", even renamed), certain audio types, simple overlays and other machine code governing menus and navigation. Compared to a normal PC disc with an AVI on it, it's an alien device.

It's not that complex a process when you get into the swing of it, and pretty powerful. Make a very simple re-usable AVIsynth script (one line, "AVIsource = [yourfilenamehere]"), feed that into something like HC encoder; whip the audio out using virtualdub and convert it in BeSweet; make yourself a simple little menu in e.g. DVDStyler pointing to the encoded files, author it (compile..) then burn it.

[GimpGuy2000]

Hi EddyH and thanks for the input. Well I would be lying if I said I understood one ounce of all this and the programs. Been in PC repair most years and not too much into mixing DVD software, just basic stuff. That said, if I had time to read about all of this it may be easier but unfortunately I don't. I have some of these downloaded and have gave them a run for my kid but either they crash or I can't get any video to open even if they say they'll open AVI, Mpeg4, etc...they won't recognize them, not sure why. I am not saying it's not my ignorance toward all this, i'm sure it has a large part to do with it.

Maybe if I give a scenario it will help, my son has legal AVI's, all that Nuarto, and other Anime stuff, **sigh** that's all I ever hear from him.
Any who, he wants to put them on a dvd disk but all the programs I've tried, say they are too large, "186mb each" to put on DVD. See, he doesn't care if he gets a menu, I was just shooting for something of the likes. I think what I'm asking is that something would compress these files and allow them to fit on a 4.7 g single side DVD. I have a movie maker that came with my DVD drive and it works fine but he doesn't and I usually have my PC occupied plus can only use the software on the PC with the specific DVD drive.

I do appreciate everyone giving answers as of yet and I will do my best to grasp this stuff perhaps tonight. I will go over all this and see what I can accomplish. Being absolutely um..."stupid" to DVD formats, etc...I will be a bit of a slow runner but hopefully i'll get there.


Thanks again,

Paul

[redwudz]

Though it's payware, you might look at ConvertXToDVD. It's probably the best all-in-one converter out there, IMO.
There is an older freeware version still available, but neither may not handle WMV, Quicktime or RM formats. Those are all highly proprietary formats, so there are not as many programs for converting them to DVD. The freeware version of ConvertX is DivxToDVD: http://download.videohelp.com/download/vsoDivxToDVD_setup_0.52.99.exe

But try the trial ware version of ConvertX and you may decide it's worth the price.

Another freeware one to look at is FAVC, but I don't have any experience with it.

And as mentioned, SVCD or VCD are entirely different formats and usually need different tools for creation.

And welcome to our forums.

[GimpGuy2000]

Thanks for the reply. I think SVCD and VCD, DVD are fairly all I do understand, lol. For smaller home vids I use this as with my son's baseball games, SVCD on CD was just fine. I did try Cole2 media pack today but it seems mainly for ripping DVD's \backing up which does me no good. I can copy my home DVDs simply by, well making a copy. So it looks like I may just end up buying something if I can't figure all this out. Not to be whiny but my kids have health issues and my wife has had cancer so our funds are little to none, you understand. I have tonight free to figure out some other suggestions given and yours as well so we'll see how it goes.

And welcome to our forums. smile.gif

Thank you! It seems this is THE place when you have DVD questions, everyone knows quite a lot and friendly, well, I'm the exception it seems. Either way, thanks again and glad to be here!

Cheers,

Paul

[redwudz]

Well, there are freeware solutions for all of this, but they require some study and time. I would use the DVD format and GUI for dvdauthor and ImgBurn. You can use HC encoder to do your conversions to MPEG-2 (DVD) format. Look at it this way, you only have to learn this once, then it gets easy.

We have lots of guides to use all those programs. Even some pros among us use GUI for dvdauthor and ImgBurn.

Spend a little time and learn them and you should get the best quality for no cost.

[GimpGuy2000]

Hi again,

Well, I think GFDVDA is a plus and will keep that one. Img burn, easy as pie. 8) HC will not work at all. I open it and get an ERROR countdown and cannot open a video of any sorts in order to encode it. So....it seems i'm down to a decent converter. I have been reading up and I know a bit more than I did in my last post which is good I guess. So what I need to do then is find something to encode from the format the videos are in to Mpeg\DVD format, use GFDVDA to author, img to burn.

Ok,do most video encoders encode the audio as well? I think this is also an issue if i'm right. Since I have gotten bit stream audio errors on many tries with different encoders when opening a video. They usually say the audio rate is incorrect or simply won't detect videos at all, not AVI, DVD, Mpeg, nothing. If not, do I actually have to split the Vid and Aud and then encode and combine? Yikes, hope not.

Either way, i'll re-read through the posts here and see what encoders are suggested. However if you have any others in mind please let me know. I am grateful for all the help so far from everyone.

Thanks again, and getting there.....slow but sure...


Paul

[redwudz]

Most encoders do the audio along with the video, but if the audio is out of spec or if it has a variable rate, it's sometimes better to process it separately. MP3 VBR audio, common with Xvids, is often a source of sync error if it's not handled properly. I suspect RMVB would have the same problems.

I'm not a expert with HC, but we do have some members that are very familiar with it. Here's one guide: http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/mpg/hc.htm

If you wanted to use something simpler, you might look at SUPER. The quality may not be up the the level of HC, but it's easy to use and handles a lot of input formats.

There are a few other free encoders here: https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/video-encoders-mpg-dvd

[ricardouk]

I recommend FAVC also, it can create dvd menus, nice simple interface, its what i use

[GimpGuy2000]

Thanks ricardouk and redwudz,

So far "as of last night" I used DvD Flick which now works since downloaded from here. It didn't before probably bad download. It created ISO and the Vid and Aud folders. I then used Gui for DVD author to throw a quick title menu. So far so good. I knew I didn't have to create the ISO with using Gui Author "just VideoTS and Audio" but wanted to see how it worked. Now...

I have the IFO files, etc...but cannot get them to image. Img burn won't accept them. They will play on the PC which is good and the title menu and all works. In order to get this into an image for a home DVD, what step should I take next? Would that DVD shrink work to create the image? Or should I use something else?

TIA,

Paul

"Almost there" And I will try some other programs you both suggested to see how they work too. If all this is so versatile, I may use this stuff myself instead of my authoring program, much more control and faster as well.

[redwudz]

If you have the VIDEO_TS folder, I would try that in ImgBurn using 'Build' mode and burn your DVD that way. The ISO conversion isn't really needed. And the AUDIO_TS isn't really needed either for your project.

BTW, you have come a long way in a very short time with all this. Congratulations.

[GimpGuy2000]

Update

Well, I used DVD decrypter to create the movie from the files, it worked, created an ISO, I used IMG Burn after and that worked as well, so between GUi for dvd author, DVD Flick, Dvd decrypter, and IMG burn, it worked and now plays on home DVD player. My son created a WMV of a slideshow\music and that was added right along and works as well.

One last issue, the video doesn't fit the screen exactly. Those nuarto videos and such have subtitles since audio is in Japanese I assume I am not very language savvy, either way, the subtitles are below viewing but i'm sure that's somewhat normal or have to adjust the screen size during creation somehow.

Other than learning some basics to start, I would like to give a big THANK YOU to everyone who helped, believe me, it helped a lot, I was fairly lost prior. I may stick around if there is a general discussion area and chat\learn some more, all this DVD\video etc....is striking my interest quite a bit. Yep, I like it. So anyway, thanks again for all the support!

Thanks,

Paul

Edit Sorry redwudz, I didn't see your reply as I was a bit excited to get the news out, loll. However, I will try your suggestion on the next run. I may kiss my winDVD goodbye and use these other tools, so much more control, faster, hey, what's not to like about that? Thanks again for the help.