Best DVD BURNER?

[nj473]

Hello, I have posted a thread about which is the best DVD ripper, now I want to find out what software others recommend using for burning (or rather creating) a DVD.

I do not mean burning files to a data disc, or copying a DVD, I mean how to burn say a two hour video file to a DVD that is compatible with regular DVD players? I'm not asking about all the extras that come with it, such as adding chapters, menus etc (yet...) I just want a simple transition from a video file (avi, mp4 etc) to a standard DVD, and for the disc to then look like any other DVD would, with the VIDEO_TS folder, and containing .vob and .ifo files on it.

I think I've heard somewhere that the videos have to already be in .vob format in order to be burnt to a DVD. I do not know if this is true or not but if it is then it's not a problem as I understand I can use ffmpeg to encode it to that format.

Hope someone can help me, Thanks

[redwudz]

You aren't asking about burning, that's done by a mechanical device, a optical drive, DVD burner.

First you need to convert your file to a DVD compliant format with a MPEG encoder. Lots of them available. Some are very expensive, in the $1000+ range, Procoder, Mainconcept Reference are around $500US. But HC Encoder is free and does a very good job. More MPEG encoders: https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/video-encoders-mpg-dvd

The DVD format is created by an authoring program. Try the freeware GUI for dvdauthor. The 'best' authoring tool means nothing if you don't know how to use them. A 'Pro' authoring program that might be considered one of the best is Sonic Scenarist, but it costs about $5000US. And to do that level of work, you would need several other fairly expensive add-on programs like Photoshop and others. For more info on the DVD structure, format and specifications, look to 'WHAT IS DVD' to the top left on this page. More authoring programs: https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/authoring-dvd

You can also do all this with All-in-One programs, but you lose a lot of control over the final quality and appearance of the DVD.

For the actual burning the 'best', IMO, is ImgBurn.

EDIT: Now if you were asking about the easiest way to convert files to DVDs, then try ConvertXToDVD. It's payware, but works very well and is easy to use. There are other freeware converters, but not as versatile or easy.

The quality with any converter depends on the quality of the input file and the settings you use to encode it. Authoring just arranges the files into a compatible DVD format. Authoring and burning should have no affect on the quality. That comes from the encoder.

[lordsmurf]

It sounds like you want an all-in-one program like ConvertXToDVD.