How to Burn a DVD

After editing your home video project and setting out your chapter marks and menu settings, it's time to consider the creation of the disk itself. The process of undertaking all the preparatory work is called "authoring" with the process of actually writing all the information to disk being referred to as "burning."

The final thing that you need to consider is how the file will be converted from your computer to something that's readable by all standard DVD players. The common video standard for domestic DVD video playback is called MPEG2, which is a heavily compressed file that has to be made from your original edited AVI (Windows] or MOV (Mac) project files. In almost all cases, this conversion process is virtually invisible, the wizards that you're asked to follow in the starter programs make it very easy for you to create DVD ready files from your sequences, and you don't have to worry at all. However, it's worth bearing in mind that a single-sided DVD disk will allow you up to 4.7GB of disk space (or 8GB for dual-layer disks), so there's obviously a limit to the amount of video you can put onto a disk.

In addition to the DVD-R/+R (recordable once-only) and DVD-RW/+RW rewritable disk formats, there are other options you may want to consider when archiving and sharing your digital video project. For projects lasting 30 minutes or less, you may wish to save your project to S-VCD rather than DVD. It uses the same MPEG2 compression format as DVD, but plays tricks with the vertical resolution of the picture by reducing the effective number of pixels and stretching the picture on playback. For good, steady material that doesn't contain a lot of extraneous movement this can be an adequate and low cost substitute that facilitates the use of cheaper CD-R and CD-RW disks rather than the slightly more expensive DVD alternatives. Almost all common Windows based disk-authoring applications will provide this alternative to DVD, in addition to the more heavily compressed and lesser quality VCD variant that uses MPEG1 instead of MPEG2.

Unlike the captured digital video file formats DV-AVI and DV-MOV (Windows and Apple Mac respectively), that have a fixed compression system and data rate, MPEG2 can be varied according to the space on the disk available and the overall content of the edited video itself. In general, home DVD players can support a bit-rate, that is, the rate at which the stream of data can be moved efficiently from one place to another within a digital system, in excess of 7,000kbps (thousand bits per second], and at 6,000kbps it's possible to store up to 120 minutes of good quality video onto a standard single sided DVD disk (with a capacity of 4.7GB). Should you wish to squeeze more onto a disk, it will be necessary to use a lower bit-rate, resulting in a greater compression of the data and potentially more noticeable "artifacts" on playback. In general, the higher the bit rate the better the visual and aural quality. 6,000kbps is generally acceptable, but your authoring program should sort this out for you by matching the disk capacity with the duration of your project.

With the low cost of standalone domestic DVD recorders, it's possible that you may want to use this as the means to produce your DVD disks rather than take the computer based authoring route. With several models of recorder now offering FireWire input sockets, it's even possible to transfer the sequences that have been edited and copied to DV or Digital8 tape in your camcorder direct to DVD disk. The downside is that the recorder might not add chapter markers that are specific to each discrete section.