If you want to create DVDs out of your video files easily and for free, Video DVD Maker Free would serve your needs well.
Don’t be misled by the title of the program. Video DVD Maker Free does much more than burning DVDs.
It’s a 8MB download which you can install within minutes if you have a fast Internet connection.
Apart from English, you can install the software in the Portuguese, Russian, Polish and Hungarian languages, among others.
Startup Window
Launching the program, the startup windows asks you what you want to do:
- capture and make DVD from digital camera
- make DVD from AVI/MPEG/DIVX
- burn a previously-authored DVD video (Video_TS)
You’ll notice that Video DVD Maker only lets you work with DVD projects. In the Pro version, you would be able to burn VCDs and SVCDs. Also you can create photo slide shows, download YouTube videos and even print DVD labels.
However, the free version has enough features to keep you going especially the ability to capture video footage from your digital video camera.
Video Formats
Among the video formats you can import are AVI, WMV, MPEG, DIVX, XVID, MP4 and even ASF.
Apart from DV camera, you can capture video from such sources as webcam and TV tuner.
If you’re looking for quality, you could save your video as uncompressed AVI. If you would just need it for web you could use other compression methods.
You must have the necessary codecs installed before you can work with the various video file formats.
As soon as your project is ready, you could burn it as a DVD image. The media you could use are CD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW and Dual Layer DVD.
When burning your video project to DVD, you could specify what video and audio compression you require and whether you want it in NTSC or PAL.
Conclusion
Using the software is a straightforward affair especially if you have used any kind of digital software previously. If you run into problems while using the program, the help file is always at hand to come to your rescue.
If you’re wondering whether a freeware could do a good job of encoding your files to DVD, you would be surprised.
Video DVD Maker Free does as good a job as any mainstream media encoder.
If you are looking for a Video DVD program which does not require a steep learning curve, Video DVD Maker would be an ideal one to get started with. With a pleasing and friendly interface, you need just use the three-step wizard – Capture, Render Timeline and Burn –to create your Video DVDs.
