video making programs

Can someone please tell the story on this.

I want to make a video DVD.

Is Windows Movie Maker OK for this or is this only used for making videos that going to be uploaded to you tube etc.

I have found out in order for a Video DVD to work on a standard DVD player I have to use an encoder first and then use DVD Video software to create the video.

I have found a program called DVD Flick which is supposed to be suitable for newbies like me. All I want to do is to put a family movie on a DVD so It will play on the families DVD Players as they are don't have computers.

thanks in advance.

I had the same questions not long ago. I did a bit of research because I was making a video for dvd using windows movie maker 6.0. No matter what I tried the video came out in 4:3 screen size. Even if i selected wisecreen i still got black borders either side. Apparently this is a fault with the windows program so after alot of searching i found a free program called "Avidemux". It is great, you can play with plenty of settings and especially sound wise its very good. do a google search on avidemux. its great.

reply to post by WorstCaseScenario


I find the D VD Flick OK and I 've got the hang of it a bit now but could I do what I want to do with Movie Maker?

thanks

If you're feeling adventurous you could try Avid Studio. It offers a free functional introduction into this industry standard software.
Good luck with whatever you choose!

95% of the work I do on my home pc is video/audio based. I do not use a laptop for that type of work. I built my own PC adding a good high memory video card and also a good sound card with a breakout box so i have direct connection to the sound card on the front of the pc..
that said, you do not need an expensive program to do your video. I have used windows movie maker and I do get a good video and enough control for most purposes, especially with slide shows but video files can also be added. Movie maker will render files which are burnable on standard dvd/cd burners into normal DVD formats. There are several free programs that will also convert formats such as avi files to say a flash file.
You do need a decoder for DVD burning. that is my decoder came with my burning software. I use Nero. But I have used free programs in the past I downloaded that also worked fine.
I own and operate a Christian web site that has a new flash movie imbedded that was made in windows movie maker, then converted to flash. It actually had to be downsized to render it into flash for website viewing.
so for me windows movie maker did work fine.
but I do intend to download Avidemux as suggested by WorstCaseScenerio (thanx WCS] and give it a go.
I have never tried AVID but i do own ADOBE Premeire Which is very powerful. It will do most of what you want, but it is like many other programs and requires a lot of time and effor to learn..somewhat pricey. so for simple projects I still go back to windows movie maker. For intricate projects I use Adobe.
. .
Try that Avidemux as WCS suggested...its free and what do you have to loose?
DH

As my DVD player (like most modern players) is able to play MPG or AVI files I just burn them to a DVD to watch.

I also use Avidemux to edit the videos, but I never used it to create a DVD.

To convert videos to/from other formats I use Format Factory, that has a possibility of creating VOB files used by DVDs, but I never used it for that.

I personally use Sony Vegas Pro HD, although it's on the pricey side. I also, have Adobe Premier as well as quite a few other programs designed for video editing. I cannot recall the name of it at the moment, but a friend was recently using a piece of free software he had found while browsing around the net that actually works very well and is kind of an all in one solution. Ill try and get in touch with him and find out the exact name.

I have used VirtualDubMod and Nero for those purposes and I am very pleased with the results.
VDMod is free and a really mighty tool.
It was the first software of that kind I ever used, never tried something else.
Even as a complete newb I got it to work after some time, which speaks volumes.
The DVD menu is easily done with Nero.