Tech Spotlight

One of the new pieces of software that is included with Windows Vista Home Premium and above is Windows DVD Maker.  This extremely simple application will let you make DVD Videos of movies and pictures that are playable in virtually any DVD player made.

You have two options when starting DVD Maker, either a DVD picture slideshow or a DVD movie video.  You simply select the files on your hard drive that you want to burn to the correct MPEG-2 DVD standard format.  The total burn time is limited to 150 minutes for a DVD-R and 300 minutes for a DVD-R DL (Dual Layer) disc.  There are a few options you can select on the file browser screen including the aspect ratio (4:3 or 16:9) and the video format (NTSC or PAL).

Clicking next will take you to the final phase before letting your computer go to work.  You can select from 20 different pre-built menu styles on the right or you can add your own background and music.  Now you can click Burn and have DVD Maker encode your video and burn it to disc.  The time this process takes depends on your computer’s speed and length of the video.  I have noticed on my system it takes around 90 minutes to encode and burn a 2 hour movie.

While Windows DVD Maker does not have the advanced features and configurations of some other software packages, I still use it very frequently for the simplicity and quality DVD’s that it produces.  It’s a very easy application that anyone can use to make DVD’s quickly and effectively.  I highly recommend this application for anyone that needs to make custom DVD’s.