To burn your movie files to a playable DVD, you need a DVDRW (DVD Read and Write) drive, software that lets you load movie files onto your computer’s hard drive, and software that lets you burn those files onto a writable DVD. After you burn your movie files (video files) to a writable DVD, it becomes a playable DVD that you can play in any DVD player or any computer.

Loading Movie Files

Before you can burn movies to a DVD, you need to load movie files (video files) onto your computer’s hard drive. To load your movie files, you can:

• Record movie files from live TV.
• Upload movie files from your camcorder.
• Download movie files from the internet.

Regardless of how, or from where (live TV, camcorder, or internet) you load your movies files onto your computer’s hard drive, give each movie file a name that you can use as a DVD title when you burn a DVD. (On a DVD, titles identify separate movie files.) For each DVD you plan to burn, place all its movie files in a folder associated with that DVD.

Recording Movie Files from Live TV – If your computer has a TV tuner, you can use software that lets you use your computer as a DVR (Digital Video Recorder), which is also known as a PVR (Personal Video Recorder). DVR software lets you record movie files from live TV. You need not purchase DVR software if you already have it. For example:

• Many TV-tuner packages include DVR software.
• The following operating systems include DVR software:

If you do not already have DVR software, you can purchase or download it separately. Here are a few software products that include DVRs:

• PC DVRs:
• Mac DVR: EyeTV3
• Linux DVR: Myth TV

Load your recorded movie files onto your computer’s hard drive according to your DVR’s documentation. Give each movie file a name that you can use as a DVD title when you burn a DVD.

Uploading Camcorder Movie Files – Upload your camcorder movie files onto your computer’s hard drive according to your camcorder’s documentation. Give each movie file a name that you can use as a DVD title when you burn a DVD.

Downloading Internet Movie Files – You can use free, online utilities to download internet movie files. For example, you can use http://tubegrip.com/ to download a movie file from YouTube. Download YouTube movie files as FLV files because they are smaller than MP4 files. Give each FLV file a name that you can use as a DVD title when you burn a DVD.

Note: To preview your FLV movie files, you can download a free FLV player, such as Applian’s Free FLV Player.

Burning Movie Files to a DVD

After you have loaded movie files onto your computer’s hard drive, you can use DVD-authoring software to burn those files to a playable DVD. For more information, see DVD Authoring Applications.

Most DVD-authoring software supports most video file types. However, you might occasionally have a movie file type not supported by your particular DVD-authoring software. In this case, you can use file-conversion software to convert that type to a common type, such as MP4. Clone2Go is a free file converter.

Here’s an example procedure. To burn a simple DVD, you could use DVD Flick as follows:

1. Download and install DVD Flick.
2. Load a blank, writable DVD into your DVD burner (DVDRW drive).
3. Start DVD Flick, Click on “New project,” click on “Add title” to display its Select Video File window, and then select the file (or files) that you want to burn onto your new DVD.
4. Click on “Project settings” to display its window, and then do the following:
   1. Click on “General,” and then set Target Size to “DVD (4.3 GB)”
   2. Click on “Video,” and then set Target Format to “NTSC”
   3. Click on “Burning,” select “Burn project to disc,” and then click on “Accept” to accept the settings and close the project-settings window.
5. At the bottom of the DVD Flick window, select a project destination folder, such as New Folder.
6. Click on “Menu settings” to display its window, select a menu (such as “Plasma Sphere”), and then click on “Accept.”
7. Click on “Create DVD” to display a dialog that asks whether you want to overwrite your New Folder. If so, click on the “Yes” button.
8. On the dialog that reminds you to insert a blank DVD, click “OK” to start burning your playable DVD.