Burn your movie to a DVD in Windows Vista

jjones | Guides | 24/01/2007 17:30pm
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In Windows Movie Maker you can send your footage to Windows DVD Maker by clicking on the Publish to DVD option, which asks you to save your work and then imports it directly into DVD Maker. Of course, you can use it as a stand-alone program too by clicking on Start > All Programs > Windows DVD Maker and importing your videos manually. In this tutorial, though, we’ll export from Movie Maker.

Automatic Adding

When you choose the Publish to DVD option in Windows Movie Maker and save your work, your movie will automatically be transferred to Windows DVD Maker. The icon in the bottom left of the window shows how much space your movie will take up; as you can see, our film is very short indeed. Click on Next to continue.

Complete control

Click on Options to adjust the way your finished DVD will work. By default the DVD menu will load when the disc is played, but you can change that setting if you like. You can also specify whether the DVD should have an aspect ratio of 4:3 (standard TV) or 16:9 (widescreen), and whether it should use the European PAL standard or the American NTSC one.

If you’ll be playing your disc on European equipment, go for PAL. Once you’ve chosen the appropriate options, click on OK and then on Next.

Make a menu

Commercial DVDs have a menu that plays when the disc is loaded, and DVD Maker enables your disc to have one too. The main window shows what your menu will look like, and if you like it you can create your DVD by putting a blank DVD in the drive and clicking Burn. Don’t do that just yet, though, because we can make your DVD even better.

Picture perfect

There are lots of menu designs to choose from, and you can see how they’ll look by clicking on the thumbnail in the right hand panel. The main window updates automatically so you can see exactly what your DVD menu will look like.

See it properly

If you click on the Preview button you’ll get an even better idea of how your DVD menu will look: in this example we’ll see our footage playing in the middle of the menu. Click on OK to return to the editing options.

Make it mine

Although the various menu designs are all rather lovely, that doesn’t mean you can’t make them better. Click on Menu Text and you can change the text that appears on the main menu screen, and you can also change the font. Changes appear immediately in the preview at the right of the window; click on Change Text when you’re finished.

Menu maker

You can also change the way the disc menu appears by clicking on Customize Menu. Here you can import video or audio to personalise the menu, or you can change the button styles. Once again, the right hand of the window shows the results of your changes. Once you’re happy, click on Change Style and then click Burn to copy your masterpiece to a blank DVD.

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Tags: burner, burning, do more, dvd, film, Guides, making, movie, movies, tv, tv & movies