Ok so i just went out and bought a brand spanking new laptop, with lots of nfun things like seatbelt and self-destruct button (I know with my experience with computers, this is going to be mighty tempting)… And I was most excited about having a DVD burner on it. I was such a big fan of my old CD burner, that the prospect of being able to burn not just ordinary CDs but now DVDs as well almost killed me… But now I sit down and realise I don’t even know how to work it…
The manual isn’t very descriptive at all, mostly stuff about writing files to CDs… I don’t know if they’re talking about DVDs and CDs or just CDs and then how do i know that these files are going to be able to put on my DVD player at home on my TV and watch the things I have put on there… Is there such a machine that can do this simply? Because let me tell you, that self destruct button is getting more and more tempting every time I browse the entire contents of the Help folder for some, oh I don;t know, HELP!
So if anyone knows some software that I need to install to do this, or something like that, could you please let me know… this would be much appreciated…
You can write files to a DVD in pretty much the same way that you write files to a CD. If you do that, then you have a data DVD.
If you want to burn movies to a DVD so that you can play them on your home DVD player, then you need to know a bit more. The first thing you need to know is what type of DVD your player can play and what type your burner can burn. Recordable DVDs come in the -R and -RW type as well as the +R and +RW type. (I like to say type because format is a very overworked word and we’re going to be needing it later for other ideas.) So check the documentation that came with your DVD player and see what type of recordable DVD it can play, if any. Then you need to check your DVD burner documentation and find out which types it can burn. Hopefully, your burner is capable of working with the type that your player can read. If not, you will need a new player.
Ok, so you have that sorted out. The next thing to know is that DVD movies have a particular way that the files have to be written for the DVD player to see them. How you get your movies into that format depends on where they come from and what format they are in to start with. If you have, for example, computer video files in the .avi or .mpg format, then you need DVD authoring software to get them into the format that a DVD player can read. If, on the other hand, you have files that are already in the DVD format (.vob .ifo .bup etc.) then all you need is burning software that can handle them.
Most people who burn a lot of DVDs eventually wind up with a suite of applications that will do it all. I use the Nero Ultra Edition and it is very popular because it has all the tools you will need in one handy integrated package that is extremely user friendly (even if you know how to do it all the hard way, Nero makes it all go very quickly and is well worth the investment). You can, of course, thrash about with freeware and achieve the same results. One place to find the appropriate software and info on how to use it is at:
