Convert and Burn Avis to DVD

I sometimes have the desire to create custom DVDs of movies that I own or that I downloaded to be able to view them on my tv using a dvd player. Many people might think that it is a rather difficult procedure to convert a avi file into a DVD compliant format and create DVD menus to be able to playback the movies on a standard DVD drive. This is not the case.

You do need two freeware programs for the whole procedure. The first is called Super. Super is a great converter that is able to convert to many formats including a DVD compliant MPEG II format. The second freely available application is DVD Styler which we will use to create the navigation of the DVD and the DVD iso file. We can finally burn the iso image using a program that is able to burn such images.

Start Super the video converter and change the following settings. The output container should be mpg (MPEG II). Everything else can remain the way it is. Drag and drop a avi file into Super and click on Encode (active files). Super will start the conversion and output the new mpg file in the directory where it is installed. The process might take a while depending on your cpu, graphics adapter and the size of the movie.

Once the conversion is finished we start DVD Styler and create our DVD menu which will later be used to navigate the DVD and start the movies that have been added to it. DVD Styler has a somewhat unusual interface which requires some explanation.

Action defines the next step after the first button is pressed. We want to play the first movie which is the default value for the first button. Add a second button to the menu and name it accordingly. Now we want the second movie to start which means that we have to select Jump to Title 2 instead of Title 1.

Continue this for all the movies that you want on the DVD.

Start by selecting a background from the left background menu. Now add the newly created mpg files by dragging and dropping them into the lower bar of DVD Styler next to Menu 1. The movies should appear on the right side of Menu 1.

A very basic menu would look like the following. Click on the buttons tab on the left side of the program. Drag and Drop one of the buttons to the right pane. You can move it around and make it smaller or bigger. Right-click the button and select properties.

The first thing that we should do is change the label that appears in the menu. Rename button 1 to the name of the first movie.

You could also create separate menus for every movie. Do this by right-clicking the lower pane which contains menu 1 and all the movies that we have added to it. Select Add New Menu and Menu 2 will appear in the pane.

You do need to create a button that opens Menu 2. The process is similar to linking to a movie. Right-click the button and select properties. Choose Menu 2 in Jump to and the link has been created.

Adding screenshots or boxart is easy as well. Just drag and drop them into the menu area and place them accordingly. Once you are satisfied with the results click on File in the menu and select Burn DVD. Select the temp directory and the output directory. Make sure you have enough space in both.

You can find further help in the DVD Styler wiki.