Burn videos to DVD with Freemake Video Converter

Martin Brinkmann
Aug 5, 2012
Tutorials, Video, Windows software
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25

Would not it be great if the process of burning video files to DVD would be as easy as copying regular files on a data DVD? Freemake Video Converter makes that possible as it providing you with the means to burn any video file to a video DVD that you can watch on your television or other devices capable of playing DVD movies.

What makes this solution great in particular is the program's ease of use. You do not have to worry about video formats, resolutions, bitrates, audio formats or the DVD menu as it is all handled automatically by the program. All that you need to do is add the video files that you want to burn to the program, insert a blank DVD into the DVD writer, and hit the burn button to get started.

Burn videos to DVD

Before we start with the guide I'd like you to pay good attention to the installation of the software. The installer will present two offers to you during the installation which will install third party software on your system if you do not uncheck the options. If you do not pay attention, you will end up with Nitro PDF Reader, a new browser toolbar, and a changed homepage and default search provider. Just uncheck the options if you are not interested in them. If you want to reward the developers of the software, you can alternatively make a donation to them on the homepage.

To burn videos to a DVD do the following in the program:

Click on the Video button at the top and add as many video files as you want to the application. Freemake Video Converter will automatically adjust the resolution and bitrate of the resulting DVD. I would not go overboard with that though, as you may end up with a bad resolution or video quality.  A rule of thumb is that your resulting video DVD should have a 720x576 resolution. I'm going to show you how to check that in a minute.

burn videos to DVD

Once you have added videos you should click on the to DVD button to open the DVD menu. Here you see the resulting DVD resolution, bitrate and format. A standard DVD is selected by default which you can change to a dual-layer DVD instead or a Mini DVD here. You can furthermore switch from PAL to NTSC, and change to a different type of DVD menu if you like.

create video dvd

If you are not satisfied with the quality of the output, return to the video selection menu and remove some of the video files to reduce the overall playtime of the videos. Once you are satisfied click on the burn button to start the process. Freemake Video Converter will convert the videos into a DVD compatible format before they get burned to disc.

The process itself should not take that long. While it depends on a few factors, like your computer's processing performance and the source video formats, it should be quite speedy. I never spend more than an hour converting and burning videos on a test PC to video DVD format.

video dvd

The DVD menu looks solid, and if you want, you can make it static instead or get rid of it completely if you prefer the movie to play automatically. You may however experience black borders when you play back the video DVD, and this seems to depend largely on the resolution of the source video files.

Verdict

Freemake Video Convert is an easy to use program that turns virtually any video format into a video DVD in a short amount of time. While you may get better or customized results with specialized software, you'd spend more time configuring said software for that result.

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Comments

  1. Uncle Junior Soprano said on April 9, 2021 at 6:40 am
    Reply

    WHEN IT COMES TO BURNING THE VIDEOS TO A DVD, IT GOES THROUGH THE MOTIONS, BUT THE DVD NEVER GETS BURNT.

  2. Paul said on September 4, 2019 at 3:19 pm
    Reply

    Nine times out of ten I can burn a full 5 hours of videos to the Freemake Video converter, and contrary to what others say, the finished results of copy quality are excellent!
    However, I occasionally come across a movie with very fast, or ‘busy’ imagery which comes out with tiny Mosaic or pixilations. I am told this is a Bitrate problem(?)
    Is there any way I can alter the Bitrate to improve matters, please? (It is important to have approx. 5 hours on the disc, so I do not want to miss anything out.)
    Please tell me what to do and what kind of Bitrate figure I should need?

  3. Paul said on August 15, 2018 at 11:03 am
    Reply

    The earliest version of Freemake Video Converter, I used was version 3.2.1.4 from January 2013.
    Can any one please tell me about the Top Menu that was in use back then? Were there 3 options: Motion Menu; Text Only and No Menu ? Basically I am wanting to find out if Text Only Menu was possible back then?
    I know that by March 2013 Freemake changed the style of their menu’s and Text Only was one option alongside coloured icon templates.

  4. Daniel said on November 27, 2013 at 4:55 am
    Reply

    what does it mean if it says convert instead of burn

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on November 27, 2013 at 9:57 am
      Reply

      It means that the video format that you have needs to be converted before it can be burned.

  5. Damien said on April 4, 2013 at 9:35 am
    Reply

    If you want to install Freemake without the Candy ‘add-on’ then you need to install through command line using /nocandy extension. It will still show you the Eula for Candy but will not install it. If you dont know what i’m talking then probably best not do, but it does work, honest!

  6. JI said on January 5, 2013 at 6:27 am
    Reply

    If you can find an older version of Freemake Video Converter (older than but including ver. 2.3.4), it won’t have the OpenCandy stuff or nag you to install toolbars. It works great, you’ll just be missing the bleeding edge updates.

  7. Nurai said on December 23, 2012 at 8:05 pm
    Reply

    I did exactly what you said but when I played the dvd it didn’t have any audio. I’ve tried many different things, but it still doesn’t come with audio. Do you have any idea how to fix this?

  8. Noel said on August 6, 2012 at 1:10 pm
    Reply

    I tried this program but it turned out that it messed up videos completely, like stretching or weird compression etc. The concept is great but above mentioned issues put me off.

  9. Mountainking said on August 6, 2012 at 7:00 am
    Reply

    yo Martin, for my day to day job I use convertxtodvd which is great. As free software, this one seems good for friends and relatives. Does it include subs too while converting to DVD?

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 6, 2012 at 8:40 am
      Reply

      Yes you can add subtitles for each video individually if you want.

  10. Zeus said on August 6, 2012 at 3:38 am
    Reply

    For those of you who want to avoid spyware and have more control over the DVD — yet still convert video files easily, check out DVD Flick. An open source program I’ve been using for years, no problem:

    http://www.dvdflick.net/

    1. Cornelis said on August 6, 2012 at 10:30 am
      Reply

      Hey Martin, Zeus is right, DVD Flick is a first class program, I’ve been using it for years also and it works perfectly, no ad-ware and its open source.

      1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 6, 2012 at 10:48 am
        Reply

        I have used DVD Flick for quite some time for that purpose. Recently though it would not start throwing an error message instead which I could not get resolved. That’s why I looked for alternatives and found this program to be quite good for the purpose.

  11. jay said on August 5, 2012 at 8:47 pm
    Reply

    I used this for the past 7 months and it works great and gets the job done i love it’s interface and simplicity an it is surely powerful if you check out their homepage or their unique features which are an added bonus

    1. Anonymous said on December 15, 2017 at 1:12 pm
      Reply

      How fast does it burn a dvd once you pay? It takes at least 40 minutes for a movie right now before payment.

  12. Peter said on August 5, 2012 at 8:32 pm
    Reply

    Note that .NET 4 is said to be required.

  13. Dave said on August 5, 2012 at 7:47 pm
    Reply

    When I went to install, I noticed there is an EULA about OpenCandy, which I seem to remember Spybot rates as some sort of adware. There seems to be no option to avoid this, unlike the toolbar install options, which need to be kept an eye on if fully installing. Just Google it for more info.

    1. Martin Brinkmann said on August 5, 2012 at 8:25 pm
      Reply

      Thanks for brining this to my attention. So Open Candy scans the PC for installed software to include an optional software offer during the installation? Do you know if the information are at any time transferred and recorded by the company?

      1. Martin Watson said on August 23, 2012 at 9:00 am
        Reply

        Trying the cranialsoup link above gave me the following warning. It might be nothing but I thought I’d mention it. I didn’t proceed.

        “cranialsoup.blogspot.co.uk contains content from outtolunchjazz.blogspot.com, a site known to distribute malware. Your computer might catch a virus if you visit this site.
        Google has found that malicious software may be installed onto your computer if you proceed. If you’ve visited this site in the past or you trust this site, it’s possible that it has just recently been compromised by a hacker. You should not proceed. Why not try again tomorrow or go somewhere else?”

      2. Martin Brinkmann said on August 23, 2012 at 9:22 am
        Reply

        Martin thanks for bringing that to our attention. Could be a hacked site that is used for the purpose.

      3. Dave said on August 5, 2012 at 9:45 pm
        Reply

        Further:
        This article gives a bit more info:
        http://cranialsoup.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/opencandy-new-kind-of-adwarespyware.html
        Seems to be a bit more pervasive than I first thought. There is a list of applications that stand accused of installing it, including some well-known names such as WinAmp.
        Also more here:
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCandy
        SpyBot found it on one of my three machines but I’ve never seen anything happen that could be attributed to it, so allowed it to be deleted. Also found two OpenCandy folders on one other PC. One was empty and one contained a text file entitled “Why is this here?”, which I deleted but gave, more-or-less the same explanation as seen in their blurb

      4. Dave said on August 5, 2012 at 8:37 pm
        Reply

        Re. OpenCandy. I aborted the install when I saw this, so I’ve no idea how it works or what (if any) information is phoned home.

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