If you do not want to shell out $49.99 for the program, you may be interested in Free Video to DVD Converter. The freeware offers everything that you may need to turn video files on your computer into a DVD that you can play on your TV or computer.

What I especially like about the program is its simplicity of use. The interface is minimalistic, and you can complete a job in less than ten clicks. It starts with the addition of video files. A click on Browse opens a file browser that you can use to add various video files that will later be available on the video DVD. Free Video to DVD Converter supports a variety of video formats, from flv and mp4 over avi and quicktime to Matroska and Realvideo files. Here is a list of all supported video formats that you can add to the DVD creation program.

• Avi
• MPEG (mpg, mpeg, mpe, mp4, m4v
• WMV (wmv, asf)
• Quicktime (mov, qt)
• HD Video (ts, mts, m2t, m2ts, mod, tod)
• Mobile Video (3gp2, 3gpp, 3gp, 3g2)
• DVD-MS
• FLV
• AMW
• RealVideo (rm, rmvb)
• Matroska

All videos are displayed in a list along with their full file path, name and playtime. You can use the up and down buttons to move videos around to change the order of appearance on DVD.

The only remaining options on this screen are the output folder that you may want to change and the preset. Available are DVD Pal and DVD NTSC presets ranging from HIgh Quality, over Good Quality, Standard Quality to Long Play.

A output size bar at the buttom indicates the space of the output file. You need to make sure that it stays in the file size limitations of a standard DVD or dual-layer DVD.

Free Video to DVD Converter creates a Video_TS folder in the output folder. All videos that have been added to the list will be converted into DVD format. It is possible to launch a DVD burner right after the DVD has been created to burn the DVD video to a blank DVD right away.

The burning software is included in the application, but you can use an external third party software to burn the Video_TS folder instead.

You can play the DVDs on all compatible devices. If you just want to burn videos to a DVD to play them on TV, then you may want to give Free Video to DVD Converter a try. Its broad support for video formats and fast conversions make it an excellent program in this regard.

Windows users can download the software from the developer website. The program is compatible with all versions of the Windows operating system from Windows XP to Windows 7.

Free Video to DVD converter is such an alternative. It requires almost no configuration at all and can convert most popular video formats to a DVD compatible format.

The program is offered as a standalone software and as part of a suite at the developer’s website. Both applications are free and offer the same functionality. We did have troubles with the standalone software which did not install properly on our Windows 7 test system.

Uninstalling that version and installing the complete software suite solved the problem. The installer offers to install a toolbar during installation which most users probably do not want at all. Unchecking the box will prevent the installation of the toolbar.

The interface of Free Video to DVD Converter is as basic as it can get. There are virtually no options except for the presets where the quality and video standard (NTSC or PAL) can be selected.

The program supports both single layer and dual layer DVDs and displays the output size of the added video files in a bar at the bottom of the screen to give an indication if the user has to burn a single or dual layer DVD.

Files can be added by clicking on the browse button in the interface. The program does not limit the video files that can be added for conversion (or warn the user) which means that it is possible to end up with a size that does not fit on one DVD. This is obviously problematic as it is not possible to burn the videos to DVD if they exceed the maximum capacities. The program does not split the DVDs or reduce the quality settings automatically.

The user has to make sure that the maximum capacities of a single or dual layer DVD are not exceeded. The converter will create a Video_TS folder out of the video files that are added by the user.

It is possible to just create the Video_TS folder or burn the DVD automatically in the end. Another nuisance is that the program will display an advertisement to install the toolbar again when the user closes it.

Free Video to DVD Converter is nevertheless one of the easiest to use programs to burn videos to DVD. Users of all experience levels can use it to create video DVDs easily. The developers should consider to add warnings when the space limit is exceed or implement an option to automatically split the videos on multiple DVDs if the space is exceeded.

Free Video to DVD Converter can be downloaded from the developer’s website. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system. A free alternative with an advanced functionality is DVD Flick.

Explorer and Burn supports the two image formats iso and img which can also be burned directly by selecting them in Windows Explorer. The program requires the Image Mastering API v2.0 can be downloaded from the Microsoft website. Imapi 2.0 is included in Windows Vista and Windows 7 which means that only Windows XP users have to download the additional component.

Explore and Burn will display a wizard with a few DVD burning options that include specifying a disk burning speed and name. The disk can be finalized in the same menu. The program supports all major CD and DVD disk types and can burn single-session and multi-session discs with ISO-9660, Joliet and UDF file systems.

Explore And Burn is a hassle free DVD burning software that should be sufficient for many disk burning purposes. A few additional options would make it even more useful. This includes recognizing DVD video folders or the ability to burn audio disks by selecting audio files. Explore And Burn can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

ImgBurn was recently updated to version 2.5 and the developer has published a huge list of changes, fixes and additions to that version. The program stays the same at its core which means it is still the lightweight DVD burning software that can be installed or used as a (unofficial) portable version instead.

Below are some of the more important changes introduced in this version of ImgBurn:

• An ‘Advanced’ input mode to build mode where you have total control over the layout of the disc and can add new folders, change names etc. (i.e. you’re no longer limited to burning an existing folder structure on your hard disc as-is)
• ImgBurn now adds itself to the context menu’s ‘Open With’ submenu for files it’s associated with.
• Support for burning CCD files.
• Support for building images using the ‘MODE2/FORM1/2352′ data type. (previously it only supported ‘MODE1/2048′)
• A check to ensure all the DVD Video files in a sequence are present. (i.e. it’ll prompt if VTS_XX_1.VOB and VTS_XX_3.VOB are present but VTS_XX_2.VOB isn’t)
• Detection of attempts to build Vista style OS installation discs (via the ‘sources\install.wim’ file) and the relevant prompting for conflicting settings, failing to make it bootable etc (same as an ‘I386′ install disc).

The new version of the DVD burning software can be downloaded directly from the developer’s website. It has a size of only 2 Megabytes, comes with many language translation files (e.g. German, Chinese, Russian, French and Spanish) and is compatible with all Microsoft operating systems from Windows 95 to Windows 7.

ImgBurn via Download Squad

To burn a disk image a software is needed that is capable of doing so. One of the best free disk burning applications is ImgBurn. ImgBurn is fast, lightweight and supports many of the more popular disk image formats including ISO, BIN and IMG among others. It is also compatible with all 32-bit and 64-bit editions of all Windows operating systems since the release of (and including) Windows 95.

It furthermore is capable of burning disk images to CD, DVD, Blu-Ray and HD DVD. In other words: ImgBurn should cover the needs of 99.9% of all users.

One of the useful features of ImgBurn is its context menu integration. A option to burn the disk image will automatically appear if a user right-clicks a supported disk image file.

The selected disk image will be loaded directly into the disk burning software program with the option to burn it immediately if a blank disk has been inserted into the disk writing drive.

All that is left to do is to click on the icon in the lower left of the window that is opening automatically. This will start the disk burning process. Users can optionally change the write speed settings and amount of copies in the left side or activate test mode or verification. That’s all there is to it to burn a disk image.

We had an ask the readers article just a short while ago about the best free burning software that might be of interest as well.

Those three are probably the most common uses other than playing movie DVDs on the computer which can be done with virtually any program.

The tools listed below have been tested extensively and completely free, most are Open Source. If you know of a tool that is not in the list but should be let me know and I add it after evaluating it.

Play movie DVDs on the computer:

I rarely play movie DVDs on the computer, heck I dislike watching movies on the computer and prefer to watch them on the big TV screen. My video player of choice, SMPlayer, can play movie DVDs.

It does not offer a menu driven interface but different chapters, subtitles and titles can be selected from the menu. No need for additional specialized software in most cases.

Rip movie DVDs in DVD format to the computer:

Tools in this section:

DVD Smith Movie Backup
DVD Fab HD Decrypter
DVD Shrink

Here we have to distinguish between applications that rip the movie but retain DVD quality and those that rip the movie into a compressed format like avi or a portable format so that it can be played on a mobile phone or iPod.

DVD Smith Movie Backup can backup a DVD to the computer with little user interaction. It can deal with copy protections so that all movies can be copied with ease.

An alternative to that is DVD Fab HD Decrypter which offers all the features of DVD Smith Movie Backup plus the option to make the movie region code free.

Both store the movie in a Video_TS folder on the hard drive which has approximately the same size as the DVD.

The third tool is DVD Shrink which can reduce the size of the ripped movie which comes in handy if you have a DVD-9 movie and want to burn the backup on a DVD-5. DVD Shrink handles all copy protection as well.

Rip movie DVDs in compressed format to the computer:

Tools in this section:

Auto Gordian Knot
Bitripper
Handbrake

Converting movie DVDs into a compressed format has many advantages. One is the ability to store multiple movies in the place that one full DVD rip would take on the hard drive. A general size of around 700 Megabytes for a compressed movie would mean that about six movies fit into the place of one full DVD backup.

Another example where it does make sense is mobile computing. If you want to store movies on your iPhone, mobile phone, netbook or UMPC you have to take size into consideration because they usually come with hard drive or flash drive sizes of 20 Gigabytes or less.

Auto Gordian Knot can convert movie DVDs into avis. Minimal user interaction is required for the process. The only limitation of the program is that it cannot handle copy protected movies. To overcome this users could first backup the movie to hard disk with one of the applications mentioned above and rip it from there.

Handbrake is another tool which can handle basic CSS protection and convert the movie into additional formats like mkv, mp4 and ogm.

Bitripper finally handles DVD copy protection with ease and requires minimal user input to rip the DVD to the computer. The main benefit of Bitripper is its ease of use, no technical knowledge is required to rip the DVDs.

Convert Videos to DVD Format:

Tools in this section:

AVStoDVD
DVD Flick

DVD Flick supports a wide variety of formats which is its greatest strength, a total of 60 video and 45 audio codecs are supported by the application. It supports subtitles, PAL and NTSC DVDs and can burn the created DVD right after the creation has finished.

The biggest advantage of AVStoDVD is the ease of use. Just add videos to the program interface and it will automatically calculate the correct size to fit all the videos on a DVD-5 or DVD-9 depending on the users selection. Everything is created automatically and it can also burn the DVD after the DVD creation process.