DVD stands for both Digital Video Disk and Digital Versatile Disk. DVD is an optical storage medium that is very much like a compact disc. The differences are that DVDs have a improved storage capacity and bandwidth compared to a Compact Disc. Other than that, you can do pretty much about anything on a DVD that you can do on a Compact Disc, which invokes the question of how to burn DVDs.

DVDs can store about six times as much data as your regular CDs. Since you can do the same things to a DVD, you can be sure that you can burn various types of data on your DVDs. With its improved capacity, a DVD can contain 133 minutes of a full length film.

Types of DVD Discs

Depending on how the data is stored onto a disk, DVDs are often called by various names. DVD-ROM would mean you can only read from such a disk, which means you can’t burn DVDs using that disk. DVD+R/DVD-R can be used to record data once. DVD-RW/DVD+RW/DVD-RAM disks can be written to and then erased and burned again a number of times.

Burning Data onto a Disc

Your regular data will have the least requirements on how to burn DVDs. These include any data format from databases, spreadsheets, documents and other types of files you may have on your computer’s hard drive.

The first thing you need to have in order to burn DVDs is burning software. You may buy software to burn DVDs or alternatively you may download ones that are free. You also need a drive that can burn DVDs. Make sure you have one that supports both Compact Disc burning and DVD burning. You can write up to 4.7 GB of data onto one disc.

Burning Multimedia Files onto a DVD Disk

Burning multimedia files is basically just like burning data files. You’ll follow the same steps on how to burn DVDs for your multimedia files. Video files take more space and a much longer time to burn onto your disk.

Your videos can come from a variety of sources. Some would want to convert their videos from VHS tapes and burn them onto a disk. Videos recorded from a camcorder, digital camera, or your television can also be burned.

There are added features on how to burn DVDs when you’re dealing with multimedia. You can add chapters, a title page, a menu page, and even subtitles. You will need to install authoring tools in order to add these specific features when you burn DVDs. You can also copy protect your disk using DRM software.

Burning DVD Movies

Before going over how to burn DVDs for commercial purposes, take note that it is illegal in most countries to make copies of copyrighted DVDs and redistribute them to the market. You are breaking copyright laws even if you are giving them away as gifts. That being said, it isn’t a breach of copyright laws to make copies for an archive or backup for another device you own (such as another computer or a player on your car).

In addition to your burning software, you’ll also need software to rip the videos from commercial disks. These will remove the Digital Rights Management and allow you to copy the videos. At times you may have to convert the videos you rip into other video formats before you write them onto a DVD disc. That is the basics of how to burn DVD movies.

Sources of Free Software to Burn DVDs

Free DVD Burning Software

Free DVD Burning Software

Free DVD Burning Software

Other Sites on How to Burn DVD’s

How to Burn a DVD

How to Burn a DVD

How to Burn a DVD

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