Make DVDs for free

Use slideshows to share photos
DVD slideshows are a great way to share photos.

You can accompany them with music or narration and it’s easy to include pan and zoom effects.

Advanced DVD players that can decode JPEG files will cope happily with a disc that has photo files on it, but transitions and audio will be limited.

For the widest compatibility make videos using your photos which are then authored as a standard video DVD.

The simplest way do this is to use Windows DVD Maker and use its slideshow option, which can add music and pan effects.

If you use Windows XP you won’t have access to Windows DVD Maker, so you will need to install Microsoft Photo Story 3 to create a slideshow.

This program lets you make multimedia slide productions easily. Adding music and subtle pans and zooms to your pictures creates a professional look.

All you need is a folder full of pictures and suitable background music.

Click Begin a Story, followed by Import Pictures. Browse your photos, highlight those you want and click Open.

Drag the photos in the film-strip to the desired order.

Click Next and press the Record button to start your narration. While narrating, move the mouse pointer over the part of the photo you’re talking about and Photo Story will pan or zoom towards it.

Click the blue arrow to go to the next photo.

You can provide a title and subheading for your title page and add a background image of your choice.

Once complete, Photo Story can save the project as a WMV file and make it smaller.

A WMV file needs to be converted before it can be used on a video DVD and the best way is to use a DVD authoring program. Under Windows XP, the best free options are probably DVD Styler and DVD Flick.

Create DVD video files with DVD Styler
DVD Styler can create DVD video files in the right folder structure, but you will need to burn the results to a DVD using a disc burning program.

A good free option is CD Burner XP.

To use DVD Styler, choose File, New and select the video preferred standard (Pal in the UK).

You can also enter a disc label here and set the aspect ratio and video quality. If in doubt, choose Auto.

Choose the File Browser tab on the left-hand side and navigate to the video files you want on the disc.

Drag each video file onto the timeline at the bottom of the main window.

Now you can create a menu for your disc.

Click Backgrounds and double-click one of the suggested images to make it your menu background.

Move to the buttons tab and drag one of the button designs onto your menu page. Repeat this for other buttons.

Right-click one of the buttons and choose Properties.

Select the title or sub-menu you want the button to link to and edit the button text here if desired.

There are also options to change the colours and size of the button here.

When the menu is complete, choose File, Save As to save the project.

You can now render the project as an ISO file, which can be burned to DVD later on.

Choose File, Burn DVD and tick the box marked create ISO image. Provide a file name and location and click Start.

The rendering process can take some time depending on the amount of transcoding required.

An alternative is DVD Flick. Launch the program and click Add Title and browse to the video file you want to use and click Open.

Repeat this for other videos.

To create a menu, click Menu Settings and select the layout that you want to use. Click Accept.

Choose Project Settings and set the title and video format. On the Burning tab you can opt to create an ISO image as in DVD Styler or choose to burn your project directly to disc.

Accept these settings and click Create DVD to render the disc.

Alternative DVD authoring software for Linux
There are several free non-Microsoft options for DVD authoring that work under Linux. DVD Flick and DVD Styler both have Linux versions. For an option that’s readily available, consider QD VD Author.

It’s not quite as intuitive as Windows DVD Maker, but that’s hardly a problem for most Linux users.

Launch the program and click Add background.

Browse to a JPEG file to use as the background.

Click Add Movie and select an MPEG2 file to add. Repeat for as many videos as you need.

Now you can create some menu buttons.

Right-click somewhere on the background and choose Add Text.

Enter the text for the button and repeat for as many buttons as you want. Right-click one of your text items and choose Define as Button.

Give it a name and set the target to the movie file that you want to link it to.

Do the same for the rest of your buttons.

Now choose Tools, Setup and enter a project name and the directory to save the DVD files in.

Select DVD Author Create DVD and click OK. Once complete, burn the contents of the DVD folder to a disc using your favourite disc burning tool.

Video editing in Windows 7
Microsoft won’t be including Windows Movie Maker with Windows 7.

Instead, Windows Live Movie Maker is available to download for free as part of the Windows Live suite.

The current beta version is a more simplified program than those on offer w ith Windows Vista or XP.

There’s no timeline editing and most of the video effects and transitions are omitted. In its current form it’s only suitable for stringing a few clips together and making simple trims.

On the upside, it’s pretty user friendly.

It’s disappointing to lose out on what was quite a powerful, free video editor by upgrading to the next version of Windows, but there is a silver lining.

Windows Movie Maker 2.6, which was made available to Vista users without the graphical capabilities to render Aero, runs fine under Windows 7.

It doesn’t include some of the pan and zoom effects available in Windows Movie Maker 6, which is Vista’s native version, but it’s a lot more flexible than the Windows Live Movie Maker Beta.

Click here to see the Workshop on how to create DVDs with Windows DVD maker.