AVI to DVD using DVD Flick GuideOriginal Page URL: http://www.digital-digest.com/articles/AVI_to_DVD_using_DVD_Flick_page1.htmlAuthor/Publisher: DVDGuy Date Added: May 8, 2007 Date Updated: May 8, 2007 DVD Flick is a great and easy to use open source software for making simple DVDs. It accepts various input formats, such as AVI, FLV, MKV, MP4, MPG and even HDMOV (QuickTime HD). This guide will mainly focus on DivX/XviD AVI input files, although it will work for pretty much any of the formats that DVD Flick accepts. DVD Flick has a built-in burner, but if you prefer not to use it and to test playback first prior to burning, then a DVD folder or ISO output is available (if you choose these latter two options, please make sure you know how to burn these files to make a DVD, as this guide will not cover it). The DVDs DVD Flick produces supports simple functions such as subtitles, audio tracks and chapters. If you want fancy menus and other such features, you should try other software such as Nero Vision or TMPGEnc DVD Author. Read our DVD Authoring Tools Roundup to find out which DVD authoring tool is best for your needs. Software you'll need (all freeware): Hardware you'll need:
Step 1: InstallationInstallation is easy, just download DVD Flick and run the installer. For this guide, we will also use GSpot in order to find out certain details about our input DivX/XviD files (actually just the framerate), so it is not strictly necessary if you already know these details. All you need to do to install GSpot is to download it and extract the contents to a folder on your computer. Step 2: InputsBefore you load your inputs into DVD Flick, it is best to make sure that these input files are all of the same system (PAL or NTSC or NTSC-Film). As a rule, files that are 23.976, 24 are NTSC-Film. 29.97 or 30 frame per second are NTSC. While PAL video is at 25 FPS. Multiples of these framerates (eg. 15 FPS and 60 FPS => NTSC) are sometime used as well. For AVI files, the best way to check for the framerate is to use GSpot. You can actually get this information within DVD Flick, but only after loading in the files, which makes it harder to plan out ahead your projects. Start GSpot and from the "File" menu, select "Open" to load in your AVI file. GSpot will scan the file and show you the framerate in the "Frames/s" area (marked in red in the screenshot below). Repeat this for all your AVI files to make sure they are all either NTSC, NTSC-Film or PAL. Mixing different types of video files (eg. mixing PAL and NTSC) will mean unsmooth video or other artifacts.  Step 3: DVD Flick Project SetupStart DVD Flick. The first thing we will do is to set up the project, so click on the "Project Settings" button.  In the "General" section first. Change the target size to match the kind of DVD media you will burn to (most likely "DVD (4.3 GB)"). You can also specify a custom size if, for example, you want to burn other types of files to the DVD.  On to the "Video" section. The "Target Format" will need to be changed to match your input file (see "Step 2").  Click on the "Advanced" button to access the advanced video options. The "Second encoding pass" can be checked to allow better quality encoding, but will double the time it takes to encode the video. It is certainly better to keep the "Encoding profile" at normal and select "Second encoding pass", rather than changing the "Encoding profile" to "High". You should select this option unless you are really short of time. "Add overscan borders" will add a border around your video. The reason for doing this is that many older TVs have overscan, that is to enlarge the picture slightly so that the border area is not viewable. If you do not have overscan enabled, then parts of your video might be cut off. On the other hand, most new TVs do not have overscan and if you select this option, you will see a black border around the picture. I would leave it unselected. "Log PSNR values" will log certain an objective quality measurement value in dvdflick.log, not necessary unless you need to know. "Half horizontal resolution" will half the horizontal resolution from 720 to 352, lower quality, but allowing more video to be stored (standalone DVD recorders often use this mode to the extra long record settings). Not recommended unless your source video is already at 352 resolution or lower. When you're done, press "Accept" to close this window and return to the main settings section.  Now on to the "Audio" section. "Target format" allows you to specify the type of AC3 sound track to use. Use "Auto" in most cases, as it will match the number of channels from the input file as well as selecting a bitrate to maximize the quality/size ratio. Otherwise, you can select a custom channel/bitrate.  Finally, to the "Burning" section. Here, you can specify the burning options for the project. By default, DVD Flick will create the DVD folder (AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders, with IFO/BUP/VOB files) for burning with DVD-video burning software such as Nero. Instead, you can tell DVD Flick to create an ISO image file (eg. to burn with ImgBurn) or burn the project directly to a disc.  Press "Accept" to save the settings and return to the main DVD Flick interface. Step 4: Adding TitlesFirst, use the "Browse" button to select where you want the temporary and/or image/DVD folder files to be generated. It is essential that you use a newly created folder, not something like "My Documents", because DVD Flick will delete all files in the folder before it creates any (and you get a warning message about it too, but it is often easily overlooked). Now we can use the "Add title" button to load in our video files. The following diagram from the official DVD Flick guide demonstrates the organisation of a project.  Each "Title" can have multiple video files. Or you can create a title for each video file. An real world example might be say if you have TV downloads for Lost and Heroes, 3 episodes for each show, you might create a Title for Lost and another Title for Heroes, and add the 3 episodes to each of these titles as video sources. It's important that all the video sources in each title should have the same specifications (aspect ratio, framerate).  Once you have added a title, you can double click on it or use the "Edit Title" button to edit its properties. In the "General" section, the "Aspect ratio" (which is automatically detected from your input video) specifies the aspect ratio of the input file. You can also choose to create chapters at set intervals, or choose to create a set number of chapters.  The "Video Sources" allows you to load in more videos files to this title. Each video source will play automatically after the last source has ended. Think of multiple video sources as joining multiple files into one big video file. Just make sure these sources have at least the same aspect ratio and framerate (preferably same resolution and audio specs too). Note that the details about the video is displayed here (framerate, resolution), and you can use this information to set the system (PAL, NTSC, NTSC-Film) information without using GSpot as recommended by this guide.  The "Audio Tracks" section is slightly trickier to understand, so more explanation is needed. For audio tracks, think multi language DVDs. If the length of the audio track is less than that of the video, then the end part of your video will be audio less. Within each audio track, you can also load in additional audio sources (double click on each audio track to do so) - again, it's the same as loading in multiple video sources - all these audio sources will basically be joined into one big audio file. You can also select the language that the track is in (this allows the correct language information to be displayed in your DVD player). Now for a real world example: You have 3 episodes of Lost which you've loaded in as video sources. This will automatically create 1 audio track (composed of 3 audio sources). Let's say you want to add foreign language track, then you need to create another track composed of another 3 audio sources (and change the language setting accordingly). Just make sure the length matches for all these audio and video sources, as otherwise, you will run into problems with audio synch.  For "Subtitle Tracks", you can load in subtitle tracks for your video (similar to the way audio tracks work, each track for a language, for example). Most of the common format are supported, like SSA, SRT, SMI. Once you add a subtitle track, you can double click on it to change its settings and preview it. All the options are pretty straight forward.   Repeat all of the above for each title, and when you are finished, click on the "Create DVD" button to start the encoding, authoring (and optionally, burning) process.   After DVD Flick finishes, you should have a ready-to-burn DVD folder/ISO file or a burnt disc ready to play. For a guide on how to burn the DVD folder with ImgBurn, please refer to our Burning a DVD Folder with ImgBurn guide. For a guide on how to burn the ISO file using the free ImgBurn, please refer to our Burning a Image with ImgBurn guide. And we're done Got more questions? Post them in our DVD Flick Forum and get them answered by other expert users. |
