There are plenty of reasons you might want/need to put
together a DVD. Sure, you might want to put together that family DVD to send to
everyone at Christmas time – but there are also training videos, marketing
materials, and even products. But without the right software, creating those
DVDs would be an exercise in futility. For those on a tight-as-nails budget, I
have found five free DVD authoring tools that are not only spot on for your
spending limit, they are also fairly easy to use.

This article is also available as a TechRepublic Screenshot Gallery.

But will any of them meet your specific needs? Let’s
dive into the world of DVD authoring and find out. Remember, these aren’t
editors; you’ll need your completed clips ready to use. If you need a free
video editor, look no further than OpenShot.
With your video in hand, let’s author some DVDs.

Five Apps

1. DVD Styler

DVD Styler is a
cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac) authoring tool that allows you to convert
your footage into a DVD-friendly format, but also create professional-quality
DVD menus. The ability to create menus is especially important when creating
marketing materials or products for your company. DVD Styler also features:
Slideshow creation, add multiple titles and audio tracks, multiple supported
video and audio formats (AVI, MOV, MP4, MPEG, OGG, WMV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX,
Xvid, MP2, MP3, AC-3), use MPEG and VOB without having to re-encode, drag and
drop interface, add buttons, text, and imported backgrounds to menus, and more.
DVD Styler is open source and has a fairly shallow learning curve.

2. DVD Flick

DVD Flick aims to be as
simple as it is powerful. This particular take on DVD authoring supports over
45 video formats, over 60 video codecs, and over 60 audio codecs (for a full
list of supported audio/video formats, check out the features page). DVD Flick also
allows you to create menus as well as subtitles for your DVDs. With DVD Flick
you can create chapters and alter the aspect ratio of the final product.
Another nice feature is that DVD Flick will automatically calculate the bitrate
of your project to make sure you can easily keep an eye on quality loss.

3. Bombono DVD

Bombono DVD may have
an odd name, but it’s ability to easily author DVDs makes up for it. Available
for Windows and Linux, Bombono DVD offers plenty of features that should have
you authoring professional-quality products or materials for your business in
no time. Bombono DVDs feature list includes: Video viewer (with time line and
monitor), WYSIWYG menu editor, drag and drop support, built-in transcoding,
motion menus, subtitles, and more. With Bombano DVD you can author to folder,
create an ISO, or burn directly to disk. You can also re-author by importing
from DVD disks. NOTE: The Linux version of Bombono DVD is free. The Windows
version will cost you $24.95 USD.

4. DeVeDe

DeVeDe
is a Linux-only DVD authoring solution that requires a minimal amount of
dependencies to do its job. Outside of the GUI dependencies, DeVeDe requires:
Mplayer, Mencoder, FFMpeg, DVDAuthor, VCDImager, and Mkisofs. DeVeDe features
include: Create DVD, VCD, SVCD, China Video Disks, MPEG-4 ASP; output to images
or video formats, subtitles, audio shift, basic video editing (rotation,
deinterlacing, etc), and more. DeVeDe supports a large range of formats and
automatically converts source material to DVD-compatible formats.

5. Video to DVD Converter

Video to
DVD Converter
, by Koyotesoft, offers the smallest feature-set of the group,
but is still a solid entry. This app does exactly what the title implies – it
converts your video files into a format compatible with DVD players. The feature
set includes: Wide range of supported formats (such as AVI, DivX, XviD, MPEG,
MP4, VOB, WMV and more), convert output (MPEG) to aspect ratio, bitrate, NTSC,
or PAL, burn ISO-compliant DVDs (4.5GB+ DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW). The user
interface makes Video to DVD Converter incredibly easy to use.

Bottom line

If you’re looking for a tool to help you create DVD’s for
your company, look no further than one of these. Although some are a bit more
bare-bones than others, they all do an outstanding job – especially, given the
cost. Add in a solid video editor and you’re sure to create
professional-quality marketing material, training videos, and products for your
business.

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From the hottest programming languages to commentary on the Linux OS, get the developer and open source news and tips you need to know. Delivered Tuesdays and Thursdays