PCs All-in-One For Dummies®, 5th Edition

Chapter 4. I Can Make My Own DVDs?

In This Chapter

• Adding video clips

• Previewing your DVD menu

• Recording a finished DVD video

As a PC owner — and as a dedicated movie fan with my own digital video (DV) camcorder — I honestly can't think of a current technology in the world of personal computers that's more exciting than burning my own DVD videos! That's why I chose the title for this chapter: DVD recording is still new enough and sounds so much like rocket science that even many PC power users don't know much about it. (Another large cross section of PC owners knows that recording DVDs is possible on a PC but thinks that it's too complex or far too expensive.)

With the drop in the price of DVD recorders — and the availability of easy-to-use DVD authoring software, such as Windows DVD Maker — recording your own DVD videos is now kid's stuff. Trust me: You can do this, and it doesn't cost you an arm and a leg. Your DVD videos will have professional-looking menus, and they'll run on standard DVD players. But rather than watch Arnold Schwarzenegger, you'll watch your family at Walt Disney World. (And, unlike those VHS tapes, your DVD home movies will never wear out!)

In this chapter, I concentrate on showing you how to record DVDs by using existing video clips and multimedia files from your hard drive.

Welcome to Windows DVD Maker

Windows DVD Maker is — wait for it — absolutely free, so you can produce truly professional-looking DVD movies on your own PC on the cheap. To begin your foray into ...