How to Burn a DVD

It’s easier than ever to burn a DVD, but it helps to know what you are burning it for, as that can affect what you need to do. There are three types of DVD burning:

1. Burn a Data DVD

A Data DVD is the simplest to burn, and will be what most people want to do. It involves directly burning data files from a computer to a DVD, often for backup purposes. These files can be various documents, spreadsheets, music files, video files and so on. Data DVDs can be opened on any computer equipped with a DVD player, and most modern DVD players for TVs can also browse and play audio and video files directly.

Modern operating systems have a Data DVD burning capability built in without the need for extra software.

2. Burn a Multimedia DVD

If you want to burn your photos, music or movies and have them easily playable on your DVD player, along with an interactive menu, making a Multimedia DVD would be your choice.

3. Copy and Burn a Commercial DVD

Copying a DVD is a good way to make a backup, and ensure that the data is preserved even if the original DVD gets scratched or deteriorates over time. Copying any ordinary DVD is pretty easy, but copying a Commercial DVD with DRM protection might require special software that would crack the DVD’s DRM. This may be illegal in some places.

How to burn a DVD in Windows

Burn a Data DVD

Windows Vista and Windows 7 have a Data DVD burning capability built in. Just insert a blank DVD, go to Start menu > Computer, double click your DVD, choose “With a CD/DVD Player” and click next, and then drag and drop whatever files you want to burn into the window. You can also select any files in a given folder and click the “Burn” button on the toolbar to burn selected files. If you are using an earlier version of Windows or prefer to use a more comprehensive program here are a few suggestions:

• CDBurnerXP (free)
• BurnaAware Free (free)
• Nero Burning ROM (free trial)
• Super DVD Creator (free trial)

A typical procedure to burn a Data DVD with these programs is:

1. Insert a blank DVD into your DVD burner, launch the program and choose to burn a “Data DVD”.
2. Add the files and folders you’d like to burn. Just make sure you don’t exceed the amount of available space on a DVD. There should be an indicator telling you this.
3. Set any options that might be offered, like burning speed. If unsure, leave everything as is.
4. Click burn, and wait for it to finish.

Burn a Multimedia DVD

If you simply want to burn music, photos or movies to watch on your TV then burning a Data DVD as described above may be enough, provided that you have a relatively modern DVD player that supports MP3, DivX, JPEG and similar file formats. Simply burn your desired photos, music and video files, preferrably separating them in logical folders.

If you want to burn a proper Video DVD with a menu you can often choose a “Video DVD” option in the above mentioned DVD burning programs. If you, however, want to burn a custom DVD with professional features like a title and a DVD menu you could use one of the DVD authoring tools such as these:

• DVD Styler (free)
• DVD Flick (free)
• Roxio VideoLab (free trial)
• Nero Vision Xtra (free trial)
• DVD Lab (free trial)
• Womble EasyDVD (free trial)

Copying and Burning a Commercial DVD

Copying any ordinary DVD should be easy by using any of the above mentioned DVD burning software, and choosing a “Copy DVD” option. If the DVD is copy protected with Digital Rights Management (DRM) it may have to be decoded before it can be copied. Some of the mentioned general DVD burning software might be able to do that so they are worth a try. Otherwise, DVD rippers and decrypters such as these could do the job:

• DVD Shrink which can also be used to shrink double layer DVDs (7 to 8.4GB) to fit a single DVD
• DVDFab HD Decrypter
• Magic DVD Ripper

If these don’t work you can use DVD43 which runs in the background and automatically decrypts DVDs as they are loaded into the system so other ordinary DVD burning programs can copy it.

Once you rip a DVD you can burn it to a blank DVD, which effectively makes a copy.

Note that bypassing copy protection is illegal in some countries, or may be legal only to make copies for personal use.

How to burn a DVD in Mac OS X

Burn a Data DVD

Mac OS X also has a built in capability of burning Data DVDs. Just put a blank DVD in, double click the disc icon that shows on the desktop, and drag and drop files and folders to it that you want to burn. You can also burn any existing folder by itself by right clicking on it and choosing “Burn “Folder” to Disc”. There are also a few additional software options:

• Burn (free)
• Disco (free)
• MacBurn (buy)
• Roxio Toast (buy)

Burn a Multimedia DVD

Same applies here as on Windows. You can burn multimedia files as data with the above applications, but if you want to make it a professional DVD with a DVD menu, title, and so on you can use DVD authoring applications such as these:

• iDVD (part of iLife, bundled with Macs)
• SmallDVD (free)
• Roxio Toast (buy)

Copying and Burning a Commercial DVD

Same as on Windows, if you want to copy a commercial DVD you’ll probably need to decrypt its copy protection first. Otherwise you can use general DVD burning programs to copy it. Here are a few DVD rippers for Mac. Some of these tools can also compress or shrink the DVD being ripped.

• MacTheRipper (free)
• Handbrake (need to install VLC for the codecs too) (free)
• RipIt (buy)
• DVDRemaster (buy)
• Mac DVDRipper Pro (free trial)

Once you rip it you can use one of the Data DVD burning apps to burn it, making a copy.

How to burn a DVD in Linux

Burn a Data DVD

Here are a few DVD burning applications for Linux that you can use to burn a Data DVD:

• GnomeBaker (free)
• K3B (free)
• Brasero (free)
• SimpleBurn (free)

Burn a Multimedia DVD

You can make professional looking DVDs with menus and titles even on Linux using these tools:

• Bombono (free)
• Q-DVD Author (free)
• DeVeDe (free)

Copying and Burning a Commercial DVD

Like in Windows and Mac, if you’re copying a copy protected DVD you’ll need to rip it, decrypt it (usually done by rippers too), and then burn it. Otherwise you can just use a Copy option on one of the above mentioned DVD burning applications.

Here are some DVD rippers for Linux:

• AcidRip (free)
• Handbrake (might need to install VLC for the codecs too) (free)
• DVD::Rip (free)
• Thoggen (free)
• K9Copy (free)

As with Windows and Mac, once you rip a DVD you can burn it to create a copy.

Problems that People Might Encounter when Burning a DVD

“There is not enough space available for the recording process”

This error message means that there is not enough space on the hard drive for the temporary files that burning software creates during the burning process. This does not mean that the blank DVD does not have enough space.

In order to fix this:

Solution 1 – The error message tells which folder/drive is the problem, so just locate the folder being reported and delete some unnecessary files from that disk.

Solution 2 – Set a different folder for temporary files.  If another disk/partition with more free space (5 GB recommended) is available, configure the burning software to use that instead.