Freeware DVD Authoring Software

Home DVD
One of the greatest parts of the home production revolution is now you have the ability to make professional looking DVDs for your own digital video films. Though many of these programs give you the resources to excel creatively, they are seldom cheap. There are a number of great ones that can be found on line for the fabulous price of free.

Best Programs
The key to finding the best DVD movie maker software , whether it is free for download or costs money, is to find a nice balance between ease of use and number of features. You want to be able to create several menu systems, have transitions between them, the ability to fully customize the menus and add media to those menus. All authoring programs will allow you to put photos and videos onto  DVD, but not all of them will allow you to have a full creative project with your DVD.


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Best Freeware Video Compression software

The Best Freeware Video Compression Programs

Post-production often requires video compression, so finding a free program is important.
Shrinking the File

Digital video production and post-production almost requires some form of video compression. The different platforms for distribution, from websites to DVD, all require something slightly different. No matter what platform it is, a standard QuickTime file will usually be too big. This is the reason that every video editor must have a video compression program in his or her tool belt, and a free video editor is much better than one that costs a lot of money.

Lots of Compressors
There are a number of programs out there that will let you do certain type of video compressions. This is one of the most pervasive types of free, or semi-free, software on the Internet. Even programs like iTunes and Divx will allow you to do this in some fashion.
What separates a great video compression program apart from the pack is the number of file types it can work with and its specific design in conjunction with digital video post-production.

Prism
Prism AVI/Video Converter Software is a great program that supports a number of formats, including .wmv, divX, and a variety of mpeg formats. The problem is that its full version costs, but the free version available on its website is good enough for almost all uses. Their website also has links to a number of other types of conversion software, such as a converter for VHS to DVD transfer.

Combining Programs
Open Video Converter and MSU Lossless Video Codec are two programs that are plastered all over the Internet, but neither programs are stellar. Together they may be able to get the majority of your projects done. They fall under the same problem that programs like OGM to AVI Converter and PPT to Videoscout fall into, they do one or two conversions very well and leave the rest of the formats behind.

RAD
One absolutely free compression program that stands above the rest is the RAD Video Tools. Again, it will not do everything, but it is fairly reliable. The rule of thumb with free compression software is that you usually need two or three different programs to get everything done.

Buy One?
If you are serious about video publishing then you may already have a great video slideshow maker. If this is true you might just want to stick with their onboard video compression tools. An all-purpose video compression program like Apple’s Compressor is better than almost anything you will be able to find for free.

Final Cut Pro for DVD Authoring

Exporting Movie Files in Final Cut Pro for DVD Authoring

Once you have poured your sweat and blood into a digital video project you may want to put it onto a great DVD to show your family and friends. When you are editing in Final Cut Pro you must first export your movie file in a certain way to get it into the DVD authoring program.
Compressor
Once your final movie sequence is finished in the Timeline you will be ready to turn it into a movie file outside of Final Cut Pro. If you have been working on separate sequences that are all part of your final film then you need to nest all of the sequences and get them into a single one. Once you have done this make sure that sequence is up in the Timeline and then go to File in the task part and go to Export. When Export is highlighted it will open a number of options for how you want this to be done.

You need to select Export Using Compressor, which will then open a different program from the Final Cut Suite called Compressor. This program does what it sounds like and compresses regular video files, such as QuickTime files, into smaller ones. Once here a menu will open up, and in the upper left hand section is where you need to drag settings and destinations. Below that window is a menu that has two tabs, one containing settings and one containing destinations. Click on the settings tab and then select the Apple folder. A number of options drop down under it, and you need to open the DVD folder. Under here you will have a number of options, but the best one to use for DVD authoring software is the “DVD: Best Quality 90 Minutes” option. When you open this folder there will be two items in there, one for video and one for audio. You then drag and drop each of these items into the window in the upper left hand part of the Compressor display. Once you do that you will have two things appear in there, one listed as Dolby Digital Professional 2.0 and one labeled as MPEG-2 with a variable size next to it.

Choose Your Destination
The next thing you are going to do is select a destination on your computer or external hard drive for the compressed files to go. Highlight each one individually and go to Target in the task bar and the Destination option. There is will let you choose where you would like the files to go. Once you have done this both the audio and video in the upper left hand window will lose the exclamation points they had in them and will be ready for compression. You simply click on submit in the lower right portion of this window and the compression will begin. It will process the video and audio separately, and do so by cutting out frames. This can be a lengthy process depending ony your computer and how large your film was to begin with.

Authoring Software
Once it is done you will be ready to import them into your DVD authoring program, which since you are using Final Cut Pro will most likely be the associated program, DVD Studio Pro. This is a relatively easy task that is necessary if you want to use an advanced DVD authoring system for your final copy.

High Definition Video Publishing Blu-ray Authoring

High definition home video publishing using Blue-Ray discs.

The Battle's Over

It’s definitely time to face it: Blu-ray won the war. After a few short years of placing bets on whether HD DVD or Blu-ray would be the winner, we now have a new format that is going to be the standard. With this we now need to upgrade our own home video publishing to match this new technology.
Usability

Blu-ray is much more versatile than your standard DVDs for a number of reasons. When authoring DVDs you may have noticed that you can only include 4.7 GB worth of data, which is very little once you add a variety of media and special features. The standard BR-D can hold 25 GB of data, which changes the entire dynamic of what you can do with home authoring. Beyond this you have the pure high definition video capabilities that are quickly becoming the standard.
Hardware

You will need Blu-ray specific hardware for this type of burning. The average Blu-ray burner can run anywhere from $350 to $550, but a good investigative shopper can usually find it at the minimum price. The Sony BDU-X10S and the Plextor PX-B900 have come out as effective burners, but the Pioneer BDR-202 has been recently announced and is expected to dominate the marketplace.

Software

Software for this emerging format is coming even more rapidly, and a quick Google search will reveal a number of free authoring programs that can handle the Blu-ray format. Adobe has led the pace with Encore CS3, which will let you jump formats even if your source material is not immediately compatible. If you are just starting out with home video editing you may want to purchase an editing package whose DVD authoring capabilities extend to Blu-ray. DVD architect 5, which is included in Sony’s Vegas Pro 8, is great at doing cross-platform disc creation. The same is also true for the Adobe Premiere package and the newest Final Cut Pro, for Apple users. If you are trying to do your best with freeware or older editing software you should give Nero 8 Ultra Edition a try, which will not cost too much money.

Be Practical

It is important to remember that, as this technology becomes the standard, the prices for all software, hardware, and discs will become progressively cheaper. Blu-ray is not coming in as quickly as many analysts had predicted, so you may want to hold off for a few more months. The best bet is to upgrade your computer equipment to software and hardware that can handle the format, but are not specifically based around it.

Free video editing software list windows

Free video editing software list for windows

Recently, one of the visitors asked me about video editors or video editing software. So I decided to do some research and put up a list of free video editing software or what people usually refer to as free video editors for Windows.
Here’s the chosen software listed in no particular order:

Avedit

It is a great tool to work with .AVI files. Regardless of small executable size, this avi editor offers you unlimited power of digital video processing. Some high-tech tricks included into AVIedit allows you to perform with ease and fun the many interesting things, like video warping, color restore, noise reduction and so on…

DVD Slideshow Builder
DVD Slideshow Builder is a great home movie maker software. It easily combines your digital photos & videos into DVD slideshow movie and sweet home videos with premade movie themes, professional DVD menu templates, background music, 2D/3D transition effects, captions, and voice narrations. The real-time Preview function helps you control the timing precisely. The all-in-one authoring capability enables you to burn standard DVD Discs for watching on TV or convert to videos for iPhone, iPod, and PSP.

Avid Free DV
Avid Free DV is feature-streamlined, standalone video editing software which includes basic video and audio editing capabilities, up to two streams of real-time effects and support for both Windows XP and Macintosh OS X platforms.

Avidemux
Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities.

Chopper XP
Chopper XP is a tool that lets you extract a part of any DVD easily. It is a Vob cutting program with a video display and a great interface. You just need to scroll to a location and select mark in and out points. The program also lets you set any priority of extraction and displays the estimated time left for extraction.


Blender
model • shade • animate • render • composite • interactive 3d
Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems.


Jashaka
The worlds first open source, hardware accelerate editing and effects system! Well worth to check it out.


FFMpeg
FFmpeg is a collection of free software that can record, convert and stream digital audio and video. It includes libavcodec (a leading audio/video codec library), and libavformat (a leading audio/video container mux and demux library). FFmpeg is developed under Linux, but it can be compiled under most operating systems, including Windows. The project was started by Gerard Lantau, a pseudonym of Fabrice Bellard, and is now maintained by Michael Niedermayer. It is notable that most
FFmpeg developers are also part of the MPlayer project, the VLC/VideoLAN project, plus one member of the xine project, and that FFmpeg is hosted at the MPlayer project server.

Jahshaka
Jahshaka is the worlds first OpenSource Realtime Editing and Effects System. Jahshaka takes advantage of the power of OpenGL and OpenML to give its users exceptional levels of performance. We currently support Linux, OsX, Irix and Windows, and Solaris is on the way! Jahshaka is licenced to the public under the GNU GPL agreement.


SolveigMM AVI Trimmer
SolveigMM AVI Trimmer is a free video editor to allow you to AVI movie cut extremely fast and lossless. This freeware AVI editor software is small, smart, easy to use and involves no encoding/decoding processes. Video enthusiasts use AVI Trimmer to cut commercials, cut video files or edit video for YouTube. AVI Trimmer solves annoying out of sync problem. It operates with all known types of AVI including DV AVI type 1 and 2.


WAX
Wax is a high performance and flexible video compositing and special effects software. The idea for Wax is to be very general purpose and flexible in video compositing and effects, so that you can compose your dream video sequence with ease everytime.
Wax can create 2D & 3D special effects and can work in two modes – as a standalone application which would appeal for home users/beginners, and as a “plug-in” to video editors/NLEs which would be more useful for professional editors. Currently Wax can work as a plug-in with Sony Vegas, Pure Motion EditStudio and Adobe Premiere and work for integrating with various other NLEs is in progress.

Virtual Dub
VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read
(not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.Editing AVI files is easily done through VirtualDub but for .wmv and .mpg files the tools are less easily available.


ZS4 Video Editor
ZS4 Video Editor is video editing and compositing software which aims to provide media experts with a facility to combine a variety of media types (currently photos, videos and audio files) into one (or more) output file(s).


Virtual Edit
Virtual Edit is a semi-professional software video editing package aimed at ambitious content creators to video novices, who want to produce material with a slick and professional look, on a limited budget. Virtual Edit has been written by experts with experience in the Television and Broadcasting industries, which has been encapsulated in this simple software package.

Zwei-Stein
Zwei-Stein 3.01 is a freeware non-linear, non-destructive video compositing and editing system which offers many advanced features unavailable elsewhere. With Zwei-Stein you can edit up to 256 video, audio and still image clips, each with up to 64 effects chained serially. Cropping, panning and custom effects are easy with automatic key frames.

Let me know if there are other free video software that I missed so I could add it to this list. Next, I’ll come up with a list of free video editing software for Macs so stay tuned!

Wedding Montage Songs

Wedding montages are a popular and fabulous way to share the photos and memories of the bride’s and bridegroom’s lives with their friends and family. At the same time, using a video slideshow maker to convert your favorite pictures and videos reflecting your sweet memories into a custom wedding montage with well-chosen background wedding montage songs will be a good choice to protect your precious memories forever.
Below are some selective wedding montage songs to go along with your wedding video slideshow.

Wedding Photo Montage Songs

1. The Times of your Life – by Paul Anka
2. Pictures of You – by The Cure
3. Forever Young – by Rod Stewart
4. At Last –by Etta Jones
5. Crush – by Dave Matthews
6. Only Wanna Be With You – by Hootie & The Blowfish
7. Remember When – by Alan Jackson.
8. It Had To Be You – by Harry Connick Jr.
9. Got To Get You Into My Life – by the Beatles
10. The Luckiest – by Ben Folds

Wedding Video Montage Songs

1. Accidently in Love – by the Counting Crows
2. Remember – by Alan Jackson
3. Have I Told You Lately – by Rod Stewart
4. Two People Fell In Love – by Brad Paisley
5. Love Can Build a Bridge – by the Judds
6. Look At Us – by Vince Gill
7. I Will Love You – by Fisher
8. I would for you – by Janes Addiction.
9. Angel – by Sarah McLachlan
10. 100 Years – by Five For Fighting

Modern Wedding Montage Songs

1. Lust for Life – by Iggy Pop
2. When You Say Nothing At All – by Ronan Keating
3. Just The Way You Are – by Billy Joel
4. Storybook Love – by Willy De Ville
5. Unforgettable – by Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole
6. Can't Help Falling in Love – by Elvis Presley
7. Unchained Melody – by The Righteous Brothers
8. Close To You – by Maxi Priest
9. Nothing Compares To You – by Sinead O'Connor
10. The Vow – by Jeremy Lubbock

Country Wedding Montage Songs

1. Then – by Brad Paisley
2. Amazed – by Lonestar
3. I Cross My Heart – by George Strait
4. I Will Always Love You – by Dolly Parton
5. Keeper of the Stars – by Tracy Byrd
6. Forever and Ever Amen – by Randy Travis
7. Love Is a Beautiful Thing – by Phil Vassar
8. Made for loving you – by Doug Stone
9. Because You Love Me – by Jo Dee Messina
10. More Than You’ll Ever Know – by Travis Tritt

Christian Wedding Montage Songs

1. I Will Be Here Steven – by Curtis Chapman
2. When God Made You – by Newsong
3. Unfailing Love (Kelly’s Song) – by Jimmy Needham
4. I Do (Promise To Love You) – by Phil & Brenda Nicholas
5. How Beautiful – by Ben Utecht
6. Household Of Faith – by Steve & Marijean Green
7. For You – by John Denver
8. The Prayer – by Josh Groban
9. When God Made You – by Newsong
10. Above All Things – by Phil Keaggy

Rock Wedding Montage Songs

1. I want to know what Love is – by Foreigner
2. Thank You for Loving Me – by Bon Jovi
3. You and Me – by Lifehouse
4. Shake it Up – by The Cars
5. Sweet Child of Mine – by Guns and Roses
6. Smooth – by Santana & Rob Thomas
7. Leather and Lace – by Stevie Nicks
8. Fade into You – by Mazzy Star
9. It’s Only Rock & Roll – by Stones
10. In your Eyes – by Peter Gabriel

Download DVD Slideshow Builder to Make Slideshows with Songs

Top 9 Presentation Software

T1. DVD Slideshow Buider
DVD Slideshow Builder is a nifty photo slideshow maker that can convert photos and videos to DVD. It is a nice way to put a DVD presentation and you can include DVD menus. It is a powerful yet easy to use DVD slideshow creator. Easily combine photos, videos, and music to DVD slideshow with custom voice over and titles. Create, preserve and share memories on TV, Web & Devices.

2. Flash
For stunning presentations that you can also put on-line Flash is by far the best presentation technology on the market. The animation effects and the ability to import video are stunning. The biggest problem is that it takes a high degree of proficiency to get it to work for you. I have been on a couple of day classes and still find it extremely difficult to do even a most basic presentation. There are quite a number of examples of Flash Presentations you can find on the web.

3. Open Office Impress
Open Office Impress is the free open source presentation technology. It contains a number of features not available in PowerPoint. See our posts on Is Open Office Impress better than PowerPoint? and Free Impress Templates.

4. Apple Keynote
For those of you using Macs there is a small community of people who use Apple Keynote. They have just brought out a new version.

5. Photoshop
If you want to make your presentations fly then you will need a way of easily editing images – for example to adjust the colours, or make images transparent. We use Photoshop a lot – but you could also use the open source equivalent Gimp.

6. NXPowerLite
NXPowerLite can compress files by as much as 75%, making them easier to use, store and share. It reduces file sizes more significantly than zip compression and removes the need to unzip.

7. PowerPlugs Charts
If you want to make professional looking graphs and charts in PowerPoint then you will find the PowerPlugs Charts pretty hard to beat. The only downside is that once you have made the chart it is not easily possible to e-mail it to other people and allow them to change the image.

8. Perspector
A nifty little tool for making 3d shapes for PowerPoint.

9. PowerPoint
Like it or loathe it, PowerPoint is here to stay. At 20 years old it is still the leading presentation software. At one point it was estimated that there are 30 million PowerPoint presentations given every day.
`Download DVD Slideshow Builder to Make Slideshow with Songs