DVD Flick: Converting videos to DVD

Ever needed to convert a whole lot of videos into a DVD? Here's a handy little tool that enables you to do just that: pop in a blank DVD, point the application to one (or more) videos on your hard disks, configure a few basic settings and boom--you have a DVD that will play on any conventional player. DVD Flick is especially useful for converting DivX movies into DVD format (great for sending movies to your mom who has an older DVD player, or for compiling and distributing video clips recorded on your digital camera).

DVD Flick is one of those ultra-handy Open Source applications that do a fantastic job of serving a specific requirement quickly and efficiently. Creating a DVD with this application is child's play. Start by downloading the program from here. After installing it, click the Guide icon on the top and you'll see a quick and easy run-through for creating a DVD. You can create a regular DVD in just a few clicks, with the default program settings. But you can also customize your DVD with additional audio tracks (such as director commentaries) and subtitles. You can add several videos in a given title, and the application will figure out how best to encode them to fit on a single DVD. You can choose between the single-layer DVD-5 format (4.7GB), the dual-layer DVD-9 format (8.54GB), or even the more exotic Mini-DVD (1.35GB or 2.47GB) formats. Of course, you will need the appropriate type of blank DVD to hold a given project. When creating a compilation of videos, you can even create an interactive menu that enables you to navigate your disk and select files during playback--much like the main menu of a conventional movie DVD.

DVD Flick will create a DVD from virtually any type of video file you might want to throw at it (it supports for over 70 video formats), including FLV, DivX, TrueHD, H.264, Apple Video and many more. See here for a complete list of audio and video codecs this versatile application supports.

Based on the powerful FFMPEG video processing engine, this is a processor-intensive application. So the time it takes to create a project will depend on your computer's horsepower. Fortunately, it supports and even detects multi-core processors--a definite advantage if you plan to use this program for a serious amount of DVD creation. Finally, you can use the program's built-in DVD burning capability, or have the application write the files to your hard disk where you can subsequently create your DVD using your favorite DVD burning application. Simple and fun!

Manage those movies

These days we are pampered for storage space. With game-changing inventions like perpendicular recording, hard disks have comfortably hit the terabyte mark. Add to that, smarter manufacturing processes have driven down costs to the 15-cents-per-gigabyte level! Inevitably, the urge to fill these digital storehouses kicks in, and it isn't long before we find ourselves throwing in movie files that weigh in at a few gigabytes, or copying hundreds of MP3s--all of which quickly eat up those gobs of storage space. The answer to this? Add more storage space of course. It's so cheap, after all.

But there's a bigger concern here--bringing some semblance of order and sanity to all those media files. Let's talk about movie files--the good old DivX format can compress a movie  while keeping the audio and video quality surprisingly close to the original DVD. Little wonder that DivX (or XviD) movies are so popular these days. Of course, movie piracy is illegal. But you already knew that, right? With that mandatory warning out of the way, let's talk about managing these DivX movies.

You will find several tools (both commercial and freeware) that can help bring order to your ever-expanding movie collection. These applications typically let you catalog your movies, download descriptive information (actors, director, release year, review, cover artwork and more). After cataloging your movies, you can search, query, or export the listing. Some cataloging applications even help you track rentals, so you'll always know where your movie DVDs are. You can even catalog your movies across different media--DVD, DivX and even VHS or Blu-ray. I've tried several applications, but have had the best experience with ANT Movie Catalog. This is a capable, feature-rich software that has all the capabilities listed above, and then some. And it's free.

Once you install and start the software, you'll pretty much see a blank interface. That's because you'll first need to add movies to your database. Here's the quickest way to do this.

1. Press 'ALT+Ins' to create a new movie entry.
2. Locate the DivX movie file on your hard disk, and drag-and-drop this file into the main program interface. The application reads the video information (resolution, running time, resolution etc) and populates the relevant fields in the new record.
3. In the 'Original Title' field (the fourth field from the top), type in the title of the DivX movie you just added.
4. Next,  press the 'F6' function key. This opens the scripting dialog box. Locate the 'IMDB' script. Never mind the many others: IMDB should suit your needs fine. Hit 'Enter'. Verify that the movie name is typed correctly, and hit 'Enter' again. If you're connected to the Internet, the program will pull down the relevant movie information. If it finds duplicate movie names, you can select the correct one.
5. After the import is finished, you will see all the corresponding movie information in the respective fields. Now hit 'CTRL+S' to save your updated database. I save my database in the XML format, and store choose to store movie artwork as separate files. You will see this option while saving.
6. By default, new movies are added to the bottom of the list. You can re-sort your movie list by name. Do this by clicking 'Tools', then 'Renumber'. Select the mode of sorting ('Original Title' works best), and hit 'Ok'.

There is no direct way to import several movies into the ANT catalog at one go. However, you can use the technique described here to achieve this result. Use this method to import all your DivX movies the first time you use ANT. Be sure to check out this application's other cool features in the 'Tools' section, such as the Statistics and Loans.