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If you're feeling up to tackling advanced recording, you can create a basic DVD-Video. Suppose that you edited a series of short video clips with Adobe Premiere and saved them in MPEG format on your hard drive. The DVD should show the clips in order as soon as it's loaded.
Fortunately, Roxio's Easy Media Creator uses a separate program named DVD Builder to help simplify the creation of a Video CD. With DVD Builder, you can burn professional discs, complete with a basic menu system. The following steps walk you through the process of creating a DVD movie disc:
1. Choose Start --> All Programs --> Roxio --> DVD Builder to load the program.
The DVD Builder wizard runs automatically.
2. Select the DVD option button and click OK to continue.
 | Note that you can also capture a digital video stream from a DV camcorder or analog input, such as a VCR. If you're adding still images to your project, you can also include existing images from your hard drive or capture digital photographs directly from your digital camera. For right now, just add existing video clips, but you can switch to these other sources whenever you like. |
3. Click the Add Intro Title link in the Edit Task Pane on the left side of the window.
The Add Media to Project dialog box appears.
4. Navigate to the folder in which you stored your MPEG files and digital photographs; click the desired clip or still image that should appear first in your video and then click Add.
DVD Builder adds the clip to your Production Editor pane as a thumbnail-size icon.
5. Add the rest of your clips and still images.
You can click the Open Media Selector link to choose additional clips and images. To add an item, drag it from the Media Selector dialog box to the empty frame at the end of the sequence.
If you want to insert an item, drop it in the desired frame, and DVD Builder shifts the rest of the items one frame to the right. To change the order of the items, just drag the offending thumbnail and drop it in its new location.
Note that DVD Builder keeps track of the amount of space that you've used with a bar display at the bottom of the window. You can toggle the estimated space between the different types of discs by clicking the Disc Size drop-down list box at the left end of the bar; click the type of disc that you want to record, and the status bar changes to reflect the capacity of the specified disc type.
| Not quite sure about the contents of a video clip? Just double-click the clip's thumbnail icon to watch it in the Preview window, complete with the familiar controls from a typical DVD player program — these include pause and advance/rewind one frame. |
If you add a clip or image by mistake, right-click the item to display the pop-up menu and click Delete to remove the element from your project.
6. To add a transition between items, click the Add Transitions link — DVD Builder displays a spiffy selection of transition thumbnails — and click the desired transition and drag it to the transition box between the two items.
| To view what a transition looks like before you add it, click the tiny Play button at the lower-right corner of any transition thumbnail in the Media Selector dialog box. |
7. To preview your disc, click the Preview button at the top of the Edit Task Pane.
The program displays the high-tech control panel, complete with familiar controls like the buttons on a DVD player. Click the Intro button at the top of the control panel to begin the show.
8. When you've finished your preview, click the Edit button at the top of the Edit Task pane and click the Big Orange Disc-on-Fire Burn button to continue.
From the Burn Setup dialog box, you can select the drive to use for burning, and erase a rewritable (CD-RW, DVD-RAM, DVD+RW, or DVD-RW) disc. In most cases, you want to burn your project immediately, but you can also create a disc image file for later recording. DVD Builder automatically selects the default advanced settings to match the type of disc you're burning, so you're ready to go!
9. Load the correct type of media (a CD-R, DVD-R, or DVD+R disc — always use a write-once disc if you're burning a disc for an older DVD player) and click OK to start shoveling ones and zeroes to your drive.
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