How To Burn a DVD (Windows)

Even with the increase storage capacity and Cloud storage access, the need of a DVD disc still persists (for many, but not all of course). With all your data on a DVD, you will have peace of mind that your data is not in third-party hands or on a device that may crash anytime. Furthermore, it is also quite convenient to play your multimedia files on a TV or in Car using a DVD disc.

However, the process of burning your data on a DVD is not that simple, and requires special tools to do so. You need to have a writable DVD and a proper burner to burn the data on the DVD.

Fortunately, we are here to help you get what you need for burning a DVD and walk you through the whole process.

 Get the Right DVD Disc

You need to know which DVD disc you actually need, there are different DVD formats, catering to different needs. A DVD with just a “R” written on it can only be written once and a DVD with “RW” written on it can be Re-Written (“RW”) multiple times.

If there is a “-” sign between “DVD” and “R/RW”, then this DVD has been properly tested and meets proper standards that are set by the DVD Forum. DVDs with a “+” sign are not tested or authorized by the DVD Forum, however, that doesn’t mean they may work as well.

When it comes to getting a DVD disc that could be written multiple times or not, it’s your choice. we will recommend that you get the one with the “-” sign because it will work on an older DVD player as well.

Check Your DVD Burner

The burner you are going to use must also support the DVD disc you are about to buy. When they come with an optical drive at all, most new laptops and PCs come with built-in burner and they support most DVD types. However, you should still check what kind of DVD discs your burner supports.

Just look at the front of the Player where you put the DVD disc and you will be able to see what kind of DVD it supports printed on it. The DVD burner mentioned in the picture below has “RW” and “DVD MULTI” (supports all formats except DVD-R/RW) written on it.

Get The Right DVD Burning tool

There are tons of software burning tools on the internet, most of them are paid. Fortunately, there are many free ones as well. Windows also comes with a built-in DVD-burning capability, although, it might not come with features as robust as third-party software may have.

We believe “free” is always better, and we are going to help you burn a DVD with some free tools. However, if you believe you need a paid tool for this purpose and don’t mind paying, then you can also checkout the tools mentioned below (the instructions provided below should be similar for both free and paid tools).

Ashampoo Burning Studio 15, NCH Express Burn or Power2Go CyberLink

Use CDBurnerXP to Burn a DVD

Now, that we have all the required tools to burn a DVD, it is time to actually burn one. For this purpose, we are going to use the tool CDBurnerXP. It is a completely free to use tool for both commercial and non-commercial use.

It has a very simple interface and it will let you burn almost all types of data. The tool is also quite popular and has been mentioned by many websites.

Download CDBurnerXP and install the program. When you will launch the program, you will see all the DVD disc burning options in the middle. Here, you can select what type of data you would like to burn.

The options include Data disc (burn data such as photos, documents and applications), Video DVD, Audio disc and Burn ISO image (burn ISO files).

Data Disc

Click on Data disc and another window will open up with all the required options to burn different types of data. To add data, all you need to do is click and hold on the folder/file from the top two panels or Windows Explorer and drag and drop them in the bottom right panel. You can also select the file/folder in the above two panels and click on “Add” to add them.

If you would like to change the disc size, then click on “Disc” in the top options and select “Disc Spanning” from the menu. In “Disc Spanning”, you can use the drop down menu to select the DVD disc size.

When all the data is added, just click on “Burn” and the burning process will start.

Video DVD

Video DVD option provides required options to burn a Video DVD. However, the Video DVD feature of CDBurnerXP is very limited and supports quite less formats (including , .vob, .ifo, .bup). The customization options are limited as well, which is why we have reviewed another video DVD burning software below that handles videos very well.

If you are looking to Burn videos to a DVD, then we will recommend skipping this step and move on to the software reviewed below.

Audio Disc

This option will allow you to only burn Audio files,specifically, audio tracks. The interface is similar to the “Data disc” option, you can drag and drop audio files (only audio files can be added) from top two panels to bottom panel to add them or select and click on “Add” to add them.

The tracks will be burned in the same sequence as they are added in the bottom panel. If you would like to move tracks up and down to organize, just click and hold on the track concerned, and drag and drop it to the position where you want it.

When you are done adding and organizing, just click on “Burn” and the burning process will start.

Burn an ISO Image

This option will let you burn an ISO Image to a disc. It will let you both create an ISO file and burn it on a disc. In the main interface, you will see all the customization options to burn an ISO image. You can customize the options as you may like, however, even if you don’t change anything, burning process will be fine. Just click on “Browse” and select the ISO file. Once selected, click on Burn disc and the process will start.

To convert a file to an ISO file, click on “Convert to ISO…”. Here, all you need to do is click on button with “…” sign (three dots) on it and select the Image which you would like to convert to ISO. After that, just click on “Convert to ISO” and it will be converted.

Use DVD Flick to Burn a Video DVD

As the above software doesn’t offer any reliable video DVD burning option, we are proposing another tool. For this purpose, we are going to use the tool DVD Flick, created by Dennis Meuwissen. it is a completely free, open source tool and extremely simple to use. It supports a robust list of video formats that most paid tools don’t even include.

Download DVD Flick from the official website and install it. Open the tool, and you will see a very simple interface with all the options displayed above.

Configure Settings

Before burning any video DVD disc, we should configure the settings according to our requirements.

Click on “Project Settings” and you will see all the options. In General settings, you can customize the “Target size”, which is the total capacity of the DVD disc that you are about to burn. If you are using a standard DVD-R, then 4.3 GB should be selected.

Otherwise, the options are provided in the drop down menu and you can select the option according to the DVD disc.

In the Video Tab, you can set the Target Format. If you are in the US, then “NTSC” should be your choice. If you are from outside the US, then PAL should be your choice. These are the most used and acceptable formats in the US and outside.

You can also select the encoding speed in the Video tab. The faster the speed is, the more there is a chance for errors, but the whole process will finish up faster. However, if you prefer quality over speed, then select “Best” from the list.

In the audio tab, you can select Audio channel and bitrate according to your desire. And in the “Burning” Tab you can customize what you would like to burn. If you currently don’t have the DVD disc, then select “Create ISO image”. This will create an ISO image of the data, which can be easily burned.

If you want to burn to a DVD right away, select option “Burn Project to Disc”. This will open up new options to configure. Here, apart from the standard option, you will see an option of speed. To get the best results, it is better to set it at low. “4x” will work fine, but if you want faster processing, set it a bit higher. When you are done configuring all the options, click on “Accept” to Apply them.

Burn the DVD

To add videos that you would like to burn, just drag and drop them inside the DVD Flick’s interface. If you are not comfortable with this option, then click on “Add Title” on the right panel and browse and add the videos.

To add videos that you would like to burn, just drag and drop them inside the DVD Flick’s interface. If you are not comfortable with this option, then click on “Add Title” on the right panel and browse and add the videos.

At the bottom you will see a directory, the encoded videos will be saved in this specified directory and then burned on the DVD. You can change this location by clicking on “Browse” and selecting the location. However, make sure there is enough space on the drive which you have specified and remember the location. You should delete the encoded file once it is burned, otherwise, you will just clutter the location with unrequired data.

To start the encoding and burning process, click on “Create DVD” in the above options and make sure the DVD disc is in the player. The encoding process will start in a new Window. Here you can specify what do you want to do when the burning process finishes or even entertain yourself with a light “Falling Blocks” video game.

Note: Burning a DVD disc isn’t really an easy task for your PC. Your PC requires all the power and resources it can get to burn a good` DVD disc. It is advised that you don’t use your PC while a DVD disc is in burning process. It is actually better to take care of this task at night before sleeping, so you won’t have to touch it.

Tip: If you are having trouble burning or you think the PC doesn’t have enough power to burn a good DVD, then you can also turn off some programs to give it a boost. It is not recommended, but if you require, you can turn off the Antivirus, disconnect from the Internet and Turn off Windows Firefall.

If you have Any questions or would like to share any interesting information, let us know in the comments below.

Karar Haider
Categories: Computers
Tags: burn DVD, dvd, Windows