How do I copy my home video/film/photos to DVD

For a simple video-to-DVD transfer you can buy a DVD video recorder ($500 to $3,000) and connect it to your VCR or camcorder. It works just like a VCR but it records onto a disc instead of tape.

For transferring photos or music, or for making a customized DVD with menus and chapters and other fun stuff, you'll need the following:

A computer
A DVD recordable drive ($100-$400, or it might come with the computer)
DVD authoring software (usually comes with the drive or computer, or you can buy it for $40-$27,000, see 5.4).
Note: You must use authoring software. You can't just copy MPEG or AVI or JPEG files onto a disc and expect it to play in DVD players.

Then take the following steps

If the video and pictures are not already in digital form (AVI, WMV, DivX, QuickTime, JPEG, and so on) you need to transfer them to your computer. For analog video, such as VHS and Hi8, you need a video capture device or a computer with built-in analog video input; for digital video such as DV or D8 you need a 1394/FireWire input on the computer. For film, first have it transferred to tape or digital video at a camera shop or video company. For slides or photos, use a scanner (or rent scanning time at a place such as Kinkos).
Import the video and audio clips into the DVD-Video authoring program. Many DVD authoring programs will convert and encode the video and audio for you. If not, you have to
- Encode the video into MPEG-2 (make sure the display frame rate is set to 29.97 for NTSC or 25 for PAL).
- Encode the audio into Dolby Digital (or, if your video is short enough that you have room on the disc, format the audio as 48kHz PCM). You can also use MPEG Level 2 audio, but it won't work on all players.
Create some chapter points in your video tracks or let the DVD recording software do it for you.
To put photos on the disc, use the slideshow feature in the authoring software or make each picture a menu. Most DVD authoring software will directly read TIFF, JPEG, BMP, and PhotoShop files.
Create menus that link to your video clips and slideshows.
Write your finished gem out to a recordable DVD ($2-$15). (But see 4.3.1 for compatibility worries.)

John Beale has written a page about his experiences making DVDs.

Another option is to use a service that does all the work for you at a reasonable fee. Here are a few choices.

3-Lib (Reading, UK). Up to 2 hours for £25. PAL format.
American Digital Media (Hoover, AL). Up to 2 hours for $99.
Digital Video Dynamics (Orlando, FL). Up to 2 hours for $40 (chapters at 5-minute intervals).
DVD ELF (Miami, FL). Up to 1 hour for $60. 2 hours for $95.
DVD Wedding Productions (South Pasadena, CA). One tape for $150 (+ VHS dubbing charge).
HomeMovie.com (Everett, WA). Up to 2 hours for $50 (chapters included).
ImageStation (Sony/Vingage; Reston, VA). Up to 90 minutes for $40.
Latale Productions (Flushing, NY). 1 tape for $99 (chapters extra).
LifeClips (Acton, MA). Up to 2 hours for $30. [LifeClips is no longer in business.]
Memories on Disc (Upper Marlboro, MD). $2 for each 10 minutes of video, $0.20 per slide.
ScreamDVD (New York, NY). Up to 1 hour for $40, up to 2 hours for $70 (chapters at 3-minute intervals).
VHS-to-DVD (Pembroke Pines, FL). Up to 1 hour for $18-$25, up to 2 hours for $28-$35.
Visualisation Systems (Preston, UK). Up to 1 hour for £35. Up to 2 hours for £40. VCD for £20.
(Wedding DVD no longer offers the service.)
YesVideo.com (San Jose, CA; kiosks at Target, Walgreens, and elsewhere). $37 for 1 hour, $60 for 2 hours (chapters included).

Or, if near-VHS quality is sufficient, make a Video CD. Get MPEG-1 video encoding software and a CD-R/RW formatting application that supports Video CD such as Easy CD Creator or Toast from Roxio (formerly Adaptec), InstantCD from Pinnacle (formerly from VOB), InternetDiscWriter from Query, MPEG Maker-2 from VITEC, MyDVD or RecordNow Max from Sonic, Nero Burning ROM from Ahead, NTI CD-Maker from NTI, or WinOnCD from Cequadrat. Quality is not as good as DVD, and playing time is not as long, but hardware and blank CDs are cheaper. Just make sure that any players you intend to play the disc in can read CD-Rs (see 2.4.3) and can play Video CDs (see 2.4.5). See VCDhelp.com for more on making Video CDs. A variation on this strategy is to make Super Video CDs (see 2.4.6), which have better quality but shorter playing time. A few of the authoring/formatting tools listed above can make SVCDs, but few DVD players can play SVCDs.

Another option is a home Video CD recorder, such as the Terapin CD Audio/Video Recorder or the TV One MPEG-2@disk, which record video from analog inputs to CD-R or CD-RW.