Free or Full-Featured Trialware DVD Authoring Software

**Whir** · January 9th, 2007, 03:12 PM

Word.

I'm looking for a program I can pull video off a non-copyrighted DVD, author it to make tracks and menu, and then rewrite it to another DVD.

I'm recording a weekend of sets from a friend's band from his D8 camcorder to DVD via one of our JVC DVD recorders. Rather than try to deal with tracking and cutting on the recorder (there are six tapes total), I want to do it on the computer.

Any suggestions?

**RobRich** · January 9th, 2007, 03:19 PM

I can recommend a list of various free appplications to complete the task, but finding a single free general purpose app is going to be tough.

jokostel · January 9th, 2007, 03:23 PM

dvd decrypter
dvd shrink

no1_vern · January 9th, 2007, 03:27 PM

I use the same as Jokostel, Decrypter and shrink have been working fine for me.

Until recently (Narnia I believe), I didnt even need Decrypter, but newer tech has forced me to run the DVDs through Decrypter first before using shrink make the final DVD.

jokostel · January 9th, 2007, 03:38 PM

dvd fab decrypter is ok... but buggy...
i think that is freeware as well...

www.videohelp.com has some good info.

**Whir** · January 9th, 2007, 03:41 PM

Just realized I can skip the recorder and go straight into my laptop with the DV camcorder and just use Windows Movie Maker. el oh el

Thanks for the replies though.

jokostel · January 9th, 2007, 03:43 PM

windows movie maker?.. doesnt that force you to stay in an avi format?

**phenious** · January 9th, 2007, 03:58 PM

AVI would be recomended to keep full quality, that is assuming its the DV spec from the camera. I imagine Windows Movie maker will more likely want you to use the Windows media format which isnt all bad either.

**Whir** · January 9th, 2007, 05:09 PM

It goes WMV, but it's going back to DVD so I'm just recording at the highest quality for the work stuff anyway. I'm sure the quality will be more than good enough.

**RobRich** · January 9th, 2007, 05:39 PM

WMM with WMV at a high bitrate will suffice, but it is far from ideal IMO.

A better solution would be lossless to an AVI container, preferably in a YV12 colorspace since you will eventually be encoding to MPEG-2. Lagarith is highly recommended.

BTW, you will still need to master, encode, and burn a DVD for the final product. You can use the free trial of DVD-Lab in conjunction with Avisynth if you want to do it right. Then burn with Nero, PgcEdit, etc.