This document offers an overview of creating DVDs, including ones that will play in 'stand-alone' consumer DVD players. For further information, please see the User's Guide and other manuals for your computer, and the various readme files and Windows Help entries for each software application. This document is applicable to Toshiba portable PCs with DVD-R/W drives.

DVD overview

Movies published on commercial DVD are encoded in the DVD Video format. Consumer DVD players recognize this format, but typically do not recognize video files in other popular computer-based formats (MPEG, AVI, Quicktime, etc.). Files in these formats may be written to DVDs, and played by a computer from its DVD drive, but they will not be playable in consumer DVD players. To create your own movies and videos that will be playable in consumer DVD players, use applications designed specifically for that purpose, such as Panasonic Motion DV Studio, InterVideo WinDVD Creator, and other apps listed below.

Commercial DVD movies are generally copy-protected. Toshiba does not support, or provide software for, the copying of commercial DVD movies.

Media  

Several types of DVD media (blank DVD discs) are available, including DVD-R, DVD-R/W, DVD+R, DVD+R/W, and DVD-RAM. Other types (such as 'Blue Ray') are now in development. For more information about DVD media types and compatibility between media types and DVD players see our Support Bulletin DVD formats, players and drives -- general information.

DVD-RAM

Some computers ship with a drives that can read from, but not write to, DVD-RAM discs. Computers with such drives may include software for writing to DVD-RAM discs, even though it's not possible to do so because the drive doesn't support that function. Such drives may support writing to DVD-R or other formats. Most consumer DVD players are not able to play DVD-RAM discs.

Creating DVD videos

Several applications are available for creating DVD videos -- which means writing ("burning") video files to a blank DVD disc in a format that's playable on a consumer DVD player (as well as on a computer with a DVD drive). These apps, some of which have been shipped with Toshiba portable computers, include Drag and Drop, Panasonic Motion DV Studio, Sonic MyDVD, and Sonic Prime. Windows XP and Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE), also may also be used to create DVD videos. Consult your computer's documentation to discover what DVD creation software shipped with it.

MCE note: Windows XP Media Center Edition saves video in a special format. As of mid-2004, the Panasonic Motion DV Studio app does not recognize video files created by MCE. Sonic MyDVD and other apps are able to read video files created by MCE, and create DVD videos from them.

Creating a DVD video with Panasonic Motion DV Studio:

(The details of these steps are specific to the Panasonic Motion DV Studio app, but the general procedure applies to creating DVD videos with any application.)

1. Gather video / movie files, in the MPEG (.mpg) or AVI (.avi) file format. Capture them from your video camera, or from another video source, or transfer them from another computer. Use Windows Media Player to verify that the files can be played correctly. For some MPEG and AVI files it may be necessary to obtain additional software codecs for playback.They may generally be downloaded from their vendors' websites.
   
   
2. Launch the Panasonic Motion DV Studio app: Start > Programs > Panasonic > Motion DV Studio.
   
   
3. Convert any MPEG files to the AVI format. (File > Input > Media > Convert .MPG files to .AVI files). Some AVI files may need be converted to the required type of AVI file. This step may take a long time.
   
   
4. Optionally, edit and arrange the video. Add transitions and menu titles, if desired.
   
   
5. Click on Record to start converting the video clip file to DVD-R format. This step will take a long time.
   
   
6. When the conversion is complete, Panasonic's DVfunStudio app will open in Preview mode. You may preview the video at this time, to be sure that it is arranged correctly, and that it plays without problems.
   
   
7. Click on Write to start the following four step sequence, which will take a long time to complete:

It will take more then six hours to work through the entire procedure of creating a one hour DVD video. If it's also necessary to capture a video file from a camera or other source, and convert the file from MPEG to AVI format, then approximately eight hours will be required altogether.

See also Support Bulletin 98081151 Creating DVDs with InterVideo WinDVD Creator

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