3. Understanding DVD Movie Options
In keeping with the Salvador Dali–like user
interface minimalism of Windows DVD Maker, you access the application's
DVD Options dialog via a small Options link in the lower-right corner
of its window (and not via a Tools => Options menu as you might expect). When you click this HTML-like link, the DVD Options dialog opens, as shown in Figure 6. Note that these options are related to the DVD you're creating and not to the Windows DVD Maker application per se.
The following options are available:
DVD playback settings: You can configure your DVD movie to play its content in one of three ways:
Start with DVD menu: Indicates that your DVD will behave like a typical Hollywood DVD and display a DVD menu on first start.
Play video and end with DVD menu: Causes the DVD movie to play through the DVD content first and then display the menu only after the content is complete.
Play video in a continuous loop:
Simply plays the DVD content repeatedly, in a loop. Users will still be
able to access the DVD menu, however, by pressing the Menu button on
their DVD remote control or player.
DVD aspect ratio:
Enables you to configure whether the DVD's video playback and menu
display in a 4:3 aspect ratio (which is not really square per se but
certainly close) or in widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. The choice you
make here should be based on the aspect ratio of the screen on which
the DVD will likely be accessed, and on the aspect ratio of the content
you're using. Today, most home video content is still created in a 4:3
aspect ratio despite the widespread use of widescreen displays. That
said, most television sets sold today are now widescreen. The choice is
yours, and you can certainly make a version of the DVD in both formats
just to see the differences, though that will be time consuming.
Video format:
Enables you to choose whether the DVD will be created in the NTSC or
PAL video format. You should choose the format used in your locale. For
example, the NTSC format is correct for the United States, but PAL is
used in countries like France and Ireland.
Other DVD settings:
In the bottom of the DVD Options dialog, you can set options for the
DVD burner speed and the location where the application will store its
temporary files during the DVD creation process. Typically, you will
want to leave the DVD burner speed at the fastest setting, but if you
run into problems burning DVDs, you can change it to a slower speed
(such as medium or slow). This will increase the amount of time it
takes to create your DVD movie but will result in a more reliable burn
experience. Similarly, most users will want to leave the temporary file
location setting untouched, but if one of your hard drives is faster or
has much more space available, you can use this setting to change the
location where temporary files are stored and, possibly, speed up the
DVD creation process.
NOTE
You will need a hard drive or partition with at
least 5GB of free space in order to create a single-sided DVD movie.
Dual-layer (DL) DVDs require at least 10GB of hard drive space.
NOTE
Do not attempt to create a DVD movie on
a hard disk that is slower than 5,400 RPM. Faster drives—7,800 RPM and
10,000 RPM, for example—running on modern hard drive interfaces (e.g.,
SATA, or Serial-ATA, instead of IDE/ATA) will get better results.
