In this article we will show you how to easily convert a Blu-ray disc to DVD compatible video and sound. Keep in mind that following this guide will create a DVD backup playable in both DVD and Blu-ray players in standard definition. If you want to backup a movie in a DVD-R disc but only play it in Blu-ray players (sometimes called a BD-5 or a BD-9), this is not the guide you need.

Step 1

As Blu-ray to DVD cannot unlock a protected Blu-ray disc, before you begin you need to use an unlocking software to circumvent the Blu-ray’s protection. I really suggest you let AnyDVD HD do that job. You can download it here or check the authors page here. Another good idea would be to rip the whole disc to the hard drive first. Read this guide to find out how you can do that.

Step 2

Blu-ray to DVD supports almost any input method you may need as you can load the movie directly from your Blu-ray drive, from a hard disk folder or from an ISO image. Since I have already ripped the disc to my hard drive, I will select the second option.

Step 3

After analyzing your Blu-ray you will be presented with a simple selection stream. First select the main movie (1), then the audio tracks (2) and finally choose any subtitles you might want to add to the DVD (3). Then click Next step (4).

Step 4

Here you can set the video quality (1). Of course, the better the quality, the slower the encoding will be but since we are dealing with a high quality source I suggest you select Best quality here. Next, the target size setting (2). Using a DVD9 (8.5GB) will obviously create much better quality video, but since the DVD5 (4.7GB) discs are much cheaper feel free to use either. In practice, you won’t see too much difference between the official DVD of a movie and your Blu-ray to DVD backup in you use DVD9. Finally select the output folder (3) which is the place where the DVD files will be created.

As you can see there is an option to burn the DVD after a successful rip. However as I prefer to check the files before I burn I will not enable it.

You can always burn the DVD afterwards from Blu-ray to DVD’s menu as shown above. Now lets check the DVD Video options tab.

Step 5

Here you can select a DVD menu style. Since we have only one video track and no extras or special features this is useful only to select subtitles so if you don’t want it I suggest you disable it (select No menu) in order to save some space. The audio format should work fine at Automatic while I do not suggest to convert DTS unless it is not supported by your standalone player. When you are done, click Next Step in order to start the encoding.

Step 6

That’s about everything you need to do. A few hours later you will have some DVD files ready to burn and play in your old DVD player.

What does it offer? Improved speed, support of dozens of formats (including avi, mpg, mov, wmv, mkv, ogm and more!), menu and subtitles support, build-in DVD burner, DVD to DVD copy, DV (digital camera format) to DVD conversion, both NTSC and PAL formats and conversion between them. And all these in a user-friendly yet powerful enviroment we will clarify in this guide. Before you ask, yes I do believe its the best all-to-DVD converter out there, and I’ve tried many, from the freeware to the most expensive one. And on top of that it is very well supported by a well respected company offering you dozens of upgrades every year for free.

This is the main ConvertXToDVD windows. May seem a little too basic now but you’ll soon see how efficient it can be. For the beginning lets go to Settings -> General.

What we will set here is the working folder, which is the folder that ConvertXToDVD will save the DVD files before burning them to a DVD. Make sure that the drive that the folder is in has at least 5GB free and set the working folder. (1) We will set the rest of the settings in the next steps, so for now click OK. (2)

We are back to the main windows and its time to add some file to our DVD. Click the add button and select the file or files you want to convert.

The files are now added as you see, however we will deal with their settings later. First comes the DVD’s menu. Click the little cross (1) to reveal all options for the Menu item. Lets see the options one by one. First you can set the DVD title that will appear on the top of the menu by double-clicking on it and setting the name (2). Next, you can set the background image by double clicking on Background and select the image you want to use (there are many nice one in ConvertXToDVD’s folder and you can use any of your own pictures you want). Or you can choose one of the many ready templates available (3) and then customise with your music and background image if you want. Auto start playback will auto-begin playing the first video when you enter the DVD in the player instead of showing the menu, Loop playback can be used if you want the DVD to repeat playback indefinitely by default and Sequential playback will play all videos in a row instead of returning back in the menu. The two font settings can be used to set the font and size of the menu’s Title and Items.

Right next comes the video properties. First you can see that the audio of each video has been automatically imported (1) as ConvertXToDVD supports almost all formats. But you can also add you own audio (for example commentary) by right-clicking on Audio and selecting Add Audio Channel. You can also click on each audio channel and set the language. Then we move to the subtitle settings. Right click on 0 Subtitle Stream and select Add Subtitle Channel (2) in order to add as many subtitle streams as you like. After you add them you can set the language and font size settings. Please note that if the subtitles are in the same desktop and have the same filename as the video they’ll be automatically added. Finally you can review the Chapters (3) and add more if you like as well as change the Menu text which is what will appear in the main menu as the title of this video. Follow the same steps to configure all your videos and move to the next step. If some cases when working with Matroska (.mkv) files that include subtitles, ConvertXToDVD may fail to load them. You can easily solve this by extracting the subtitles from the .mkv file and add them in your DVD the way shown above. If you wonder how you can achieve that just read this guide and you are set!

We are finally ready to convert. You may want of course to preview your DVD before you start converting. To do that click the Preview button (1) and you can take a look at the whole DVD, including the menus. Also note the quality that is being displayed as a traffic light (2). Excellent and good are fine and you should proceed, if you get “Bad” (the red light!) remove a video file to get it back to “Good” or the quality will greatly suffer. Easy enough? When you decide you are satisfied with the result click Convert (3) to start the converting process! Make sure you put an empty DVD in your DVD burner drive as well.

When the conversion has finished a window like this will pop-up where you can select some settings about the burning (1) and change the volume name (2). When you are done click Burn (3). Keep in mind that this window will only be open for about 30secs since the conversion finishes and if you are not around it will start burning the DVD automatically so you don’t really have to worry about this step as the default settings are fine.

Finally burning finishes and your new DVD is ready for your player!

The standard that all DVD-Video discs have to follow in order to be compatible with any player out there uses MPEG2 compression up to 9800kbps or in some rare cases MPEG1 up to 1856kbps. As you can understand, the mandatory use of the MPEG2 codec is our main limitation. The DVD format was finalized back in 1996, so they used what was then a cutting-edge compression technology. Unfortunately, as the years passed and new codecs like DivX/XviD or H.264 came out (MPEG4 if you want) with much greater picture quality in reduced sizes, for a DVD disc we still need to use the MPEG2 codec. The audio in the other hand, can be AC3, DTS or MP2 in multichannel setups, and we can have up to 32 subtitle tracks.
What retail DVDs use

Most DVDs in the market use a variable bitrate video of approximately 5000kbps video which is increased close to 8000kbps in high action scenes, which require more attention. Most of the times, the media used is DVD9 (7.95GB) in which they fit the movie, various audio tracks, menus and all extras. They rarely use DVD5 (4.38GB).
What happens in lower bitrate

As you understand, the lower the bitrate is, the most video a DVD can hold. However, since MPEG2 is an old codec, unlike H.264 which can achieve great results in low bitrate, anything under 3000kbps gives a very poor result which a significant amount of artifacts. Below I have created a small table which various bitrates, the approximate length of a video you could fit in a DVD (with a low quality AC3 audio in 128kbps in consideration) and an one minute sample from a movie using two free MPEG2 encoders to see for yourself the difference in quality. You can play the samples using the Open Folder option in VLC or with any other player of your choice.
Bitrate Aprox. Video Length in a DVD-5 disc Aprox. Video Length in a DVD-9 disc Sample videos
~1000 kbps 9 hours 15 hours HC Encoder | QuEnc
~1500 kbps 6 hours 10 hours HC Encoder | QuEnc
~3200 kbps 3 hours 5 hours HC Encoder
What does this mean in practice

It depends on two things: the movie itself and the devices you will use for playback. Let me elaborate: if your movie contains many action scenes, explosions, fast chases etc or is shot mainly in dark (night) it will not look good if you lower the bitrate too much. In the other hand, a comedy or some sitcom will look better as the video is less demanding. If there is no need I wouldn’t encode any DVD under 1500kbps. The action ones even higher.

Now the playback equipment is another parameter. For a handheld player (those with that small screens) or a SDTV (the old CRT ones) you will be fine. But if you are planning to use a HDTV (even in low resolution of an old DVD player) I suggest you don’t squeeze too much video. For playback on a PC I don’t even suggest a DVD-Video. Just convert to H.264 and burn a data DVD. Of course for a HDTV and an upscaling DVD player just encode one movie per DVD for maximum quality, you don’t need me to tell you that.

Bottom line, I suggest putting up to two movies in one DVD9 and about half a season of any series. Of course, you know your needs better, that’s why the table above explaining all options exists.
How to create a DVD that holds many movies or an entire season of a series using FAVC

At the guide below we will use the freeware tool FAVC to create a DVD that will hold five movies, which in this example means about 8 hours and 45 minutes of video and an approximate bitrate of 1100kbps (more on less like the first sample in the table above). I decided to use FAVC as it comes with both the encoders I mentioned above, lets you add subtitles per track and creates a menu. It is also pretty easy to use. Note that while other encoders like ConvertXToDVD are much faster and feature full, for such low bitrate the quality of the video is much worse than what we will create with this tool. Download it below.

Step 1

Don’t worry about the many options, they are very simple and we will explain everything you need. First of all browse (1) and load the files you want to add in the DVD. Most of the video types (avi, mkv, mp4) are supported by FAVC. Next set the locations for the destination folder (2) and the temp files folder (3). Make sure you have enough free space! If you want, FAVC can also create an ISO file (4) for easier burning, otherwise it will create just the DVD files you can burn by following our guides here. Select the DVD format (5) between NTSC and PAL, obviously depending on your equipment. Now set the target size (6) between a normal DVD and a dual layer one. Note that to burn a dual layer DVD you need a DVD9 disc and a burner capable of burning it, so make sure you can in fact burn such a disc. Chapter length (7) sets every how many minutes a chapter will be created (used to navigate though the movie with the remote). You would probably want to create a Menu (8) in order to easily select which movie you want to see. Note that you cannot have a menu if you add more than 10 videos (for example 20+ episodes of a TV show), for some reason FAVC limits the menu creation to up to 10 tracks. In that case this option will be disabled and you can select the episode to play with the Next Track button in your remote control. At the Encoder (9) option, my choice is HC. In my opinion, it creates better looking video than QuEnc, especially in lower bitrate. If you want to decide by yourself check the samples in the table above. To continue, click the DVD Options tab and move to the next step.

Step 2

The first options in these screen are about the menu. First (1) you can set the Title of the menu and then the name of each of the videos that you have included in the disc. Next you can set a background picture of your liking (2). The default one is just a grey background. Finally you can use the notepad icon (3) to add subtitle tracks to any of the movies you have added. The Hard Subtitles option will burn them in the video while by default you can turn them on and off with your remote control or DVD player software. Click the HC Options tab to move on.

Step 3

Here we need to change some of the encoding options in order to get as better quality as possible. The options here will greatly increase the encoding time, so feel free to try different settings until you find a quality/speed ratio you like. However for such long videos the optimal options are: In Method of Encoding (1) select 2-Pass Variable Bitrate. In Quality (2) selecting Best will give the best possible quality but with great expense of time. In CPU Cores (3), if you have a multi core CPU (most new PCs do) choose MultiCoreEnc and set the number of the cores you want to use in order to speed the process significantly. Finally in DC Precision (4) set the value to 10 and click the Audio Options tab.

Step 4

We will use AC3 as the audio encoding (1) codec. We will also select Encode as usual (2) as we cannot afford to possibly retain the present audio as it would be too big for such a small video bitrate: we need to use as less space as possible for audio. So, choose Aften (3) as the encoder and a bitrate of 128kbps (4). Finally click Generate DVD (5) to start the encoding.

Step 5

A command line window will now open plus various encoder windows. The main FAVC window doesn’t do anything, so feel free to close it. Wait for some hours, depending on your PC speed and the video length and a new DVD will be waiting for you in the destination folder, either in DVD files form or both that plus an ISO file. There are plenty of guides in our sites that you can follow in order to burn those files if you don’t know how.

Nero Vision 4 is not sold separately, but as a part of Nero 7 Premium Suite. This rises the prices a lot, but the suite contains many useful programs like Nero Burning ROM and Nero Recode 2 as well as a bunch of useful utilities, so I think the price of the suite is fair. However the fact that Nero Vision is not being sold separately may discourage people from using it, so Ahead should think about offering it alone as well.

In this guide, we will do a basic conversion. We will convert 6 episodes of a TV show into a DVD with menus. The guide also includes a short explanation of the chapter creation, effects and menu creation screens. As usual if you some some question not answered in the guide or you face any kind of problems during the conversion process, use our forums and we’ll be sure to help!

This is the first screen you’ll see after you launch Nero Vision 4. Select Make DVD -> DVD-Video.

Here you can add the video files you want to convert. Just select Add Video Files and add all the files you want to fit into a single DVD. Make sure their total running time is not over 3 hours or the video quality will be bad. If the total time is over 2 hours you may get a message like the one below. It is safe to ignore that warning and click Yes.

After you load the files (or file!) you want to convert Nero Vision will look like this. The Edit Movie (1) option allows you to select which part to encode and to add effects. We briefly explain this in the next step (Step 4). Create chapters (2) can be used to add custom or automatic chapters in the DVD. You can find out how to do that in Step 5. As you understand these two steps are optional (you may want to convert the movie without editing and with no chapters. If so, click Next (3) and go to Step 6.

This is the edit movie interface. As if you can see it has a preview window, a timeline and a library of some effects you can do. To add an effect just fine the area of the video you want to add it and then drag-and-drop it into the timeline. You can also add your text into the video -you can select between various text effects as well. Using the controls under the video window you can chop areas of the video you don’t want to include in the DVD. Finally, a feature that many people asking for is using a custom background music in their videos. To do that, select the first tab in the effects library area, find the music file you want to use and put it in Audio 1 area in the timeline. When you are satisfied with your changes click Next. It will take you back to the screen of Step 3. If you want to add chapters, select Create Chapters and read the next step, otherwise click Next again and proceed to Step 6.

This is the Create Chapters screen. It is split in half, with the left half containing a video preview window and some controls (1) and the right one the list of the chapters (2) . To manually create a chapter browse though the video using the bar in the preview area and when you reach a point that you want one chapter to be added, press the add chapter button (it is the last one in the controls). The chapter should now appear in the chapter list with a thumbnail. If you want to automatically add chapters right-click on the white space in the chapter list and select “automatically detect chapters”. Note that this might not always work as it should, so adding chapters manually is suggested. When you are done adding chapters click Next (3).

Next comes the menu creation screen. You can easily modify the default header in area (1). However most users would want more control other what the menu looks like. Don’t worry, Nero Vision scores even in that area! Click Edit menu (2) and proceed to the next step to find out more.

Here you can change just about everything about the menu. In area (1) you can change the layout (we select one that shows all 6 episodes in one page), background image, buttons look, font, the text that you want to display at the top and the bottom of the menu and more! When you are done, click Next. (2) You will be back to the screen of Step 6. Click Next again to proceed.

In this page you can preview the menu by using the digital remote control (1) and watch the preview on the left. Obviously a very nice feature! You can also preview the menu animation (2). When you are done, click Next (3) to start creating the real DVD!

Finally you can select the target of your conversion (1). Most of the time you would like to burn the DVD after the conversion finishes, so just select Burn To… and the DVD writer. Then in Volume Name you can change the label of the DVD. Recording settings brings up the option shown in our example, where you can set extra speed settings. For DVD video, we suggest you burn at 4x or lower. Book Type setting at Automatic and Burn-at-once disabled is fine. If you want to store the DVD files in your hard disk to burn later you can select “Write to Hard Disk Folder” and set the target directory in your hard disk. When you are done setting these up, click Burn (2) to start the encoding, and afterwards the burning process.

This the the final screen. The encoding can take from ~30 minutes to 4 hours depending on the length of the video and the power of your computer. The Priority setting (1) affects it greatly as well. If you select a low priority you can use your computer while Nero Vision encodes, but the encoding will take more time. Generally I suggest leaving the PC work alone and set high priority. Remember that if you do something else while Nero works and your PC stucks, you’ll lose all the encoding to that point and have to start over again! So it would be better to just leave it. You can select “Shut down computer when finished” (2) to make sure your PC does not remain open after the conversion and burning is finished. So just a little patience and you’ll have a nice DVD!

You can download a fully working trial version of the program by clicking here. If you want to register you can get a serial here.

This is the main window of Advanced X Video Converter. Click Add Task.

This window will come up, and you need to select the task you want to do. You can have a better overview of Advanced X Video Converter’s features here. Our task is All to VCD/SVCD/DVD, so select that and click Next.

Here you can add the file you want to convert. Select Add File (1) and use the browser to add the video that is about to be converted. You also have to set the destination folder which is the folder the new files will be created. Click Browse (2) to do so. Of course you need to set the output format to DVD (3). Select PAL or NTSC depending on your source file. The second image shows how the settings should look like after you’ve finished with the configuration. Review everything to make sure it’s OK and click Done (4).

This should be the picture you’ll get after you have added the task. You can add as many as you want and have then processed all together. Just click Start and within a few hours your DVD MPEG2 file will be ready. You can then use your favourite author and burn program and get your data in a DVD disc. If you don’t know how to do that, there are plenty of guides in DVD Author and burn categories. Advanced X Video Converter is a very good program. It was stable during all our tests even if we tried almost all possible conversions and tasks. Its speed is above the average and generally it’s a handy tool for all these video conversions you want to do fast and easy.