Burning DVDs

Win10 should be able to natively cut TV DVDs or CDs if you can find the right incantion/ugly square block to click on. Win7 certainly can.

ISTR it is pretty dumb about size estimates though so something like Nero or a free equivalent might help you retain your sanity.

But not necessarily VIDEO DVDS. Just data ones

IIRC the software I use on linux also works on winders.

On Linux it will also burn to the disc as well as allow .iso saves

DVD Styler. Works well.

That is two votes for DVD Styler, so I have just downloaded and installed. Will play later. Thanks, chaps.

It works. Well is relative to your expectations.

I always use imgburn.

YWes, ImgBurn is excellent - does what you want and no more, and does it extremely well. I do not often burn CDs/DVDs under windows but that is the one I always use.

IIRC it tries (or used to try) to install a couple of spurious extra 'browser toolbar' type applications as part of the installation process - a way for the author to try and get a few bob back. If you pay attention and don't just randomly click on 'yes' to everything when installing you should be fine.

J^n

Surely that just burns images?

The OP wants to 'author' a DVD that a domestic DVD player will understand.

The last version I downloaded a little while ago installed malware on my PC which kept loading web pages for one of the bookmakers, William Hill. I had to improve my antivirus software to eliminate this.

The website says, "You can use it to build DVD Video discs (from a VIDEO_TS folder), HD DVD Video discs (from a HVDVD_TS folder) and Blu-ray Video discs (from a BDAV / BDMV folder) with ease."

Exactly, It doesn't *create* the VIDEO_TS folder, or its contents. Which are not simply an MP4.

Do you have a DVD player that will just play the files if they are written to a disc without menus, etc.? TBH, I've not yet seen one (my own player is quite old), but it seems like a silly feature to leave out in this day and age.

Otherwise, if you want menus, chapters, etc., you need (as others have mentioned) DVD authoring software. Problem is, if it then recodes the video to DVD standards (image size, frame rate, etc.), which it always does, unless the video file is already in the correct format, you may noticeably lose some quality. If you are able to just put the files on a data DVD and play that, you won't. Unless they are too big to fit without compression.

I have to admit, though, that I haven't made video DVDs for years. I used NeroVision Express, which seemed good, but trashed my first Win7 machine when I tried it on that. Nowadays, I just share a folder on my PC, and use a Raspberry Pi with Kodi on to play them on the TV.

Nowadays I just have mindlna on my server, and the (smartTV just plays them anyway.

No need for a Pi at all.

Well, the Pi was a Christmas present - I was looking for something to do with it :-) The media player OS was a pleasant surprise. I'm not sure if my telly will connect to a media server by itself, but I suppose I ought to check.

He has mp4s etc. He doesn't seem to want to build those folders.

I use ushare, and that does a good job too (apart from when I hosted it on a machine with two interfaces and it picked the wrong one, but I just hacked it a bit)

Then make the pi the media server - it runs minidlna I think.

If the TV is 'smart' its 99% certain it will have a dlna client.

well at some level he will have to. If its a bog standard DVD player...

The point about dvdauthor is that it does that automagically.

That's just semantics, and what I meant.