Before you decide to burn a DVD, it is important to know what kind of DVD you would like to burn. Depending on the type of DVD, will usually determine the process in which you burn it. Usually the three most common types of DVD’s to burn are Data DVD’s, Multimedia Files to a DVD and making a copy and burning a commercial DVD.

Burn Data to a DVD

Burning normal everyday data is the easiest of the three ways to burn a DVD. The reason being is that ordinary data such as documents, spreadsheets, database files, back ups, etc only require general DVD burning software and you do not require any special kind of decryption or region specific software. The Data that you burn can easily be played on any type of computer with a DVD drive.

Usually you will need to purchase or download the many free DVD burning software titles. For many computers that are purchased new, DVD burning software already comes installed and configured for your machine and DVD burner. You just need to open up your DVD burner software, choose to burn a DATA DVD and follow the prompts. You can usually burn a full length DVD, which is about 4.7 GB of data in less than 20 minutes and even quicker with high speed DVD burners.

Burn Multimedia Files to a DVD

While burning multimedia files to a DVD is essentially the same as burning regular data, usually you will want to add some extras. Multimedia files usually are larger files that include video either recorded from your TV set, your camcorder, your digital camera or downloaded off the internet. Many times, a person would like to make a copy of their wedding tape or convert an old VHS tape to a more user friendly DVD.

With today’s DVD authoring tools, you can easily burn multimedia files and give them professional features such as chapters, so you can skip through a large video file, add a title or menu page (such as a wedding DVD) or catalogue many TV shows that you saved already on your computer’s hard drive. Some DVD burning software even allow you to add subtitles that you can create your self or you can even add DRM (digital right management), if you are creating commercial videos that you would like others not to be able to make copies of your DVD easily.

Copy and Burn a Commercial DVD

Many people use their DVD burner to burn copies of commercial DVD’s. While it isn’t illegal to make a copy of copyrighted material for an archive or to make an extra copy to use on another computer that you own or your or car’s DVD player, please note, in most regions it is illegal to copy commercial DVD’s and sell them or give them away to others.

There are many tools that can copy a commercial DVD. However, besides a normal DVD burner and DVD burning software, you will also need special software that can decode (crack) digital rights management. It is also important to note that besides cracking the code and copying the data of the commercial DVD to be burned to a new DVD, you will usually need to first shrink the file.

Most commercial DVD’s are dual layer and have between 7 and 8.4 GB of data. These files must be compressed to fit on a normal 4.7 GB DVD. Usually these files need to fit on less than 4.3 GB of space. Once you have cracked the commercial DVD and compressed it, you can usually use ordinary DVD burning software to burn your DVD. Just load up your DVD burning software and follow the prompts. Many times, commercial DVD copy software comes as a suite of programs, to first crack or decode the DVD, shrink it to fit on a normal DVDR, add extras such as sub titles or chapters and then burn it to a normal DVDR.