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How to convert any video format to DVD using DVD Flick

There are a lot of guides in our site that cover authoring a video DVD, playable in all standalone players, from various video files. However software keeps improving so we have to adjust our site's content in order to keep it updated to the latest installments. One of those, DVD Flick, an excellent open source program that makes heavy use of ffmpeg in order to convert a massive amount of different video formats and burn them to a video DVD.

In this guide we will explain in detail how to use DVD Flick, and when appropriate compare to other solutions.

This is the main DVD Flick window. Notice the buttons to Save or Open a project, Project settings and Menu settings. To get started we will add a video file, so click at the Add title button in the side.

When the video file is loaded a yellow bar in the left side will show you how full the DVD disc is. However note that DVD Flick will auto adjust the bitrate so that you can fill a disc with less or more content, but it is recommended you don't exceed 3 hours of play or the quality will greatly suffer. Of course you can add multiple video files but since in our example we have one big movie we will not add something else. To continue, click Edit Title while you have the video selected and move to the next step.

In the General settings, make sure you write the name of the movie / episode cleanly as this is what will appear in the DVD menu. The Target aspect ratio should already by detected, just check it to make sure it is correct. If needed you can change the Thumbnail time index in order to change the thumbnail of the video file that will appear in the program and the menu. When ready, move to Chapters tab.

It is a good idea to add some chapters in our DVD in order to navigate more easily through the movie, so select Create chapters every and set the time to whatever you like. Next, move to Audio Tracks.

The audio track that your source video file contains should be already added here. Set the default Track language so that it displays correctly in the DVD player. You may also add another track (for example you may have an mkv source with more than one languages). Finally, move to Subtitle tracks.

{mostip image=info}While Matroska (.mkv) is in the list of DVD Flick's supported formats, some files refused to correctly add the audio tracks and in some other ones the subtitles where missing. In that case you can use this guide to split the mkv file before and add each audio and subtitle stream manually.{/mostip}

In the Subtitle tracks tab you can manage your subtitle streams. Most of the popular types like .srt, .sub etc are supported. Add a file and then click Edit to control the subtitles appearance.

Here you can set the Language and change the margin values so that the subtitles appear where you want them. It's a good idea to click Auto-fit or change the size yourself to your liking. The rest of the options provide pretty good results as is, so feel free to leave them at their default values and click Accept.

Step06

Close the Title settings screen we opened in Step 3 and in the main window open the Project settings dialog by clicking the button with the same name.

In the General settings make sure the Target size is at 4.3GB (unless you want to create a DVD9 of course!) and set the number of Thread count according to your CPU. (for example for dual core set it to 2, for quad core set it to 4)
Next, click the Video tab.

Here you have to set the Target format depending on what your DVD player supports. Encoding profile is actually a choice between quality and speed. If you want to convert as fast as possible, obviously select Fast. Otherwise Normal is good enough. Use High only if you have put a lot of video in the DVD (other 2 hours) and you want to i quality as much as possible. Target bitrate should be set to Auto-fit.
Finally click at the Burning tab.

DVD Flick includes ImgBurn in order to create an ISO or burn a DVD right after it finishes processing the files. Of course if you select nothing here it will just create the DVD files. It is generally a good idea to check the video files before you burn the DVD so you may want to leave this off or just create an ISO. In our example I enabled burning a DVD right after the encoding is done.
Click Accept to get back to DVD Flick main window and there, click the Menu settings button on the toolbar.

Everything is pretty straightforward here: if you want a menu choose the appearance you like the most, select Enable menu and Auto-play and click Accept.
Double-check everything and when you are sure you are ready, click the Create DVD button in the main window to start the conversion.

That's it! DVD Flick is a great piece of free software. While being extremely powerful and feature full, it remains user friendly. The only downside I could find was a few bugs when dealing with out of the ordinary formats like WMV and RealVideo and the conversion speed. Even in "Fast" encoding profile it was over 50-80% slower when compared to commercial solutions like ConvertXToDVD.
Generally I suggest you give it a try, you have nothing to lose and chances are you won't be disappointed, especially when comparing it to other free / open source solutions. For problems or questions feel free to visit our forums.

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Comments (16) Add Comment

thanks
written by djmasturbeat, October 07, 2008

this looks promising
thank you

i have so far been unable to get ALL to AVI to work, and my system won't run Super video converter, which came recommended

-3

Is it possible
written by Jay II, April 25, 2009

After burning one project is it possible to use this program to burn another dvd using the new dvd video saved by dvd flick

DVD Flick too long converting file!
written by NCavaleiro, April 28, 2009

I tried yesterday to convert an MKV file to a DVD-9 with the DVD Flick, when he arrived to the 'add subtitles' part he last at least 4, 5 hours there. Is it normal?

The .MKV with 4.5gb it's the large of the file i tried to convert.

Note:
Sorry about my writting, for a portuguese, i'm not too bad (i think). Thank's to all!

Nice program
written by David8, May 13, 2009

for me it works very well. thanks

-1

fantastic!
written by roger daltry, June 12, 2009

easiest and fastest converter/burner ive found so far. silly if you dont use it.

-1

OUTSTANDING
written by VMAN, July 09, 2009

i tell ya, free programs are the best!!!

question
written by mango, July 12, 2009

cant i play this on my dvd or ps3 ??

chapters timing
written by julitomg, July 16, 2009

Can I set custom chapter times?...I mean, instead of selecting to mark a chapter every X minutes...can I set the time for each one? (I´d like to make a DVD from an avi concert file where the songs vary in lenght but would like to set a chapter every tiem a new song begins)

5 star
written by -Dude-, July 24, 2009

Been looking for a program just liek this for the better part of a week, thankyou VERY much !!

Good idea...
written by Worfster, August 05, 2009

There are a few progs around that do this type of thing, but this one i've found has ease of use and some very good authoring options, the only thing I would suggest is as julitomg says, some way of seperating chapters individually and maybe a way of importing your own pic to menu ?, other than those mere additions a great prog.
Many many thanks.

One of the best free programs i have used seems to encode everything i throw at it
written by Spikeakatroy, September 12, 2009

I have tried many other free programs so big named ones and alot of them had trouble encoding certain videos and what not,But this program has not only encoded everything alot of the others didn't the quality when put on to a dvd is pretty darn good also,One of the best free programs i have come across

couple things
written by jbob, October 18, 2009

@jayII - you dont need to burn another copy off of the dvd you just burned. you can change the settings to NOT delete the temporary files created during conversion then simply burn another copy. (without having to put a dvd in the drive at all) smilies/grin.gif

@worfster - you CAN add your own pic to the menu... it just doesn't spoon feed you the method to do so. go into the folder where the menu images are stored then simply open one of the images and modify it however you would like. then when you go to burn your dvd just choose that menu and it will pull the image you modified. not rocket science... some folks just aren't willing to take the 10 seconds to think up a solution. smilies/sad.gif

question
written by Davidw08, November 04, 2009

If I wanted to burn a whole tv series onto a few DVDs, approximately 28 hours worth, do you still recommend the limit of 3 hours on each DVD, meaning I'll have to use about 9 DVDs in total?

thanks for the tutorial.
written by kajjang!, December 02, 2009

very simple and easy to read. figured i'd give it a read-through even though i tried using dvdflick a while ago on my own and figured i had the basics down. didn't know there were options to add subtitles or to burn straight to the dvd. cheers.

...
written by K.E, December 15, 2009

Good tutorial but takes a long time smilies/shocked.gif

DVD Flick Program
written by R Myers, December 16, 2009

This program is very nice, easy to use and dependable. Doesn't get any better that this program.

Thank you for all your useful information on the website.

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