DVD Creator: Another Option to Create DVDs

Many of us were left kicking and screaming as both Apple DVD Studio Pro and Adobe Encore bit the dust. The current DVD burning capabilities from both Apple and Adobe are severely limited – which is why many of us are hanging on to old gear simply to burn DVDs.

Why? Because clients are willing to pay us to create DVDs. And, DVDs are a lot easier to control that download links. While the inexorable march of time is toward downloads and streaming, there is still money to be made in DVDs.

Recently, I discovered that Wondershare publishes DVD Creator. This all-purpose tool makes burning a WIDE variety of DVDs possible. While it does not equal the flexibility of DVD Studio Pro – in fact, nothing really equalled this amazing app once you understood how to use it – still, for media creators who still need to burn DVDs AND use current hardware, this software is worth a look.

This isn’t a product review, because I no longer burn DVDs. But I want to share a conversation I had with the team at Wondershare so that you can decide if this software meets your needs.

Product: DVD Creator
OS Support: Mac and Windows
Developer: Wondershare
Website: dvdcreator.wondershare.com/
Price: $49.95 (subscription) $59.95 (purchase) Team licenses also available.

WHAT IS DVD CREATOR

Here are the key bullet points from the Wondershare website.

Create DVDs With Any Video

• Burn videos in 150 formats to DVD/DVD folder/Blu-ray DVD folder/ISO/Blu-ray disc, like MP4 to DVD, MKV to DVD, AVI to DVD, and more.
• Support all popular disc types: DVD-9 and DVD-5; DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, DVD+R DL, DVD-R DL, DVD-RAM; BD-R, BD-RE, BD-25, BD-50, BD-100.
• However, support for Blu-ray discs is only available in the Windows version.

Edit DVD Video With the Built-in Video Editor

• Trim: Trim unwanted part of your home movies.
• Crop: Crop video to the proper size to fit your screen or remove the blank edge.
• Enhance: Adjust video brightness/contrast/saturation, and apply special effects for a better visual experience.
• Watermark: Add image/text watermark to video for copyright protection.
• Subtitle: Add subtitles to your DVD movies, including .srt, .ass and .ssa extensions.

Flexible Customization of DVD Menus

• The DVD [software] offers over 100 free static and dynamic DVD templates in different themes and [allows customizing the] background image/music, title, thumbnail, etc.
• Also, this DVD burning software supports creating chapters both manually and automatically.

A CONVERSATION WITH WONDERSHARE

Recently, I contacted Webber Zhang, Marketing Specialist at Wondershare to learn more about DVD Creator. Here are my questions and his answers.

Larry: Can we create custom menus for it, or must we only use your templates?

Webber: [We have more than 100 templates available and] we can create more menus for you, if you please tell us the kind of menus you need?

Larry: Can we create or import DVD chapter markers?

Webber: You can do that in Windows version only currently.

Larry: Does it support importing closed captions? If so, which formats?

Webber: Yes, currently DVD Creator supports SRT, ASS, and SSA formats.

Larry: Does DVD Creator support burning more than one movie on a DVD; subject to the capacity of the disc?

Webber: Yes, but it also depends on DVD and movie capacities. For example, burn 4 movies (1G) to one DVD (4.7G). (Larry adds: A single layer DVD holds about 4.7 GB, while a dual-layer DVD holds about 8.3 GB. DVD videos are always standard-definition.)

Larry: Does DVD Creator support chapter markers exported from either Premiere or Final Cut Pro X?

Webber: No.

Larry: Does DVD Creator support more than one audio track, say for different languages?

Webber: Doesn’t support multiple audio tracks.

Larry: Does DVD Creator support more than one caption track, again, for multiple languages?

Webber: Doesn’t support multiple closed captions.

Larry: Does DVD Creator allow us to compress the MPEG elemental in other software then merge them in DVD Creator?

Webber: [We may not understand what you are asking.] As Wondershare DVD Creator provides a “Fit to Disc” option in the software itself, therefore you don’t need to use another software [to compress the video].

Larry: Stories were a big feature in DVD Studio Pro. What they allowed was starting playback at a chapter marker, then exiting playback at the next chapter marker. You could then string these different sections together to play a “story.” Does DVD Creator support stories?

Webber: While you can create and access chapter markers, which allows jumping to a specific point in the DVD, story mode is not supported in Wondershare DVD Creator. But the product team will research this feature in DVD Studio Pro when they have time.

Larry: Does DVD Creator allow creating custom menus?

Webber: Only supports using built-in menus at present. If you want to fully-customize menus, that’ll be another deal.

Larry: Can you customize the background image used in a template?

Webber: Yes. Also, if there’s a large number of users at your end, we can provide full customization service.

Larry: Does DVD Creator support burning a dual-layer DVD for more storage capacity?

Webber: Yes.

Larry: Does DVD Creator support creating a disk image for archiving purposes on a hard drive?

Webber: Supports creating ISO files.

Finally, as you mentioned several video conversion tasks, I think you may also be interested in Wondershare Video Converter (videoconverter.wondershare.com/).