Posted: September 15th, 2011 | Author: Ashraf
Originally posted: September 15, 2009
I have noticed there is a bit of confusion out there when it comes to DVDs. People want to burn movie DVDs which they can play on their DVD player but often mix up the action of burning a movie DVD and authoring a movie DVD. This confusion cannot solely be blamed on consumers because often many programs have the ability to burnDVDs but not the ability to author them. Both burning and authoring a DVD accomplish the same goal of creating a movie DVD which is watchable on an average household DVD player. The difference lies in the actual process of creating that movie DVD.
When you burn a movie DVD you are simply putting DVD compliant videos (i.e. .VOB) onto a DVD; if you burn non-DVD compliant videos onto the DVD, like AVI or MP4, the DVD just acts like a VCD instead of a proper DVD. When you author a movie DVD you take non-DVD compliant videos (i.e. AVI, WMV, MP4, etc.), convert them to DVD compliant format (i.e. .VOB), and burn them onto a DVD. In the process of authoring a DVD you may also be able to create custom DVD menus depending on which software you use.
Ashampoo Burning Studio 2009 Advanced is a prime example of a disk burning software that can burn a DVD (data or movie) but not author one. DVDFlick, on the other hand, is an example of a software that can author DVDs:
Read more here.