Conversion Guides

These guides walk through the most common DVD conversion and authoring tasks for personal use, one target at a time. Each one keeps things practical — which format to choose, the settings that matter, and a step-by-step you can follow on Windows or Mac. If you are new to the topic, start with the core modes — Ripper, Creator and Copy — and come back here for the format-specific details.

All guides

Two directions: converting and authoring

Almost everything on this site is one of two journeys. Converting from a disc reads the DVD and writes a digital file — an MP4, MKV or MPEG you can keep on a drive and play anywhere. Authoring to a disc goes the other way: it takes video files you already have and burns them into the DVD-Video structure a living-room player understands. The format guides below cover the first direction; Video & YouTube to DVD covers the second. A third path, copying, keeps the disc exactly as it is rather than turning it into a file.

Settings that matter across every guide

A few choices come up in nearly every conversion, and getting them right matters more than the tool you pick:

• Resolution — a DVD is standard definition (720×480 or 720×576). Keep that native size rather than upscaling; enlarging will not add detail that was never on the disc.
• Quality over bitrate — choose a quality-based encode (a constant-quality or RF value) instead of a low fixed bitrate, so the file stays faithful without bloating.
• Audio and subtitles — decide early whether you need every language track and subtitle. MKV keeps them all; MP4 is leaner with one of each.
• NTSC vs. PAL — when authoring to a disc, match the TV standard of the region where it will play, and always finalise the disc so standalone players accept it.

What you'll need

None of these tasks call for special hardware beyond the basics. A reasonably modern computer handles encoding comfortably, and hardware acceleration on recent processors speeds it up further. You will need an optical drive — most current laptops, and nearly all Macs, have dropped built-in drives, so an inexpensive external USB DVD drive is the usual answer. Leave enough free disk space for the job: up to about 4.7 GB for a single-layer disc image and 8.5 GB for dual-layer. For authoring, keep a few good-quality blank discs from a known brand on hand, and burn at a moderate speed for the most reliable result.

How to choose

If you just want a file that plays anywhere, convert to MP4. If you care about keeping multiple languages and subtitles together, use MKV. If you intend to edit or re-author the footage, stay in MPEG. Going the other way — putting your own video onto a disc — is covered in Video & YouTube to DVD. And to watch on the move, DVD to mobile devices covers the right sizes and profiles.

Frequently asked questions