SVCD2DVD

SVCD2DVD is an application that integrates tools for helping you create DVD movies from common video types, such as MPEG, VCD, SVCD and AVI.

Unfortunately, the interface is not very intuitive, and you may spend some time figuring out how to work with this tool. You can write titleset details (name, button text) and import videos using the file browser only, since the drag-and-drop method is not supported.

Evidently, you can insert as many clips as you want, provided that the total size does not exceed the DVD size. It is possible to perform an automatic layout function for the clips, preview the DVD movie in a built-in media player, and look into log details.

You can create and design menu buttons, apply images as backgrounds (BMP, JPG or GIF format), and attach sound files (MP2, MPA, MP3 or AC3 format). SVCD2DVD provides some standard graphic editing tools in this matter which let you center objects horizontally or vertically, increase spacing, enable dropshadow mode, or pick the colors.

Plenty of settings are configurable for the application: you may set the default clip, DVD and temporary locations, establish the output folder name, enable two-pass video encoding mode, convert PAL assets to NTSC, keep the source audio stream, specify the chapter point frequency, and pick the burning method, among others.

On the downside, SVCD2DVD needs a third-party component to carry out a DVD burning procedure, namely ImgBurn or CopyToDVD. Moreover, the unregistered version does not give you access to some features, such as extracting MPEG items from BIN files or demultiplexing MPEGs in batch mode, or saving projects and templates.

The application needs a moderate-to-high amount of CPU and RAM to work properly. However, it loses points when it comes to interface intuitiveness (since novice users would most likely get lost in the features) as well as third-party dependencies. Nevertheless, we must take into account that SVCD2DVD has not been updated for a long while.