dvda-author

dvda-author is a free and open-source application designed to help you burn and play audio DVDs and hybrid audio/video DVDs with unencrypted and uncompressed tracks.

The setup procedure is a fast and simple task. The only notable aspects about it is that it may require administrative rights, and it lets you exclude the source files from installation to proceed only with the GUI.

Speaking of the interface, dvda-author adopts a clear-cut structure that's easy to navigate. It has a built-in file explorer and a second pane dedicated to the DVD creation process: audio and video tabs.

You can use the file explorer to locate a specific audio track or video clip, click a button to immediately add it to the disc, as well as organize the audio and video files by creating different groups for them and changing their play order on the disc.

On the bottom side of the main window you can check out log details, including the total size of each audio/video group. The project can be saved to file and later resumed. It's possible to encode and decode the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders, as well as to compile an ISO image before burning it to disc.

The ISO creation can be performed with mkisofs (provided that you have it on the computer), while the disc burning process can be done with cdrecord (select the DVD writer). The utility can be asked to log the process to file. Moreover, you can disable multiformat input, skip creating the AUDIO_TS or VIDEO_TS directories, or skip authoring the audio DVD zone with audio content. The start sector may be defined too.

We haven't come across any major stability issues in our tests, apart from the fact that dvda-author prompted an error and crashed whenever we attempted to add a file that wasn't audio or video. CPU and RAM consumption was low, though, so it didn't hamper system performance.

To conclude, dvda-author offers a convenient solution for putting together audio/video DVDs and burning them. It still needs a lot of work, though.