DVDs are the fastest-growing medium in the consumer electronics space. More than 15 million homes have a DVD player. Consumers are eagerly moving from VHS to DVD for several reasons, but the primary driving factor is the DVD format's vastly improved audio and video playback capabilities. A DVD image typically provides 540 lines of resolution-compared with a standard broadcast signal's 330 lines of resolution and a standard VHS image's 240 lines of resolution. Another benefit is evident when you compare DVDs with CDs. Whereas a CD is limited to 650MB of data (about 70 minutes of music), a DVD can contain about 4.7GB of data (about 120 minutes of video and audio).

Until recently, consumer-end DVD players have lacked one important quality that VCRs have long possessed: the ability to record. Certainly, high-end devices have been available to recording studios, but the price of these devices placed them well beyond the reach of the average person. Now, thanks to the rapid maturation of the DVD industry, several DVD recording devices are available that can bring the power of DVD authoring into your home.

The two most common types of DVDs are video DVDs, which can contain movies or concerts, and data DVDs, which can contain large programs such as Microsoft Encarta or a dictionary, an encyclopedia, or an atlas reference application. Before you start creating-or burning-DVDs, you need know how to choose a DVD recorder and you need to understand important concepts about both types of DVDs.

Choose Your Recorder
Selecting the right DVD recorder can be a surprisingly complex matter. Such devices are available in two basic categories: PC-based recorders and set-top recorders.

The most common type of DVD-recording device is a PC-based DVD recorder. Much like a CD-R or CD-RW device, a PC-based DVD recorder can be internal or external. You'll find three competing standards in the recordable-DVD arena: DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, and DVD+RW. Currently, several DVD-RAM drives are on the market. DVD-RAM is a rewritable format, so you can reuse the discs. However, DVD-RAM discs come in a cartridge-style case and aren't compatible with most home DVD players. DVD-RW and DVD+RW are newer formats. Like DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD+RW are also rewritable media. However, unlike DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD+RW discs look like standard DVD discs and are compatible with most newer DVD players. None of the formats are compatible with one another, so be careful when shopping for media. For more information about the different DVD formats, see Table 1. DVD-RAM and DVD-RW drives for the PC are available in the $400-$600 range. For more information about the available DVD recorders, see "Popular DVD Recorders."

In addition to PC-based DVD recorders, a new generation of set-top DVD-recording devices have been available in Japan for about a year and are just beginning to appear in the US market. These devices are similar to standard VCRs. However, these devices-which typically run in the $2500-$4000 price range-are still too expensive for most home users. "Popular DVD Recorders" contains more information about set-top DVD-recording devices.

After you purchase your hardware component, you need to assemble three essential software components-two behind-the-scenes system components and the GUI with which you'll assemble contents to write to the DVD. The behind-the-scenes components are an encoder and a decoder. The encoder's job is to translate the recorded digital information into a format that a DVD player can understand. The decoder's job is to translate the DVD format into a digital representation that the target device can render. On the PC, the decoder is typically a software component that comes with the DVD-ROM device. One example of a third-party DVD decoder is InterVideo's DVD XPack, an optional DVD decoder for Windows Media Player for Windows XP (WPXP). Likewise, DVD-recording devices typically include both a decoder for playing DVDs and an encoder for writing to DVDs. Set-top devices usually have a built-in encoder and decoder.

The third software component lets you assemble DVD content. On the PC, the nature of this software component depends on the type of DVD media that you want to create. If you want to create data DVDs, your software will be file-system-oriented and will have an interface that lets you select files and folders that you want to write to DVD. A couple of examples of this type of software are Prassi's PrimoDVD and Software Architects' WriteDVD!. If you want to create video DVDs, you'll need video-capture and editing software such as XP's MovieMaker or Apple Computer's iMovie (which is included with the iMac). Most set-top DVD recorders-which are intended only for video editing and aren't typically able to create data DVDs-include proprietary video-editing software.

Now you need an input source. The input source depends on the type of DVD that you want to create. A data DVD's input source is typically the source computer's hard disk or another DVD or CD drive on the system. A video DVD's input source is usually a video file that you've edited and saved to the hard disk. For example, you might use a digital camera to capture some home video or you might gather content from another DVD.

Now you're ready to start burning DVDs. Because PC-based DVD-creation hardware is the most affordable solution, the examples I include in this article use the PC-based Pioneer Electronics' Pioneer A103 DVD-RW device running under XP.

Create Data DVDs
You can use data DVDs to back up folders and files on your computer system. You can also use them as installation discs for large applications that would otherwise span multiple CDs. The process of creating data DVDs is similar to creating a standard, albeit large, CD-R or CD-RW.

To create a sample data DVD (in DVD-RW format), I used PrimoDVD 2.0, which is bundled with the Pioneer DVD recorder. When the DVD-burning application first opens, you can select the files and folders that you want to write to DVD. (Figure 1 shows the folders and files under the D:\Program Files folder that I selected-279 folders containing 2872 files, with an overall capacity of 1735MB.)