Dvd Flick ~ A Basic Guide

Dvd Flick is an incredibly stable little tool to help re-encode various file types to DVD compliance. DVD Flick supports these video file types:
AVI, FLV, HDMOV, MKV, MJPG, MPG, M2V, MP4, M4V, NSV, NUT, QT, MOV, RM, SMK, OGM, WMV, ASF, 3GP, 3G2.

Get it Here @ TechKings

Open Dvd Flick and select Add Title

From there choose the file(s) that you wish to encode and burn to a DVD.

When the title has been imported into the queue double click it to edit general settings particular to this project.

While the settings are pretty straight forward, we'll take a moment to go through them anyway.

General Settings:


Here you choose how you want DVD Flick to create chapters on your file as well as the aspect ratio.

Video Settings

Add more clips or remove unwanted clips under the Video Settings tab. If dealing with multiple clips, you can reorder them here.

Audio Settings

Remove unwanted audio tracks here if there is more than one available.

Subtitle Settings

Add, edit, or remove subtitle files here. Click the Project Settings radio button to access DVD Flick quality, audio, video and burn settings. Once altered these settings should become default. It is recommended to go through them so that you can tweak the program the way you want it to operate on a normal basis.

General Settings

An important tab for overall use of Dvd Flick.

Select the default project size you would like to use. In the drop down menu for Target Size there are several default options depending on what type of disc or file you are going to make. Typically I encode to a single layer DVD. I typically use a custom size of 4400MB, this will prevent burning too close to the edge of the blank disc. In the drop down menu for target size choose custom and type in 4400 in the window below the drop down.

You can also choose the priority of the encoding. Encoding is very CPU intensive and therefore multitasking isn't recommended, so i typically don't recommend it. However, with dual and quad core processors readily available some choose to adjust this setting.

Video Tab

Target format - for the US is NTSC and for Europe is PAL. These are the different frame rates that are found around the globe. It is important to know what is used in the region that you live in or the video produced may not be viewable on a standalone player.

Encoding profile - This is the speed setting for encoding. Faster = less accurate and slower = more accurate thus resulting in a higher quality output.

Target Bitrate - Higher bitrate = higher quality and lower bitrate = lower quality.

Click the Advanced button:

These are settings that the typical user will not typically use. If however you feel adventurous press the blue "i" and you'll get a brief explanation of the settings here. Feel free to experiment based on your experience level.

Audio

Leaving this set to AUTO is a perfectly acceptable way to go. Myself, i prefer AC3 5.1 due to how widely accepted it is on most systems to 2 channel when not viewing in stereo.

Burning

Depending on how you typically burn your files determines how you set this option. If you typically use Imgburn, a good way to go is to create ISO image. If you leave this un-ticked then Dvd Flick will create a Video_TS folder which can be burned in build mode via Imgburn, Nero, or your favorite burning proggie.

I typically don't recommend autoburning which is a selectable option here. The most trusted method involves previewing the file before burning commences.

However, If you want DVD Flick to automatically open Imgburn when the encoding is finished tick the burn project to disc box.

Disc Label allows you to associate a name with you project.

Drive allows you to select the drive you want DVD Flick to open when encoding is completed. The drive you select will need to have a blank disc inserted before encoding finishes allowing the burning to be started.

When you are satisfied with how you've set it up for your project, click Accept.

At this point you should be ready to start encoding your project. Create a destination folder and click Create DVD.

From this point, you simply leave Dvd Flick and your pc to create and encode your DVD. Please note that this can be a time consuming process based on size of the file, your pc specs, and how much you multitask. I do recommend against multitasking, even running multi-core processes and Dvd Flick's encoding can use some resources.

Enjoy and burn on!

Now that you've got the basics of Dvd Flick down, let's get into the slightly more advanced stuff.

Once you've got the file added, click on Edit Title on the right hand pane. A new window pops up with five selectable tabs. Let's start with these.

General

Name - Alter the name of your project.

Chapters - this is an important tab in my opinion. On this tab check Create chapters every, selecting from 5 to 120 minutes between chapters. Purpose of the chapters usage is forward/back skipping forward during the DVD viewing. You can use fixed numbers of chapters - by checking Create button.

Video Sources - Video sources for the "Title" - this tab informs us about video codec, frame size, Aspect ratio, frame rate,- Frames Per Second.

Audio Tracks - DVD Flick can extract audio tracks from all supported video files (AVI, FLV, HDMOV, MKV, MJPG, MPG, M2V, MP4, M4V, NSV, NUT, QT, MOV, RM, SMK, OGM, WMV, ASF, 3GP, 3G2), and also native audio file formats: AAC, AC3, Flac, MKA, MP3, MP2, MPA, OGG, WAV, WMA.

Subtitle Tracks - DVD Flick supports these subtitles formats: AQT, JS, RT, SMI, ***, SRT, SSA, TXT. Those can be added here. I personally have not experimented much with this facet of Dvd Flick, so if anyone has any real experience in this regard feel free to add later on in this thread. What i do know is that you can use the edit button to select the subtitle track for your "Title."
From there you can alter every facet of your selected subtitle in the next screen. The top, bottom, left, and right margin; Font, Character Set, Size, Weight, Alignment, and Text, Outline, and Background color. Again, i have not dealt too much with this side of Dvd Flick so i remain blissfully ignorant.

Press Accept to save your project settings and move forward.

From there let's go a little deeper into the,

Project Settings - More settings to go through here. Let's explore them.

General Select your Target Size or a Custom Size which we touched on in post #1.

Encoder Priority - allows to you to use DVD Flick with high priority in your operating system to decrease full encoding time. And in Dvd Flick's own wording - Anything above Normal is not recommended if you plan to use your computer while creating your DVD.

Thread Count - this is auto detected by Dvd Flick when it is first started. Basically, it's the number of threads used to encode audio and video. If you try to set this to a higher number of CPU cores available it will cause a decrease in overall performance. In other words, let the auto-detection do it's job.

Video - Tab.

Target Format - Select the appropriate format here. Most European, Asian, and Oceanic countries should be set to PAL. Most American Countries should be set to NTSC. Some DVD players support both formats, in which case you should select the Mixed Format where each separate title will be determined to be either PAL or NTSC and encoded as such for the best quality.

Encoding - Encoding profile for better encoding performance is highly recommended to select as Normal or Best. Fastest and Fast mode will decrease full encoding time, but with the lower quality results.

Target Bitrate - Target bitrate is more easy to use as Auto fit in my opinion. This option will calculate bitrate for encoding automatically, and is based on DVD Target size and will be set as maximum possible value. If you have some advanced experience with DVD encoding, you can set Custom bitrate.

Now, let set up advanced video options by pressing the Advanced button at the bottom of this screen.

Check Second encoding pass to improve overall output encoding results. I highly recommended to use this option. It will increase full encoding time. Check Half horizontal resolution to enable Half D1 DVD Mode, one of the standard for DVD, decreases frame size to 352x576 for PAL and to 352x480 for NTSC (instead of 720x576 (PAL) and 720x480 (NTSC)). Could be used as a possibility to decrease encoding bitrate, for more video length on one DVD disc. Check Add overscan borders to make your DVD with black left and right borders to view all the source video on your TV. Deinterlace option is not recommended to use as it's better. It's better to encode your interlaced video files using Cam Video Tool 4 DVD Flick to support interlaced mpeg-2 encoding. Check Force MPEG-2 recompression to recompress your mpeg-2 video source files.

Click Accept when done here.

I typically set my size custom at 4300MB.....always like a bit smaller size to make sure I am no where close to the edge.

In the audio section, I tend to click the "volume modification" to at least 125%, as sometimes the audio encoded is softer than what is on the avi file.

I've done the same movie several times, changing the settings a bit on each one to find out what I like the best. I suggest doing the same yourself, as the old adage, "in the eye of the beholder" comes true. What I may choose may not be what you may prefer. As long as it comes out how you want it, then you may keep the same settings.

One thing that was not mentioned was Playback settings. If you are adding more than 1 avi file, I suggest in the box marked After A Title Has Played choose Play The Next Title from the drop down menu. I have made the mistake of choosing Play It Again or Stop Playing if you have not played a menu. You will not be able to play the additional files you have added.

Whatever you choose, at the bottom you can click "Use As Defaults", and dvd flick will remember your settings.

I'm going to get into the more advanced settings soon. Hence the reserved spot.

I've done the same movie several times, changing the settings a bit on each one to find out what I like the best. I suggest doing the same yourself, as the old adage, "in the eye of the beholder" comes true. What I may choose may not be what you may prefer. As long as it comes out how you want it, then you may keep the same settings.

Could not agree more that a little bit of playing around and tweaking to one's own preferences is absolutely the way to go. Then keeping those settings as default is a great way to make sure you're getting what you want.

Yeah.....I tended to ramble a bit....as I was tired and sleepy when I got home and saw your posting on dvd flick. I actually went through it twice to clean it up a bit, and I see I didn't clean it up enough.

Thanks for the guide 7thsinger. I have been hesitant about trying to learn this program, but with the help of your guide as well as rtm27's input, I think that I may give it a try.

Great work 7th!

Agree with everyone, Excellent guide 7th

Originally Posted by RipIt_4

Thanks for the guide 7thsinger. I have been hesitant about trying to learn this program, but with the help of your guide as well as rtm27's input, I think that I may give it a try.

Glad this has helped RipIt. If you have any questions about using it, do not hesitate to ask as many here could help.

Once you use it a couple of times, you'll be surprised how easy it really is.

Thank you sir and don't worry I will.