Devede, a video DVD creator

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The main interface

After choosing the kind of disk you want, you will see the main interface:

Main interface for DVD discs

A DVD is divided in Files. Each file is a film on its own, and, when played, you have to choose the one you want to see from the menu. Clicking on the buttons below the list of files you can add or delete them, change its position in the menu, or modify the properties of each one. It is also possible to set the properties of several files by using the option Set multiproperties, which is available in the Edit option, in the top menu.

Main window properties

In the DVD window screenshot we can see that there are two files. By default, after playing a file the DVD player will return to the DVD menu (this can be changed).

The Disk usage bar shows the percentage of the disk currently used. You can occupy more than the 100% because it's based in an estimation, so the final size can (and probably will) be lower than the espected, but never higher (see the FAQ for details). You can choose the CD/DVD size too. Have in mind another thing: a 700MB CD can contain 80 minutes of compressed audio/video, which, at 1152 kbps are about 800MB. This means that, when the media is a CD, you MUST use the bar to know how many disc space you are using, and not the estimated size of the files, because you can put up to 800MB of compressed video in a 700MB CD, or about 720MB in a 650MB CD.

Near the bar is the Adjust disk usage button. Clicking on it will adjust the video rate in each video in order to use the 100% of the disk. To do so, Devede takes in account the final resolution and the length, giving more bits per second to the videos with a higher resolution, but always in a proportional way. Remember that you should always click again the Adjust disk usage button after changing the final resolution, adding or removing subtitles, adding or removing titles, or, in general, before creating your disk, in order to assign a good video bit rate to each film. Also remember that changing the soundtrack used in the menus will change the disk usage too.

It is important to note that is very probable that the final size will be smaller than the estimated. This is because, usually, the codec can compress a lot of scenes with less than the specified bitrate but keeping the quality.

The Default format sets the format used by default in your disk. It's used to create the menus and each time you add a video file. But, as we will see in a moment, you can use a different format in some videos if you want, having PAL and NTSC videos mixed in the same disk.

In the Menus part you have, first, the create a menú with the titles chooser. By enabling this, the disc will have a DVD menu, allowing the user to select which file to watch. It also has the Menu options button, which allows you to see how will be the DVD menus and modify them, changing their properties (background picture, text colors, title...). This will be explained with more detail in the section Creating the DVD menu.

Finally, the button Forward starts the creation process itself, after the disc have been fully defined.

In the top you have the main menu, with several options. In the File part you can load and save your project, or start a fresh one. Keep in mind that the format used in 4.x versions is different than the one used in versions up to 3.x, so you can't open an old project with newer versions.

Also in the menu is the Edit option. Inside it you have two options. The first one is the Set multiproperties options, and the second one shows the Preferences window, which allows you to choose global options for all projects, like which backend use for each part, or how many cores use to compress video.

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Next: preferences window