How To Make Audio DVD

There are currently a number of methods for burning mp3's to a blank DVD, but this guide will show you how to make an audio DVD that will be playable in most modern DVD players, computers and video game consoles. Many applications like iTunes and native burning programs (like "burn folders" on Apple operating systems) offer an easy way to put mp3's on blank DVD-R's or DVD+R's. However, these applications will merely burn these mp3's onto a "data disc," which is read differently than a DVD. With this guide, you will learn to use a specific application and blank DVD-R's to create audio discs intended for playing in commercial DVD players.

What you will need:

Blank DVD-R's or DVD+R's

A DVD burner or a computer drive that burns DVD's

A Windows machine (at least Windows 95)

An audio DVD creator program

Download and install Audio DVD Creator, Apollo Audio DVD Creator or an alternative burning application. Both of these programs are known as "shareware," this means that they offer a trial evaluation period with limited features. But you can still burn audio DVD's with the trial versions of these programs. There are also free (and, alternatively, far more expensive) programs that can perform this task, but with the free versions, often your options will be severely limited.

Start a new project and specify "Audio DVD." This will ensure that the application optimizes the burning process to be accessible through a DVD player.

Select an appropriate audio format. Formats like PCM offer CD-quality audio, but these files will take up a significant amount of space on your disc. Additionally, the quality of your music files will not be "improved" by selecting this setting. So if most of your library consists of 192kbps or 320kbps mp3's, select a similar setting when burning your DVD. This will also help you fit a large amount of music onto one disc. Most blank DVD's are roughly 5gb, which can equal nearly 50 hours of music, depending on the quality of the mp3's.

Be sure that "NTSC" is selected under "TV Mode" or other video settings. Unless your TV is from Europe or Japan, NTSC will specify the appropriate region settings for your television and DVD player.

Set up a fun, simple menu for navigating your mp3's. Many burning applications offer a means to select your own background image and a small amount of settings to customize a DVD-like menu for your audio disc. This is one of the primary advantages to burning an audio DVD, since you can arrange it so that the menus are navigable using your DVD player or its remote.

Burn the DVD at a low speed to avoid glitches and other problems. The faster the burn, the more likely your disc is to experience problems. A 5 GB DVD may take a long while to burn at a low speed, but it may save time in the long run, since you can be more confident that you won't need to repeat the process anytime soon. Once it finishes, insert the disc into your DVD player, select a track and crank up the volume.