Synopsis
Discusses how to record video, photographs, music, or data onto DVDs, CDs, and VCDs, covering topics including choosing a recorder, downloading songs from the Internet, and troubleshooting recording problems.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
MARK L. CHAMBERS has been a PC and Macintosh hardware technician since 1989. He is author of CD and DVD Recording for Dummies, Building a PC for Dummies, The HP Official Recordable CD Handbook, The HP Official Digital Photography Handbook, Recordable CD Bible, and Scanners for Dummies, along with other digital media books for beginners.
From the Back Cover
Make the most of your DVD or CD recorder.
- Burn music, video, and images!
- The fast, easy, and fun way to create great audio CDs, VCDs, and DVD movies
- Covers MusicMatch Jukebox, Roxio Easy CD Creator, HP RecordNow, HP DLA, Sonic MyDVD, and more!
The Official HP Guide
Getting a DVD or CD recorder? Already have one? Now, make the most of it! Creating Your Own Great DVDs and CDs, the only guide authorized by Hewlett-Packard, shows you how, one step at a time. Through start-to-finish projects, you'll learn to create every type of DVD, CD, and VCD, and record whatever you want—video, photographs, music, or data.
- Comparing and choosing the right recorder for your needs
- Installing an internal or external CD-RW or DVD+RW drive
- Preparing your PC to record DVDs and CDs reliably
- Ripping songs from a CD, or downloading songs from the Internet and creating a compilation CD
- Using software bundled with HP's CD Writers and DVD Writers and other leading DVD and CD recording tools: HP RecordNow, HP DLA, CyberLink PowerDVD, PhotoRelay, Roxio Easy CD Creator, Roxio CD Spin Doctor, Roxio CD Label Creator, Sonic MyDVD, ArcSoft ShowBiz, Microsoft Defrag for XP, MusicMatch Jukebox, and Netscape Composer
- Recording CD slide shows with digital photographs
- Enhancing your discs with labels and on-disc menus
- Troubleshooting recording problems
- Using your recorder to combine video, digital images, music, and data onto one disc
No matter whose drive you own, or whether you've ever burned a DVD or CD before, Creating Your Own Great DVDs and CDs will help you get outstanding results. With this book, it's fast, easy, and fun.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Preface
Who would have ever thought that DVD recordingwould be so affordable so soon? When I wrote myfirst book on the subject of optical recording in 1997, aCD recorder was out of budgetary reach for most ofus—in fact, I had bought my own personal drive onlyabout three months before! (I had gathered a year ortwo of previous recording experience, strictly fromusing a very expensive CD recorder that my companyhad bought to handle backups at the office.) From thefirst appearance of CD recorders in the late 1980s, ittook a good chunk of a decade for CD recordingtechnology to gain acceptance and hardware andsoftware prices to drop.
Today, CD recording technology is "old hat"—if you're shoppingfor a computer these days, you'll find that virtually every model hasa CD-RW drive as standard equipment. But, unlike the early daysof CD recording, it took only a couple of years for affordable DVDrecording hardware and software to arrive on the scene. DVD discscan store it all: gigabytes of high-quality digital video, thousands ofMP3 audio files, and all of the digital images that a professional photographercan produce in an entire career! (Heck, rewriteable DVDdiscs are even well suited for mundane chores you've been performingall along, such as storing hard drive backup data.)
In writing this book, I've made a serious—and I hope a successful—attempt at gathering together all of the information that a PC owner islikely to need to explore the exciting world of DVD recording. By theway, that includes several chapters that concern CD recording, aswell—things such as disc label printing and standard Red Book audioCD recording—just in case you have to return to the "archaic" worldof 700 MB from time to time.Do I Need a Hewlett-Packard Recorder?
Definitely not! Don't get me wrong, I have an HP drive in my ownPC—in my personal opinion, they make some of the best hardware onthe planet—but like every title in the HP Books series, this book hasbeen expressly written for all PC owners who want to record DVDsand CDs, using any recorder on the market from any manufacturer. Infact, I talk about specific hardware features in only one or two places inthe book, and the recommendations and tips I mention will carry overto any recorder.A Word About Organization
To be honest, this book makes a great linear reading adventure—butonly if you're a novice when it comes to optical recording, and you'reinterested in what makes things tick. If you already have experiencerecording basic discs, your recorder is already installed, or you're justnot interested in how your DVD recorder works, you may decide toskip the material at the beginning and return to it later. This section willhelp familiarize you with the design of the book.
The first group of three chapters explains how optical recordingworks—how your computer's CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive readsfiles and music from a disc and how your recorder stores informationon a blank CD or DVD. You'll also learn how to install an internal orexternal DVD recorder, using an EIDE, FireWire, or USB connection.I'll show you how to prepare both your computer and your data beforeyou record, assuring you of top performance, error-free operation, andthe best organization for your finished discs.
The next three chapters provide you with complete, step-by-stepprocedures for burning basic audio and data discs with HP Record-Now,along with drag-and-drop recording within Windows, using HPDLA. I'll cover how you can create your own DVD Video discs for usein most DVD players, using MyDVD.
The final chapters cover the more exotic procedures and subjectsin optical recording. You'll learn how to record digital video directly todisc, how to use PowerDVD to watch DVD movies on your PC, andhow to print your own professional-looking custom disc labels andjewel box inserts. I'll discuss advanced formats, such as CD-Extra,Video CDs, and multisession discs, and show you how to create eachone, step by step. I'll also show you how to create digital photographslide show discs, how to edit your own digital video movies, and howto archive your existing vinyl albums and cassettes to audio CDs.You'll even learn how to design and produce a powerful menu systemfor your data discs with the same tools you use to create Web pages!Finally, I provide a software- and hardware-troubleshooting chapteras well.
At the end of the book, you'll find a helpful Glossary (which can aidyou in keeping track of what strange term means what), as well asvaluable recording and troubleshooting tips from Hewlett-Packard'stechnical support group. Just in case you haven't bought a recorder yetand you're shopping for one right now, I also provide a quick rundownof the features to look for in a recorder—as well as the "Do's andDon'ts" of buying any computer hardware online.Watch for Helpful Icons!
Before I launch into Chapter 1, let me familiarize you with the specialfeatures you'll find in the text:
* You'll find Tips that I've added to help you save time and money—as well as avoid potential pitfalls and recording errors.
* Pay close attention to any Caution icons in the text—whatever it is, you should definitely avoid it!
* Make sure that you have all of the Requirements that I've listed for a project before you begin the step-by-step procedure.
Where to Go Next
Here are my recommendations (don't forget to return later to readchapters that you've skipped):
* If you haven't bought your recorder yet, read through the chapter titled "Tips on Buying Your Recorder"—then begin with Chapter 1.
* If you've already bought your recorder but haven't installed it, begin with Chapter 2.
* If you're interested in mastering the basics of recording and your drive is already working, begin with Chapter 3.
* Finally, if you're already well experienced with burning audio and data CDs and you'd like to jump into recording digital video on a DVD, begin with Chapter 6.
It's my sincere hope that you'll find this book valuable: I hope itanswers your questions, provides an occasional chuckle and—most ofall—helps you have fun with your DVD recorder. If you have any questionsor comments you'd like to send me, please visit my Web site,MLC Books Online, at home.mlcbooks
And now...let's Burn It!
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