Chapter 4. Saving and Sharing Digital Movies

Making Awesome DVDS

Many people consider the DVD version of a movie to be the real deal. And no wonder: DVDs let you do much more with the video you create. You can create chapters, add audio-only chapters, include photo slideshows, andbest of allintroduce your movie with beautiful, dynamic DVD menus. These DVD menus often have music and motion menu graphics that wow your audience. You can even feature clips of moving video in your DVD menusand do they ever look great!

If you want to showcase a movie masterpiece, you need a DVD burner and DVD-authoring software.

Microsoft Partner: Sonic

Microsoft's website features a link to Sonic's MyDVD Studio, one of the most popular DVD-creation programs. You can read more about MyDVD on Microsoft's website at www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/learnmore/dvdburn.mspx.

In addition, Sonic recently purchased Roxio, another leading DVD software company, and it now sells Roxio's Easy Media Creator, another award-winning product. Both are available for purchase and download at www.sonic.com.

Free Trials of Editing/DVD-Creation Software

You can get free trial downloads of many full-featured consumer editing software programs that include DVD-burning functionality. (Sonic does not currently offer a free trial.) During the free trial, you can make DVDs to see how you like the software and then purchase your favorite program. Check out these sites for demos and details:

• Adobe Premiere Elementswww.adobe.com/products/premiereel/main.html

• Pinnacle Studio Plus 9www.pinnaclesys.com/howto/default_US.asp?langue_id=7

• Ulead MovieFactorywww.ulead.com/dmf/trial.htm

• Vegas Movie Studio+DVDwww.sonymediasoftware.com/download/Step2.asp?DID=531

You've shot and edited your movie. Now it's time to save and share it. You need to get it in front of your audience, where its real life begins! This chapter covers the most common formats for saving and sharing moviesfor PC playback, email, and the Webin Movie Maker. It also provides information on how to make DVDs. (If you are using editing software other than Movie Maker, you can either skip this chapter or read it for background.)

Saving a movie can take lots of disk space, so you need to think about how you want to use the space you have. If you want to email your movie, the file size may need to be small, but if it's for playback on your computer, it could be quite large.

Note

If your hard disk space is limited, you can save a movie to a CD or a tape on your miniDV camcorder to use the least amount of space on your computer's hard drive.