detail information

Positives And Negatives:

While using this program, a number of points both positive and negative came up. These are listed below for easy reference.

Positive:

• Very simple to use
• Very high quality output

Negative:

• No menu On DVD for multiple videos

Editors note 10/9/05: The latest version of this software has been updated to feature an automatic menu for multiple videos.

Conclusion:

DivXToDVD is certainly a very easy program to use and with VSO saying that more new features are to be added over time, this certainly looks like one program that will just keep getting better. Even while performing tests on this software, VSO released 3 or 4 more updated versions, with small bug fixes or features being added.

Looking back at the original statement by VSO Software:

• DivXToDVD converts and burns your internet movie files to a compatible DVD.
• DivXToDVD is a 1 click solution to convert your movie files to a compatible DVD playable on any home DVD player.
• DivXToDVD supports most popular format such DivX, XviD, MOV, VOB, Mpeg, Mpeg4, AVI, WMV, DV and stream formats. It converts your single files into a compliant DVD Video set of files and burns it on a DVD media.
• The aspect ratio can be automatically selected or forced to a specific format. The program works for NTSC and PAL video formats and creates chapters automatically. Multiple audio tracks are supported. The version 2 uses a completely rewritten interface with subtitles support and a lot of new settings.

I can say that every test I did with different formats appears to have worked without any flaws. This in itself is quite incredible as many programs seem to fail with such formats as MOV and WMA.

I can find only two main faults with this program. One is the lack of a menu option at present. This is however being implemented and I have been told that it will appear before the version number hits 2.0. Therefore, this can only be described as a short term negative. The second fault though, is the burning to poor media. Unfortunately, at present there is a lot of poor media around and so some burning issues may arise because of this. You can look at this in two ways. Either that the program is trying to help you to only burn to good quality media, which will have a greater likelyhood of working with a standalone player. Or, that this is the only media you have and you want to burn to it no matter the outcome. That is for you to decide.

To complete this review, we submitted a few questions to the developers of the software. Below are the questions and their responses.

You have an option to 'Send burn statistics to VSO Online Database. What is this and what is it for?

This is for us to see what media is being used with what burners. It also allows us to see the success rate for burns with these combos. We hope this will allow us to improve the software.

What new features can we expect in the up coming releases of DivXToDVD?

The best you can do is to check out this page here.  All of our plans will be added to it as we or you think of them and tell us.

Final Word:

Because of the easy use of this program along with the simplicity of it as a whole, I rate this program very highly. Many users are not seasoned professionals and so this allows people to create standalone playable DVD's with ease.

The quality of the output files, regardless of the format chosen was extremely high and this is a testament to the program itself. Although at times the program seems slow, especially when creating a DVD-9 collection of movies to be burned, it is in fact performing extremely well-especially when coupled with the different resolutions and formats that it can handle.

As the DVD menu system and various other features, such as advanced project management are expected in the next few versions, I can easily give this program the CDFreaks Editors Choice award.

The VSO Software homepage can be found here.
The DivXToDVD homepage can be found here.
You can also discuss this software in the thread here.

Thanks To:

We would like to thank the following companies:

E-Net Distribution - United Kingdom for providing the RiDisc DVD-R, Datawrite Blue DVD-R and Datawrite Titanium DVD-R media used in this review.

MMORE International B.V. - The Netherlands for providing the DVD-R media used in this review.

Sky Media Manufacturing sa - Switzerland for providing the CD-R 52x media used in this review.