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I was recently asked to recommend DVD software for a range of purposes and I realised, from the questions, that there is a bit of confusion regarding which DVD software does what. So I'll try to shed some light on this sometimes confusing subject.

The real problem in identifying what DVD software would best suit your needs actually comes from the lack of a standard definition of each type. In addition to that the technology of dealing with DVDs has stabilised through development so that just burning a DVD would hardly be described as rocket science anymore!

This has resulted in many of the DVD software brands branching out into other functions in an effort to attract customers through added features and benefits. This merging of the various things you may want to do with a DVD has resulted in it becoming rather unclear as to which software you should get to suit your particular needs.

DVD Copying Software.
This is DVD software that has, as its main purpose, the simple action of copying a DVD onto another DVD. It will generally do this by first making a copy on to the hard drive of your computer then using that copy to burn to a new blank DVD. Generally this will be an automated process.

A variation of this is DVD Ripping where the software deconstructs the original DVDs contents into its various files and folders while it is being copied to the computer hard drive.

This allows some degree of manipulation prior to burning a new DVD. Pure DVD Copying software is very often combined with the ability to make basic edits and changes to parts of the DVD and remove unwanted features like subtitles or extra content.

DVD Conversion Software.
The primary function here is to take the contents of an existing DVD and convert them into another format. For example a home made video DVD being converted to a more compressed video format for uploading on to YouTube or similar or for viewing on a computer.

A good example of a combination of DVD Copying Software and DVD Conversion Software would be a product called DVD Fab. This is software that allows DVD copying in many forms with a high degree of control over the final output combined with the ability to convert the contents of the DVD to other formats.

DVD Burning Software.
The main purpose of DVD burning software is to take data from a computer and transfer it on to a DVD disc. This occurs in two ways depending on what is being burned.

In the case of data such as files, folders or documents this is a pretty straightforward process of copying that data and placing it on the DVD in such a way that other programs can read what is there.

In the case of video DVDs it is a slightly more complicated procedure. There are certain protocols that determine how a video DVD must be written on to a disc. DVD burning software has the ability to understand and create those protocols as it is burning. The DVD Burning ROM of NERO 9 would be an example of this. This does, however, lead to another type of DVD software.

DVD Authoring Software.
DVD authoring is the action of creating the DVD structure (including menus, buttons, subtitles and reference to special features) that you would find on a video DVD.

The video on a DVD is actually a type of video file called MPEG2. If you just burned the MPEG2 on to a disc a DVD player would not be able to recognise or play that file. The file has to be "wrapped" in a certain type of structure for the DVD player to be able to play it.

Also, the disc needs to have menus created so that both you and the player can navigate around the disc and play the parts you want. The creation of all of this is the job of DVD authoring software. Corel DVD Movie Factory would be an example of DVD authoring software and all such software must also have the ability to burn the DVD as well as create the structure.

DVD Editing Software.
Many people search in the internet for this and probably get a little frustrated as to why they can not get a definitive result. The reason for that is that the term itself is a bit of a misnomer. It is unclear whether the person wishes to edit the structure of the DVD (menus, movie titles etc.) or whether they are seeking to edit the actual video.

In reality if you want to re-edit or manipulate the menus or features that are on a DVD and then burn to a new DVD that action would be covered by either a DVD copying or conversion software as mentioned above.

If what you want is to re-edit the actual video itself on a DVD then DVD software is not really designed to do that. This activity has now crossed over into the field of video editing software.

Having said that there still is a range of DVD software suites that do include this function as an added feature. Nero 9 and Roxio Creator 2009 have this ability.

DVD Merging or Combining Software.
This one really suffers from the loose definitions of all of these functions. Most DVD copying software or conversion software offers the ability to take a couple of DVDs or more and have you re-combine the contents on to a newly created DVD. So you could say they merge or combine DVDs.

However there is another very specific action which is the merging of two, three or even four DVDs into one DVD but at the same time retaining the menus of the original DVDs.

The most common need for this is the case of DVD camcorders that record to 8cm or "mini" DVDs.

People who re-use their 8cm RW DVDs or who wish to archive their recordings may want to transfer the contents of a few of those DVDs on to one full sized DVD and save some space.

Simply copying the contents of the DVDs over on to one full DVD would result in the loss of the menus of the original DVDs. That would mean you would have hundreds of individual MPEG2 files on a disc and no way of knowing which one is which. Simply a sea of MPEG2 icons in a folder!

There is only one software I know of that can handle that problem and is the only one I know of that could be described as DVD Merging software. It's name is DVDRemake and it can merge or combine two, three or even four DVDs on to one without losing the original menus. Very handy for the DVD camcorder enthusiast.

Finally! DVD Data Recovery and DVD Repair Software.
As much as the manufacturers of DVDs, DVD burning software and DVD burners would have you believe that DVD is somehow perfect because it is digital that is very far from the truth. DVDs can get burned with errors, get scratched, or have errors "built in" because of glitches in the software being used or even the computer being used.

For such occurrences we have this category of DVD software. Generally speaking we are now getting down to some very specialised software that can correct existing errors in DVDs.

Of course when you get these errors you will get nonsensical and meaningless messages such as "no disc" (even though you can see one!), "disc error" (well duh!), "invalid DVD navigation structure" (my personal favorite!) and a whole range of others. Without going into the myriad of available specialist software for this it is interesting to note that Nero 9 now has a module within it to handle a great number of these problems called RescueAgent.

So, that got a whole lot more complicated than I intended but I hope at least it will provide you with a general guide to the various functions of DVD software.

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About the Author:

Lance is not very good at writing about himself in the third person. He is an ex-patriot Australian living in Taiwan running a business consulting company. His grasp of the Chinese language ranges from poor to laughable and in most circumstances his actual use of the Chinese language results in laughter.
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