I'm new here and new to video editing, so others will give you better informed answers. While waiting for those, The following may help:

Once you've imported your content into PD, and you've edited it, you do need to "produce" (render) it before you can make a disc.

The format into which you produce/render it depends on how you want it to play. If your computer or video player is capable of playing AVCHD files, then you'll probably want to render into AVCHD or MEPG-4. If, like me, you want to share video with people who don't have powerful computers or video players, then you'll probably want to render into MPEG-2. If using MPEG-2,try PD's default of DVDHQ, and if you're in the US, stay with NTSC. In other words, don't change things at first.

Go ahead and render your video. If it's very long, go have a cup of coffee, lunch, or even let the computer render while you sleep.

Don't worry about SVRT one way or the other. It's a way of rendering which can save time under some circumstances. Turn it off if it seems confusing.

When rendering is complete, click on Create disc at the top of the screen. When that screen comes up, and if you want a DVD which can be shared with folks who don't have high powered equipment, be sure to click on "2D disc" up at the top, and then make sure "DVD" is lit up in light blue (top left of the dialog box). Choose "Best Quality".

If you're aiming for the best looking video and have the capability to play AVCHD, then of course be sure "AVCHD" is lit up in blue at the top of the screen before burning.

Finally, while experimenting like this, consider saving your results back to your HD in a place where you can find them easily. It saves a ton of DVD discs. Also, others will tell you to "Pack" your project all in one place, and I agree with that. After saving your rendered result, and maybe having burned your DVD back to the HD, click "File" in PD, go to Export, and choose "Pack project".

AVCHD video can be recorded onto DVDs, and it palys beautifully, but a DVD won't hold much more than 30 minutes of AVCHD quality. If you want to have a longer video, you'll either have to record on a double sided DVD, or use a Blue Disc and BD player.

That shoud get you started until more knowledgeable people chime in.

Bill Hansen Bill Hansen

Joe,

Quote: 1. do I need to produce (render?) my movie first before Creating a DVD?

No, you can go directly to "Create Disc" when finished with your editing. Power Director uses the media in time lines to create the disc, therefore producing is unnecessary. Many like to pre-produce, then insert the produced video in the time line to use when creating discs. Hope that is not confusing you.

Quote: 2. If I have to produce it first, what format do I use? I clicked on Intell SVRT but it says "other".

If you are going to produce first, you should produce to the format/profile that will be used in the Create Disc module. If you are burning a SD DVD then mpeg2 is good, if burning to BlueRay then one of the HighDef profiles. I use h.264 AVC

Quote: 3. How do I know if my movie is too long for a DVD?

In the create disc module you will see an approximation of the size of the project on disc. Power Director very often over estimates the size of the content. Using a pre-produced video in the time line seems to give a more accurate estimate. See attached screenshot.

I would suggest that you do a test burn before attempting to burn to disc. See screenshot attached. This may help prevent creating what we like to call coasters. Many of the editors here prefer to use other software to do the actual burn due to problems they have with the burn module in PD. I do not have the problems that others experience and do all my burning in the create disc module.

Hope I haven't added to the confusion.

Hal OS - Win11 Pro, Alienware R13, CPU - Intel Core I7-12700KF 12 CPUs), 16g DDR5 4400 RAM, Video - Geeforce RTX 3080ti 12g, PD11 & PD365
My YouTube

Thanks for the help.

I DON'T HAVE A CREATE DISC OPTION NEED HELP POWERDIRECTOR 14

Quote I DON'T HAVE A CREATE DISC OPTION NEED HELP POWERDIRECTOR 14

Click the word PowerDirector on the top right of the Edit screen. See this sticky: https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/50105.page#post_box_263484 and post the screenshot as an attachment so we can see what needs to be done.