The process of converting video footage to a DVD-video disk playable in any standard DVD player involves several steps. The first of these steps, digitizing the video, After converting your footage from analogue to digital, you must convert it again to MPEG-2 format (unless this was done as part of the first step), then separate the video and audio streams into distinct files, then transform these files into the .VOB, .IFO and .BUP files that your DVD player understands, then finally burn the files onto a DVD disk.Fortunately, many DVD authoring programs are available that can perform every one of these steps within the same interface, making the procedure novice-friendly.What you will need:1. A DVD burner and blank DVD disks (any format except DVD-RAM)2. A DVD authoring and editing program such as: Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3, InterVideo WinDVD Creator or IfoEdit (with AVI2MPG2 and TMPGEnc)3. A CD/DVD creation program such as Nero 5.5+ or Roxio Easy CD and DVD creator (only needed if you plan to use the free DVD creation method outlined below. All the commercial DVD authoring programs we cover here include DVD burning as part of the package).The above list of programs are the ones used for the purposes of this article. There are many other excellent DVD-authoring software packages available, so if you already have a different one included with your DVD recorder, use that instead. Chances are it will work in a similar way.Note that all of the above packages except for the combination of IfoEdit, AVI2MPEG2 and TMPGEnc are commercial products. They both have a brief trial period in which you can test them out, however. There are sadly few freeware solutions available.Once you have created your dvd, you can use it for dvd duplication / dvd replication. You can also put a copy guard on the dvd, so that people can’t copy your dvd duplication/ dvd replication discs. You need to do this in the authoring process. You can have it done at a dvd replication company but you may be charged for this.