At MakeTechEasier, we don’t usually review paid software as we are great believers of free and open source software. However, the WinX DVD team decided to give away a free 1 year license (scroll down for the download link), which makes it compelling for us to give this DVD authoring software a second look. And yes, we are not disappointed. Read on for the full review.

One good feature about WinX DVD Author is that it supports a wide variety of video formats such as AVI, ASF, MPEG, MKV, MP4, MOV, RM, RMVB, XIVD, DVIX, H264, OGG, QT (quick time), FLV, etc. Being an authoring tool, you are also able to add subtitle files, create DVD menu, clip video segment and many other useful features.

On the main screen, you can find the various options to manipulate your video files.

You can either:

1. Choose the DVD Author option and run through the wizard to create a DVD from your video file.
2. Convert the Video to Vob format and store it for later use
3. Convert existing Vob to DVD
4. and finally, burn the file to DVD.

Note that the first option DVD Author is just the combination of point 2, 3 and 4 in few clicks.

Authoring DVD

At the DVD Author page, you can see a variety of options to edit your video files.

Click on the +/- button to add/remove video files.

Change the start/end timeframe of the video.

Click on the subtitle button beside the track to add subtitle files.

Change the output resolution and check if you want to include DVD menu. There is also a one-click button for you to change between DVD-5 and DVD-9 format.

DVD title & chapter menu editing

Authoring the DVD Title & chapter menu is quite cool. Select background pictures, music and add texts that you may need to customize your DVD menu.

Burning DVD

Burning your edited video file to DVD is as simple as choosing the DVD-writer as the Device name and click on the Start button.

Suggestions for improvement:

Add text/tooltips to button

Most of the buttons found in the UI are graphical and does not come with any text description. The developers might feel that the graphic icons are self-explanatory, but I have completely no idea about the functionality of each button until I clicked on it.

Specifying supported video formats

It will be great if the developers can specify the individual supported file formats rather than just listing a Supported Formatted Files in the selection dropdown.

Add support for SWF

Not sure if this is too much to ask for, but it will be great if it can support SWF file.

Ability to create ISO images

ISO format? No?

Download link

As I mentioned above, this software costs $29.95, but is free to download until 31st Oct 2009. You can grab it at this link. This is the fully functional and licensed version, not the trial copy, so grab it while it is available.

The WinX DVD Author works in Windows XP, Vista and 7.

Thanks to Viola for sharing with us this promotion.

Download WinX DVD Author

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