The FilmMachine

An AVI to DVD or VCD converter is a handy tool when you need to convert and burn home videos. This would also do away with the need to store videos in a bulky format on your computer, and you can convert them just before burning it onto CD or DVD.

The FilmMachine is a lightweight, free-to-use converter. It’s multiple features and easy-to-use interface, make it a very popular format converter. It converts AVI files to DVD or (S)VCD files, and the wizard makes the task a cakewalk. The application lets you load more than one AVI file at a time; however, the properties of the two files need to be the same. It comes loaded with the QuEnc 0.51 video encoder.

Using the converter, you can manage output options such as the output format (MPEG-2 or MPEG-1) and aspect ratio (4:3 and 16:9). Then you can choose between three different settings for each aspect ratio. The first is ‘Fullscreen’ - this option resizes the video to 720 x 576 or 720 x 480 (or other resolutions if doing (S)VCD). Avoid using this option as it could lead to some deformation in the output. The second option is ‘Add borders, keep aspect ratio’, which adds horizontal or vertical borders to maintain aspect ratio. The third is ‘Crop video, keep aspect ratio’ - this crops the video so that there will be no borders, but the aspect ratio will be maintained. This can be used to give a picture-in-picture effect.

In addition to these features, you can also select the size of your CD or DVD, and the number of CDs you want to make. Normally you can make a VCD on one CD and a SVCD on two. You can also select an audio bitrate that The FilmMachine will use. The FilmMachine can also make permanent subtitles for your DVD or (S)VCD movies. You do this by selecting a subtitle format - .srt or .sub. The subtitles will be merged when you have more than one subtitle file. You also have the option to select the subtitle language.