PowerPoint to DVD - Burn PowerPoint Presentation to DVD with menu enhanced

Burning PowerPoint to DVD is a good idea for preserving presentations and extending the use of PowerPoint. You can either burn your PowerPoint presentation to DVD disc directly, or convert PowerPoint presentation to video or DVD file and then burn the converted PowerPoint to DVD disc. Converting PowerPoint to DVD is different from converting PowerPoint to video. To know the benefits of converting PowerPoint to DVD comparing with converting PowerPoint to video, the best way is to understand the DVD structure.

Problems of the DVD menus

When we play a video DVD with DVD player, in most conditions, we see a main menu first, which allows us to decide how the movie will be played: Select subtitle language, choose a conversation language, start from a specific chapter, etc. While playback, we can use navigation buttons on the remote control to rewind or skip through movies. Also, we can go back to title menu or main menu to play another movie or chapter. The menu function is not supported by common video files.  Let’s back to PowerPoint presentation. When we play the slideshow with PowerPoint, we can advance presentation slide by slide, moreover we can build internal hyperlinks to go to a specific slide and turn back. With DVD menu, all these practical features will be inherited. But a raw video has no way to retain them.

Understanding DVD structure

What does a DVD disc contain? Actually, if you open a movie DVD disc on your computer, you should see two folders: AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS. AUDIO_TS is created for storing DVD Audios (for audio DVD only), while the VIDEO_TS contains all data for the movie. Video DVD is what we are concerned about, so let’s take a look at the data contained in VIDEO_TS directory.

Usually, we should find three kinds of files under the VIDEO_TS: .BUP, .IFO and .VOB. IFO file is the content of the DVD. It tells the player where a chapter starts, where a certain audio or subtitle stream is located, etc. BUP files are just backup files of the IFOs. If the IFO files cannot be read, the player will read the BUP files instead. Next is the VOB file, it is a container that stores video stream, audio stream, subtitles and DVD menu. Video is MPEG-2, audio can be AC-3, Linear PCM, Mpeg 2 multichannel or MPEG1 layer2 two channel audio. It is why the DVD is encoded in MPEG-2 but not a MPEG-2 video.

Things about PowerPoint

Now, let’s go back to PowerPoint. If we burn a PowerPoint to DVD disc in manual mode, we can use DVD remote control to navigate the converted video just like what we do with PowerPoint. A professional PowerPoint presentation to DVD burning tool should empowers users to create and design DVD menu. The following illustration shows the settings of title and menu for a DVD, which can be done in Acoolsoft PPT to DVD Pro.

Tools of burning PowerPoint presentation to DVD

There are many tools are able to convert PowerPoint to DVD. One is Camtasia from Tech Smith, which is the leader in screen capturing field. Converting PPT to DVD is only a special function of this software. It records the playing presentation and convert it to video. It may produce DVD video too, but the menu design feature is not as good as Acoolsoft PPT to DVD Pro. Acoolsoft PPT to DVD Pro is a professional PowerPoint presentation to DVD burning tool which is featured by converting PPT to DVD with DVD menus. It retains most PowerPoint interactive features to the converted DVD video. Besides, it provides a way to burn PowerPoint presentations to HD DVD, like Blu-ray DVD.