NTI CD&DVD Maker 7 Titanium

NTI CD & DVD-Maker 7 Titanium Suite includes HomeVideo-Maker; an al-in-one video capturing, editing, and DVD authoring application.  With a broad range of feature and a clean, intuitive user interface, HomeVideo-Maker offers the video enthusiasts and amateurs alike a program that should satisfy their needs.

To start the VideoMaker we click on the “Video” button on the main GUI and then select “HomeVideo-Maker: Which will open the Video Maker Program:

Capture:

HomeVideo-Maker captures video from digital video cameras, TV-tuners, and WDM and VFW devices.  To start our capture we clicked on the “capture” button at the upper left side of the program:  Here we selected our Logitech QuickCam as our source of video and audio and pressed the “Record” button to begin our capture.  We were given the opportunity to select our destination to save the capture and file type; we selected to save it in “My Videos” folder in our Docs folder.

Once we had captured our video we clicked on the “Stop” button.  As soon as the capture stops the output file is opened in the program and selected for us.  We are now ready to edit the capture.

Edit:

To edit our clips we clicked on the “Edit” button and then we opened two video clips that we captured by dragging and dropping into the storyboard.

We are able to edit and trim our video clips from the main program.  When we clicked on the video clip on the Storyboard we found several editing options are available to us.  We were able to modify the video color, and adjust the volume as well as the playback speed.

Sometimes the volume of a certain video clip may be too loud.  If this is the case, we can simply drag the slider to the left to lower the sound level.  You can also completely mute the sound by simply checking the appropriate box.

If your video clip is a little long or has parts you simply do not want to include, you can trim it in no time.  Take a look at the video in the player.  You will notice that there are green and pink trim markers.  These let you change the start/end time of the video.  All you need to do is click and rag them to their desired positions.  Alternately, you can move the timer to the desired spot and click the respective Trim Button (the green and pink scissors).

We also decided to pick out our “Text” to name our project; after selecting the “Style” we were able to drag our choice onto our clip and we then were presented with the window to edit our text.

Next we picked out our “Transition” between our two clips by selecting “Transitions” button and then dragging and dropping our choice into the transition marker between our clips.  We are able to preview our transition by selecting the play button on the video screen.

You can add “Special Effects” to your project by selecting the “effects” button on the main program.  You will see all of the fun and unusual effects available; we did not use these but wanted you to be aware of them.

You can also “Export” your project to Hard Disk, DV, Email, and even to a VHS recorder should you choose to do so:

Now that we finished editing our project it is time to move on to the “Create” features.

Create:

To create our DVD we clicked on the “Create” button on the main program GUI and then selected our clips to be added to our project.  This was done by clicking on the folder icon on the left side of the program under the “media” button.

Designing our menu: 

Now that our content was added, we were able to customize the look and feel of our menu.  We were able to change the background, title, and chapter button layout and text.

The first thing we did was choose our theme; we chose one from the available items under the “Professional” category.

We next picked our Frames and Layout of our Chapter Buttons:

We then went on to select our Text by highlighting the text we wanted to change and then made our selection on the left side of the program window.

We next decided to set chapter points within our clips; this is done by first selecting “Set Chapters” on the top of the main program and then selecting the clip to be affected.  We then clicked on the play button and when we found our set point we clicked on the progress bar (see green highlighted area below) at that point and then selected the “Set Chapter” button.

Now that we have finished our creation we are ready to burn the project to DVD.  By clicking on “Write Disc” button we opened this window and found a nice feature with a remote control to preview our entire project prior to writing.  By double clicking on the chapters we were able to preview each chapter and then return to the main project my clicking on “Menu” with the remote.

To start the write process we clicked on the Red “Start” button.  We decided to write our disc to our Hard Drive for burning to Disc with NTI CD/DVD maker to further test the writing capabilities of the program.  We saved our project in “My Video” folder for burning.

We then opened up the main NTI interface and clicked on the “video Icon” and selected “DVD Video_TS” and then opened up our saved project and selected it for burning in our Lite-On burner.

The resulting burn played perfectly on our test system and our stand-alone player.