Most training programs are taught using videos now. This is wonderful, except for one thing - the amount of time required to watch all of the videos. I have found a way to play DVDs back at an accelerated speed using Corel's Intervideo WinDVD and depending on how fast I speed it up, save 50% of the time or more it would have taken to watch the video at normal speed. The best part is that the speaker sounds normal, albeit faster, without sounding like Alvin and the Chipmunks or Mickey Mouse on steroids.

WinDVD works only for DVDs, though. When I tried to speed up a .mov file, the timestretch feature did not work. I wrote to Corel and asked them why. They responded that this feature only worked with DVDs. So I set out to find a program that would covert my .mov files to DVD.

Another popular way that videos are presented on the web is through the use of flash. You can download them (or "grab" them) using the free Orbit Downloader software. I have not included instructions for doing this in this article, but the Orbit page gives very good instructions. If there is interest, I'll write something more complete on this.

Once you have the flash (or .flv) files saved on your PC, you can convert them to DVD using the instructions provided here. If you want to play them on your PC without converting them, you will need an FLV player. I've provided a link to a very good freeware player.

I did a web search on converting to DVD software and initially found some very geeky open source tools. Being a geek, I thought I might spend the time and read the forums and figure out how to use one particular tool, but that defeated my purpose of saving time. This is why I was looking for a way to watch videos at high speed in the first place.

I looked around, trying different software out and eventually found a program called ConvertXtoDVD. As with the others, I downloaded the trial version to be sure it gave me what I wanted and it did. The trial version puts a watermark in the middle of your DVD, so before converting a weeks' worth of video lessons I smacked down the $49.99 (USD) and got it licensed.

How to convert .mov (or other) file to DVD using ConvertXtoDVD

1. Click the green + button to add files. You can add as many as you want as long as they will fit on a DVD (normally 4.70 GB).

2. Browse to the video file you want to convert and click "open" or just double-click on the filename. You can choose as many as you want by using either the shift key while holding your mouse button to get them all or by choosing the ones you want by using the ctrl key while holding the mouse button.

3. Once choosing your file or files, you are ready to begin the process of converting. You can rename your DVD menu if you want by double-clicking on "Title: My DVD" and entering your own title in the box provided. You will have another chance to do this later in the process if you don't do it now.

4. You are ready to convert your videos. Click the "Convert" button in the lower right hand corner. This screen shot shows it in the converting process. The Convert button changes to "Cancel" to give you an opportunity to cancel the process at any time.

5. Once it's finished converting it automatically takes you to the Burn DVD screen. Your DVD player is automatically selected (I've circled it) and you are instructed to put a blank DVD into your player. Until you do that, the Burn button is grayed out.

6. Once you put in a DVD, you click Burn and depending on how many videos you have converted, you will have a DVD created in anywhere from 5 or 6 (one short video) to 30 minutes for a full DVD of 10 videos. You can choose your burn time here. My DVD player is 8x, so this is the fastest speed I can burn at. You may have a slower or faster DVD and your burn times will fluctuate accordingly.

I have also circled where you can change the DVD video menu name if you did not do this earlier.

7. Now that you have your videos on DVD in DVD format, you can open them in WinDVD and use the Timestretch feature to speed them up. I was unable to get screen shots of WinDVD on my computer due to video copyright protections built into the software, however I found this screenshot on the web showing the timestretch function. This is why I have gone to all this bother to convert the videos in the first place and it is an amazing time saver. Simply drag the bar to the speed you prefer. Try some different speeds out, you'll be amazed at the results. This screen shot shows the Display tab where you can choose what they call Smart Stretch or you can click on the Timestretch tab to use the speed bar.

I hope this has been informative. Please let me know if you have suggestions for improvement, any questions or different ways to accomplish the same thing.