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sparkie7

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 17, 2008
2,429
202
Hi, sorry am new to this. So apologies for the newbie questions.

I have a few .avi, .mpg, .wmv movies i want to burn onto DVD. And be able to just stick the DVD in any DVD player hooked up to a TV and be able to watch it like it was a DVD from a video store.

What software do you recommend. Toast 9? Any other software I should consider?

Also, is it possible to fit several movies on a single DVD and be able to author it to show up once in a player to select x,y,z movie? ie. most of my movies are 700MB and as I understand it a normal DVD has around 4GB capacity so hypothetically you could fit 5-6 movies on 1 DVD?

Also going the other way. ie Copying a DVD to my mac HD. what's the best DVD ripping software. Wondershare DVD Ripper?

Any tips/suggestions appreciated :D
 

DPA

macrumors 65816
I use and recommend MPEG Streamclip. It will convert your files to .mov (QuickTime Movie), .mp4 (MPEG-4), .avi (Audio Video Interleave), DV (Digital Video) and more formats like for streaming for an iPhone (2G or 3G) over the web and just the audio in AIFF, Wave, AU, etc. As for ripping video, I use Handbrake which is a very commonly mentioned app here at MacRumors. Handbrake also now allows you to convert your video, I have tried to update but for some strange reason it won't let me so I don't know how the video converting works.
If your movies are around 700MB, then you should be able to fit 5-7 movies on your DVD. It is possible to make a DVD and select the movies. Follow these steps.
1. Have all of your movies you want on the DVD into the Movies folder on your Mac, make sure not to exceed the "weight" the DVD you are burning onto can handle.
2. Open iDVD and name your project.
3. Click the + button and select Add Movie (Picture 1 in the next post).
4. Open your Media by clicking the Media tab on the lower right side of the iDVD window.
5. At the upper right side, select movies.
6. In the box that has folders for iMovie projects, iTunes movies, and your Movies folder.
7. Expand the Movies folder and find your movie.
8. Drag the movie you want on the button that Add Movie Here. By default, it will name this button the name of your movie.
9. Repeat steps 3 and 8 until you get all the movies you want on that DVD there.
10. To test the DVD before you burn it, click the Play (>) button in between the volume control and burn button.
Hope I could help. Post any further questions here and I or another member will answer.
 

DPA

macrumors 65816
Pictures

Here are the screen shots that I described in the previous post.
 

Attachments

  • Add Movie.jpg
    Add Movie.jpg
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sparkie7

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 17, 2008
2,429
202
Here are the screen shots that I described in the previous post.

great thanks FCP :)

is there a particular format I should standardise all the movie formats?

like, if I have 3x .avi, 1x .mpg and 3x .wmv movies should I make them all say .mpg? or is there another format suited for iDVD, or say something like Toast 9.0 ?

cheers :D
 

DPA

macrumors 65816
Yes, convert them all into MPEG-2 files. iDVD then automatically will write them easily when burning to the disc. You can bring .mp4 (MPEG-4). .mov (QuickTime Movie), and a bunch more file types into iDVD but when it starts burning it will create the DVD out of MPEG-2 files which are what DVDs are written in.
 

sparkie7

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 17, 2008
2,429
202
Yes, convert them all into MPEG-2 files. iDVD then automatically will write them easily when burning to the disc. You can bring .mp4 (MPEG-4). .mov (QuickTime Movie), and a bunch more file types into iDVD but when it starts burning it will create the DVD out of MPEG-2 files which are what DVDs are written in.

Thanks. I'll give it a whirl.. and Happi Nu Year! :D:D
 

slothrob

macrumors 6502
Jun 12, 2007
443
0
.avi

Another option is to buy a DIVX capable DVD player for about $50. Convert all the movies to .avi and burn them as data disks from the finder.

700 MB files should fit one per CD. That's CD, not DVD!
 

huntercr

macrumors 65816
Jun 6, 2006
1,039
0
Yes, convert them all into MPEG-2 files. iDVD then automatically will write them easily when burning to the disc. You can bring .mp4 (MPEG-4). .mov (QuickTime Movie), and a bunch more file types into iDVD but when it starts burning it will create the DVD out of MPEG-2 files which are what DVDs are written in.

Hmmm... FCP.G.G. can you confirm this? iDVD never used to respect existing MPEG2 files... it would reencode them. Is this a new feature with iDVD 08?

Toast, on the other hand, would not reencode files... much faster burn times. The tragically abandoned "Sizzle" freeware App would do this too. I still used it to burn shows off of my Tivo, even though it's buggy.
That was a damn tragedy to lose that app. Supposedly the author was going to release the source code, but it's gone now.
 
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