Is there any way to burn a VCD without using any special software?

Well... maybe. There are a couple of free tools (say, MissingMediaBurner) that are free and can theoretically burn a VCD from a proper disc image. And there are free tools for building a VCD from a proper MPEG stream (such as VCD Builder), and there are tools that will encode MPEG video (ffmpeg is the best, and although you can use it for free it is technically $15 shareware). Put them all together, and you can probably crank yourself out a VCD for free, though it might end up being quite a hassle.

Try a search for VCD on VersionTracker to see what's out there. I did notice a program called MMT-EZ that claims to go straight from an iMovie project to a VCD, but I'd be a bit skeptical of it. Worth a shot, though, since it's free.

Post if you have luck doing this.

I've made VCDs on Mac OSX for free, but it was rather painful. I'm pretty sure that ffmpgx and VCD Builder was involved, but I can't remember the procedure any more.

The worst part of it was trying to use some of the software that seemed to be made by people who develop mostly for Linux and have no idea of the concept of user centered software development and whose idea of a (G)UI is to simply make a control for every parameter and flag that the original command-line version can take.

Get Toast Titanium 5. It is cheap now that version 6 has come out and does what you want to do. It is a great program that I use quite often. It includes a plug-in, that when you install it, allows you to make VCDs from iMovie and Final Cut Express.


Otherwise, no such luck methinks.