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the freebie method of burning .avi to DVD

sunsnewmac

sunsnewmac

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 3, 2007
263
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I have searched and searched and now I must ask, what is the best way to burn .avi to DVD on my MacBook without purchasing any 3rd party software?

Last night I tried entering the .avi into iMovie to convert it into a format that iDVD could recognize. No go--it took 3 hours, and at 99% the app crashed. i DVD won't take the file as it is.

That was suggested on this forum somewhere.

I downloaded what seemed to be the appropriate codec for one particular file but QuickTime won't play it and neither will iDVD.
In the movie properties in QT it sees the file as an MP3, when it is clearly a movie--I have played it on other computers! If QT won't recognize it am I wasting my time? Is there a one-stop database for DLing codecs--can't I just get a library of them and not have to worry about this? :confused:
 
Have you tried Burn? It's very, very no-nonsense, but...

As far as one stop codecs, for most people, two stops works, but I don't know of a one stop solution. Typically if you uninstall everything else and just install Flip4Mac and Perian, you have pretty much all you need.

I think Burn might use Quicktime, so you might have problems if the file is not viewable in Quicktime to begin with. But it generally seems to do fairly well for itself.
 
I was able to use Burn to burn an .avi to DVD, except it took a wide screen video and made it 4:3.

Did I miss a setting or something? Can Burn do 16:9 or do I have to fork down the cash for Toast 8?
 
slu said:
I was able to use Burn to burn an .avi to DVD, except it took a wide screen video and made it 4:3.

Did I miss a setting or something? Can Burn do 16:9 or do I have to fork down the cash for Toast 8?
Click to expand...

What exactly happened... was it letterboxed, or not letterboxed? Are you playing it on a 16:9 TV or a 4:3 TV?
 
Mechcozmo said:
Linkety to the software that can do it.

Sure, it may not be pretty, but it can do it, for free.
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but ffmpegx, like VisualHub and iSquint, is a program that deals with converting between video types and not a program that deals with dragging a video file in and burning as a DVD-player-viewable a DVD, yes?
 
mkrishnan said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but ffmpegx, like VisualHub and iSquint, is a program that deals with converting between video types and not a program that deals with dragging a video file in and burning as a DVD-player-viewable a DVD, yes?
Click to expand...

That's what you think.:D Under the tools menu/tab thingy you can choose to author a file as DVD_VIDEO. It can create a disk image or just the folders you need to burn a DVD.
 
mkrishnan said:
What exactly happened... was it letterboxed, or not letterboxed? Are you playing it on a 16:9 TV or a 4:3 TV?
Click to expand...

Ok, it is a widescreen, non-letterboxed video. I played it on both a widescreen TV and a 4:3 TV and the result was the same. It seems to have "squeezed" the video to be 4:3, no matter what I use to view it. Even if I open the VIDEO_TS file Burn created on my Mac with DVD Player, it is in 4:3.

I hope you know what I mean when I say "squeezed"...everyone looks real skinny!
 
So I tried Burn and while it seemed to decompress the .avi when it burned the DVD it would not play in a stand-alone DVD player (my goal). What did I do wrong? I made sure it was not set to PAL.
 
sunsnewmac said:
So I tried Burn and while it seemed to decompress the .avi when it burned the DVD it would not play in a stand-alone DVD player (my goal). What did I do wrong? I made sure it was not set to PAL.
Click to expand...


Check that you ticked the "make this a fully compliant DVD" or what ever the actual box is in the preferences, my first coaster was a result of not having this option turn on,
 
Mechcozmo said:
Linkety to the software that can do it.

Sure, it may not be pretty, but it can do it, for free.
Click to expand...


Why do people keep on insisting that ffmpegX is free?

Quoting: http://www.ffmpegx.com/register.html

Development of ffmpegX takes countless hours which could be spent in funnier activities. Registering allows you to support this effort and avoid that I quit the project. You can try the program for free to see if you like it and if it brings you added value in operating dozens of Unix tools without need of typing any command line...

...ffmpegX is shareware.

...
 
risc said:
Why do people keep on insisting that ffmpegX is free?
Click to expand...

:eek:
Been awhile since I've opened/downloaded the app and forgot. It is one of my hundred or so applications... sometimes I forget about it.:)
 
risc said:
Incorrect in regards to VisualHub too.
Click to expand...

Ahhh, okay, thank you both for the corrections. I've primarily been converting files to H.264 and putting them in iTunes, and I've only burned a couple of times, and that with Burn. And the last time I burnt a TV episode for a friend to VCD, it turned out that I recorded half an hour and not the whole hour (because the show mysteriously showed up as two different contiguous half hour episodes instead of an hour episode, in the guide). I mean, give me a break, though... who watches fishing television? :eek: ;) :(
 
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