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Can I burn quicktime files to striaght to DVD and play it in a DVD player?

A

amycishere

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 1, 2007
328
6
Hey I bought the superdrive Core2duo macbook and ready to burn my very first DVD to play in my new Sony DVD player which can play all formated discs. The files are .mpg in quicktime. Do I need to convert them into another form to play in the player?

Thanks.
 
The .mpg files should play OK. At least they do on all the stand-alone DVD players I've tried.

You might not get much luck with .mov files though, as these are QuickTime movies and I've never found a player that would handle them.
 
A DVD-VIDEO disc is NOT a simple data disc like your CD-Rs with files just thrown on them

For a set top player to play video on a DVD it must be in the correct format and hierarchy.

A DVD authoring program, like iDVD, does this for you.

Notice on a storebought DVD there is typically two folders on it:

VIDEO_TS
AUDIO_TS

inside the video_ts is .vob and .bup files etc.

contained within these odd files is your video, chapter markers, menus etc.

You can not simply put a movie file on a DVD, like a CDR, and expect it to play on a set top player.

Yes .mpg is an acceptable DVD video format, but it has to be authored to create the correct files for a set top player to know what its doing.

DVD videos are NOT as simple as many people think.

iDVD makes it simple though.

having your video in the correct "format", like .mpg, just means the video doesnt need to be converted/rendered. they still must be authored though.
 
It's hard to say because .mpg doesn't really mean much. It could be a variety of kinds of mpg (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, etc). My guess is that it's a compressed format that'll only play in Quicktime.

You'll likely need to use iDVD to create a DVD menu structure and up-convert the movie to MPEG-2 (which is the format stand-alone DVD players use).

I've use iDVD in the past and it's a cinch to use, although the up-converting can take a while.

Edit: Aw, Sdashiki kinda beat me to it :)
 
DVDs are a simple data disc, just like CDs and CD-Rs.

DVDs are just bigger.

Its when you format the data on the disc in certain ways, that the discs become:

video DVDs
audio CDs
etc


You can burn files to a DVD-R like you would any CD-R, but unless its in the right hierarchical format etc, a set top player will have no idea what its looking at.
 
I looked it up on the sony.com and it says it reads DVD+/-R/RW/VCD/MP3 but it doesn't say anything more specific about the media format. I guess I can just try different things in iDVD because I can't find the instruction booklet at the moment. Thanks everyone for all the help!
 
amycishere said:
I looked it up on the sony.com and it says it reads DVD+/-R/RW/VCD/MP3 but it doesn't say anything more specific about the media format. I guess I can just try different things in iDVD because I can't find the instruction booklet at the moment. Thanks everyone for all the help!
Click to expand...

you can not get this player to read anything other than standards.

it is saying you can burn your authored dvd-video onto DVD+/-R and RW but it does not say it can play, say, Divx files. Some set tops can.

VCD is another type of video disc, it was the precursor to DVD and is the same idea only its on a CD not a DVD.

No matter what, you will need to use iDVD to author your DVD, and no matter what its output will be in the DVD-Video hierarchy of VIDEO_TS and it will be in .mpg2 format.

To play ANY dvd-video you must have authored it in a program, there is ABSOLUTELY no way to simply drag and drop video files onto a DVD-R and get them to play on a set top player.
 
use iDVD, its going to automate all these problems right out the window.

take your video files, bring them into iDVD, where they MAY need to be rendered into the DVD format needed (.mpg IS a DVD acceptable format but yours might not be the exact correct one)

create a menu, chapters etc

author and burn.

:D


your DVD player can just play many different kinds of burnable media.

VCD is standard on ALL dvd players, but its useless these days accept in strange situations. It uses MPEG1, whereas DVD uses MPEG2.

It can also play MP3s, but I doubt its going to give it to you visually on your TV like iTunes does. Most likely it will just give you one LOOOONG list of file names (not even ID3 tags) which is totally stupid and doesnt really lend itself well to letting you pick n choose what music you want to listen to. You cant, say, search by genre. This player will play MP3s, but not in a good fashion, its a gimmick IMO.
 
amycishere said:
I looked it up on the sony.com and it says it reads DVD+/-R/RW/VCD/MP3 but it doesn't say anything more specific about the media format. I guess I can just try different things in iDVD because I can't find the instruction booklet at the moment. Thanks everyone for all the help!
Click to expand...

well, This SONY stuff sounds ......, :D I got a $60 philips DVD player, it can play DivX/Xvid/MPEG/DVD/VCD, save so much space.
 
Go with iDVD. It takes everything I throw at it, with no fuss. Plus it came free with your Mac :)
 
But when I just asked it to add one of my quicktime clips iDVD said it did not support the action...wtf...I hope nothing is wrong with my computer.
 
epochblue said:
Do you know what, if any, codec was used to encode the file? XviD? DivX? H.264? Something that might not be standard?
Click to expand...

I actually just went looking on the apple site and it said MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 or not supported in iDVD. Anyway I could change the files to MPEG 4?
 
amycishere said:
I actually just went looking on the apple site and it said MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 or not supported in iDVD. Anyway I could change the files to MPEG 4?
Click to expand...

thats a complete and utter lie.

that makes no sense, the DVD specs call for:

MPEG1
MPEG2

for videos.

MPEG4 is NOT a DVD format!!!

if you are trying to add a file to iDVD and it says it cant....can you play it in QT by itself?

Anything that plays in QT will be loadable into iDVD and thusly, able to be rendered into a DVD format.
 
amycishere said:
But when I just asked it to add one of my quicktime clips iDVD said it did not support the action...wtf...I hope nothing is wrong with my computer.
Click to expand...

Specifically, a 'Quicktime Clip' is a .mov file. Just as a .wma is a Windows Media File.
Mpegs, Divx's, WMA's (and .mov's) etc are all 'Video Files'

So when you say 'I have a Quicktime Clip' you're saying a .mov file.
If its just a case of mistaken phrasing, and the file is actually something other than .mov (which is what i assuming), then it looks like you'll need to:
1. Open your video file in Quicktime
2. 'Save As'
3. Save as Self Contained Movie
4. *name*
5. (now saved as) *name*.mov
6. Drag this file to iDVD
7. Burn

Early iDVD had preferences to .mov files
 
Sdashiki said:
there is ABSOLUTELY no way to simply drag and drop video files onto a DVD-R and get them to play on a set top player.
Click to expand...

I have a hard time believing this to be true. While I haven't tried this on a DVD, I do have many CD-Rs on which I've dragged and dropped .avi's and .mpeg's onto them and they play just fine on my phillips dvd player. The player simply sees a folder structure on the disc that has one main folder with all the files contained in it. I can pick a file and press play. I'll go home and attempt this on a DVD-R and get back to you.
 
elbruelsio said:
I have a hard time believing this to be true. While I haven't tried this on a DVD, I do have many CD-Rs on which I've dragged and dropped .avi's and .mpeg's onto them and they play just fine on my phillips dvd player. The player simply sees a folder structure on the disc that has one main folder with all the files contained in it. I can pick a file and press play. I'll go home and attempt this on a DVD-R and get back to you.
Click to expand...

you have a special set top player if it can truly do that.

if you only burned a simple data disc, CDR or DVDR, its just a data disc.

A set top player is not a computer, it only knows what its programmed to look for. Usually its a standard, Audio-CD, or DVD-Video.

If you have a player that can work like a computer, congrats, most dont. in fact, id venture to say 98% cant and wont. plus, I am sure there will be one codec, one day, your machine cant play.
 
Sdashiki said:
this is a non-typical set top player.

my statement still stands, you cant drag n drop and create a DVD video disc.
Click to expand...

Well, I just dragged and dropped using Burn and created a disc that plays in my dvd player. I selected Video then DivX from the type drop-down-list as my content is DivX encoded. Its acts just like my other data cd's, my player gives me a "Data CD Menu", as it calls it, and I select which file I want to play.

I already know what you are going to say, "That isn't a DVD video disc." To which my response will be, do you want a stylish menu or do you just want your video to play? That's the way I see it anyway.

Regards
 
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