A friend gave me a DVD with some avi files. When I shove the disc into the iMac, the drive whirrs for a bit and that's it -- the DVD doesn't appear in the finder; I can't access the files on it. I'm on Tiger; for what it's worth my friend made the DVD on a Windows PC. How do I get the iMac to "recognize" the DVD?
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How to access files on a DVD?
- Thread starter Eusebius
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yeh if he burned it with like nero or something and theyre files not an actual DVD-video then you cant see them on a mac. you could try toast maybe? select disc copy and then copy the files to the mac. toast can burn Mac OS X/windows compatible DVDs so i think it will work.
I initially misunderstood your post and recommend Mediafour's Macdrive but obviously that is for the other way around: reading Mac CDs in Windows.
I also recommend trying to access the DVD with Toast. Also you could check on a Windows machine if the disc is finalized. That may also help.
Are you running Fusion or Parallels with some form of Windows? You could also get the files that way.
Thank you for your help. I couldn't figure out how to use Toast to open the files, but Parallels did the trick...sort of. Windows Media player played back only the sound track, no video. I copied the files to the Mac desktop, from where VLC could play them back. For some reason, the avi files caused Quicktime to crash.
The mutual incompatibility of computer media is frustrating. Windows-created files won't work on a Mac, VLC opens a file that causes Quicktime to crash, Windows Media Player will play sound but no video, there are a gazillion formats.... I should think most consumers are interested in untroubled access to media files, not in getting bogged down in geeky compatibility problems.
The mutual incompatibility of computer media is frustrating. Windows-created files won't work on a Mac, VLC opens a file that causes Quicktime to crash, Windows Media Player will play sound but no video, there are a gazillion formats.... I should think most consumers are interested in untroubled access to media files, not in getting bogged down in geeky compatibility problems.
well theres only really one problem here: macs cant read DVDs burnt by PCs (well in some cases they can. i have been in a situation where i can read a CD written iby windows in Mac OS X but im not sure why) and PCs especially cant read DVDs written by macs... there is a workaround though you can use toast to write Mac + windows media or you can use macdrive to read media written by a mac on a PC.
as for windows media player and quicktime the codec of the movie was probably in a format that they cannot play by default. you can download k-lite codec pack for windows and perian for quicktime that will enable them to read most codecs. theres also flip4mac for quicktime that will enable it to play WMV
as for windows media player and quicktime the codec of the movie was probably in a format that they cannot play by default. you can download k-lite codec pack for windows and perian for quicktime that will enable them to read most codecs. theres also flip4mac for quicktime that will enable it to play WMV
I'm new to Mac, and this is the first I've heard of Mac/PC and DVD compatibility issues. I ripped and copied a couple of my own DVD's. First I ripped them to ISO using old Windows software running on Parallels. I then mounted the disk image on the Mac and burned using Disk Utility. Is the result any different than what I would get using Toast or the like? they play fine on the Mac, but I haven't tried the DVD's on a Windows machine or stand alone DVD player, so I'm wondering if there will be any compatibility issues.
PS I've used a number CD's burned on my old Windows machine, and they worked on my Mac just fine. There are usually problems switching DC's from Windows to Mac, or vice versa?
PS I've used a number CD's burned on my old Windows machine, and they worked on my Mac just fine. There are usually problems switching DC's from Windows to Mac, or vice versa?
If the ISO image created follows the right standard (ISO 9660 which is neither a Mac nor PC standard) it is playable on any device or computer that supports that standard with the proper codec (software to decode/play the DVD written to a specific standard such as ISO 9660 or UDF). I think some people attribute the issue to origin/destination incompatibility when the real culprit is how the original person encoded the DVD using extended features of the ISO standard that are proprietary to that platform. This might include adding fancy menu overlays, 7MB vs 4MB capacity, newer UDF features and so on.
Example:
ISO 9660:1999 is the latest update to the ISO 9660 standard. It improves on various restrictions imposed by the old standard, such as extending the maximum path length to 207 characters, removing the eight-level maximum directory nesting limit, and removing the special meaning of the dot character in filenames.
Some older DVD's created on PC's running Windows older versions of FAT that don't match the newer standard might not work on newer platforms that don't grandfather this situation.
It's often more than just a PC vs. Mac thing.
-jim
Example:
ISO 9660:1999 is the latest update to the ISO 9660 standard. It improves on various restrictions imposed by the old standard, such as extending the maximum path length to 207 characters, removing the eight-level maximum directory nesting limit, and removing the special meaning of the dot character in filenames.
Some older DVD's created on PC's running Windows older versions of FAT that don't match the newer standard might not work on newer platforms that don't grandfather this situation.
It's often more than just a PC vs. Mac thing.
-jim