Need Some Help With Handbrake and Writable DVDs

[aesir911]

my friend wants me to burn some videos i made on imovie, and then put them on his ipod touch. i was wondering if handbrake works with DVD-r's (writable dvds)? is it know to not work with them? are there any brands or qualities that don't work on handbrake?

 

[mchalebk]

Handbrake should work with DVD-Rs just fine. However, if they're home grown videos, it would be a lot better to work with the original files, if they're available. The video is compressed using mpeg-2 codec when it's put on DVD. This is pretty lossy. The quality would a lot better if you could use the original files.

 

[aesir911]

it's just my friend lives in a different state right now, and it's cheaper to use dvd-r instead of a memory stick.

 

[mchalebk]

Are the original files too large to fit on a data (not movie) DVD-R? You'll get much better quality if you don't render them to mpeg-2 first. Then you wouldn't need to use Handbrake at all.