Video file to DVD?

[PokerGuy]

I need to create a DVD for a family member (that doesn't have a computer) of some video files I have. They are in a combination of mkv and avi format and I need to make a DVD that they can watch on a regular PAL system DVD player.

What software would be best for this?

Ideally a free or cheap program, but prepared to pay for something that is easy to use and reliable.

Any help much appreciated - thanks

 

[PokerGuy]

Anyone? Someone mentioned Toast - is that a good one - alternatives? Can I do this from within iMovie?

 

[PokerGuy]

Anyone?

 

[tigerztail]

Burn will do this for you

 

[MacTech68]

Sadly, I guess you've got a more recent Mac that didn't come with Apple's iDVD. For some reason, Apple decided to remove it and iWeb from the "iLife" suite of Apps that come with your computer. To be sure, when did you buy your machine? Was it new? Does your computer have iPhoto installed (I ask to check iLife is installed).

You might be able to buy a used copy of iLife '11 which includes iDVD. That would work.

Secondly, Toast is NOT free but would do the job.

As tigerztail notes, Burn is probably the free tool to use. It's been around for a while. Although it's original web home is gone and it's now on SourceForge:

http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html

There is also DVDStyler, which can be grabbed here:

http://www.dvdstyler.org/en/

I've not used either of these products so I can't offer much more help.

 

[PokerGuy]

Sorry for late reply - I haven't checked the forum all week.

I do have iDVD on my system - so that will do the trick?

Is it easy enough to figure out?

Sadly, I guess you've got a more recent Mac that didn't come with Apple's iDVD. For some reason, Apple decided to remove it and iWeb from the "iLife" suite of Apps that come with your computer. To be sure, when did you buy your machine? Was it new? Does your computer have iPhoto installed (I ask to check iLife is installed).

You might be able to buy a used copy of iLife '11 which includes iDVD. That would work.

Secondly, Toast is NOT free but would do the job.

As tigerztail notes, Burn is probably the free tool to use. It's been around for a while. Although it's original web home is gone and it's now on SourceForge:

http://burn-osx.sourceforge.net/Pages/English/home.html

There is also DVDStyler, which can be grabbed here:

http://www.dvdstyler.org/en/

I've not used either of these products so I can't offer much more help.

 

[MacTech68]

Sorry for late reply - I haven't checked the forum all week.

I do have iDVD on my system - so that will do the trick?

Is it easy enough to figure out?

Yes, iDVD should do what you want. It's fairly easy - it's aimed at the consumer. Just allow time to encode the DVD. That takes time no matter what program you use.

Just select a theme you like, and drop in your movies. Conversion may take a while. Then I would suggest saving the disc as a disk image.

 

[PokerGuy]

Great thanks - I will give it a go

 

[angelicali]

Toast titanium will do this however I've had mixed results with the final quality. I admittedly have not played with it too much since the conversion to mkv takes a long long time on my Mac Mini 1.5 core solo.

 

[Peter Franks]

BURN for burning MKV

Out of interest, how did you get on with this?