What software for poor mans DVD burning?

[n8mac]

I am new to video editing. I have edited my movies and now need help in burning them to DVD for use in standard players. Here is what I have done so far...
1. Shot videos with a camera that are .avi files.
2. Edited the files in iMovie.
3. Read on here DVD's only take MPEG2, but iMovie/Quicktime doesn't have this option.
So now I am ready to burn and need to know what software I can get that is the cheapest that does MPEG2. I am using...
G4, OS 10.4, iMovie 3, Quicktime 7. (Note - I do not have iLife or QT pro)

What are my options?
Is there another format that recent DVD players taken on that I could use?
thanks
n8

 

[oculus42]

iDVD

This is exactly what iDVD is meant to do.

 

[huntercr]

I am new to video editing. I have edited my movies and now need help in burning them to DVD for use in standard players. Here is what I have done so far...
1. Shot videos with a camera that are .avi files.
2. Edited the files in iMovie.
3. Read on here DVD's only take MPEG2, but iMovie/Quicktime doesn't have this option.
So now I am ready to burn and need to know what software I can get that is the cheapest that does MPEG2. I am using...
G4, OS 10.4, iMovie 3, Quicktime 7. (Note - I do not have iLife or QT pro)

What are my options?
Is there another format that recent DVD players taken on that I could use?
thanks
n8

Buy iLife '06.. that will run really well on your computer and there are so many improvements in iMovie HD ( iMovie 6 ) , you'll really life it.

There are full retail versions on ebay for ~$50, and ones that might not come with a license ( it seems ) for $10-20

That will give you iDVD, and will hopefully do what you want. I think the improvements in iMovie alone would be worth $50 to me.

I don't think toast supports your system, but you could look for an old version of that too.

 

[n8mac]

Sorry for the newb questions and thanks a lot guys
Going to ebay now...

 

[huntercr]

Sorry for the newb questions and thanks a lot guys
Going to ebay now...

No problem! We're all here to support each other. BTW I wouldn't get any copies on ebay that don't show the box. IIRC iLife's serial number is on the box only, and you have to have it to install, so the disc won't do you any good without it.
( I am not absolutely sure about this, but it makes sense since the difference between people selling just the disc and the full box are 3x the price )

 

[n8mac]

Thanks again Hunter.

A few more questions...
1. What is the difference between iLife 5 and 6? Is 5 worth it? Because I seen some iLife 5 go pretty cheap. I remember a discussion that one of the older iLifes was buggy but I can't remember which one.
2. I have a friends wedding coming up in September and am going to make a video. Another friend has a Windows laptop connected to a projector. If I am unable to get iLife and burn a DVD in time, would it be possible to put the file onto a CD that he could copy it off of? What file type could he play using Windows, MP4? MOV? Would he need to download QT?

n8

 

[huntercr]

Thanks again Hunter.

A few more questions...
1. What is the difference between iLife 5 and 6? Is 5 worth it? Because I seen some iLife 5 go pretty cheap. I remember a discussion that one of the older iLifes was buggy but I can't remember which one.
2. I have a friends wedding coming up in September and am going to make a video. Another friend has a Windows laptop connected to a projector. If I am unable to get iLife and burn a DVD in time, would it be possible to put the file onto a CD that he could copy it off of? What file type could he play using Windows, MP4? MOV? Would he need to download QT?

n8

I think that iLife 06 ( it's the year it came out ) is better... iDVD especially has a ton of improvements, HOWEVER You can go for iLife 5 just fine. In fact, since you asked, I started thinking about it, and your system may not be able to do iLife o6 ( specifically iMovie HD 06 ) because it requires a video card with 16MB or more memory... so make sure you fit these specs:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1582?viewlocale=en_US

But iLife 05 will be fine... you just wont have as cool of themes. The video quality won't be any better or anything ( well, probably not )

I do remember there are some actually wedding themes in iDVD ( 4 different ones IIRC )

If you're wanting to do this for a presentation, I would try to do it with iDVD + iMovie like you're thinking.

You can make a movie and put it on a CD or DVD-R that a PC can read ( I mean a video file, not an authored DVD like iDVD gives you.

For that I would recommend you just export an MP4 file ( one that ends on .mp4, not a .mov ) out of iMovie/Quicktime. Pick a high bitrate ( 4000K+ ) and keep the resolution at SD resolution. Test this far in advance so you can figure out what settings work well on the windows computer.

I would personally do the iDVD authored DVD option because that will work on any computer or DVD player.

You are right to be working on this now. If you want to do a good video for your friend it will take 3 times longer than you think it will.

 

[n8mac]

My system:
G4 867 PowerMac
OS 10.4.11
Geforce4 MX 32mb
Quartz Extreme: supported
Core Image: not supported
I assume this would work for iLife 06?

My DVD drive is not from however. It is a LG GSA-2164D internal pulled from a Dell. Apples website requirement simply says this...
"Burning DVDs requires an Apple SuperDrive or compatible third-party DVD burner."
How do I find out if iDVD will recognize it? So far iTunes works fine with it.

I also found a freeware app called 'Burn' that I successfully used to burn a VCD on a CDR. It worked well and even converted my .mov to .mpg1 just fine. Later I will try .mpg2 once I get some blank DVDs. I did run into a problem when I played the VCD in my DVD player at my TV. It played fine and looked better than I expected, but my video had a bunch of title screens over black throughout the movie. When I played the VCD every time I got to a title screen the words showed up but the back round was not black, and it was shuttering/flickering. It did not do this on my Mac. I exported various file types from iMovie (.mov, .mp4, h.264) and each one played fine in QuickTime. I used a .mov compressed with h.264 for the VCD. What did I do wrong? Is the 'Burn' app or iMovie 3 buggy?

thanks again hunter

 

[huntercr]

My system:
G4 867 PowerMac
OS 10.4.11
Geforce4 MX 32mb
Quartz Extreme: supported
Core Image: not supported
I assume this would work for iLife 06?

My DVD drive is not from however. It is a LG GSA-2164D internal pulled from a Dell. Apples website requirement simply says this...
"Burning DVDs requires an Apple SuperDrive or compatible third-party DVD burner."
How do I find out if iDVD will recognize it? So far iTunes works fine with it.

I also found a freeware app called 'Burn' that I successfully used to burn a VCD on a CDR. It worked well and even converted my .mov to .mpg1 just fine. Later I will try .mpg2 once I get some blank DVDs. I did run into a problem when I played the VCD in my DVD player at my TV. It played fine and looked better than I expected, but my video had a bunch of title screens over black throughout the movie. When I played the VCD every time I got to a title screen the words showed up but the back round was not black, and it was shuttering/flickering. It did not do this on my Mac. I exported various file types from iMovie (.mov, .mp4, h.264) and each one played fine in QuickTime. I used a .mov compressed with h.264 for the VCD. What did I do wrong? Is the 'Burn' app or iMovie 3 buggy?

thanks again hunter

You may have trouble with the burner using iDVD. When you stick in a CD-R, with no apps open, does the Apple finder pop up a window that says "what do you want me to do with this disc?" if not, you may have trouble.

As for your VCD, I'm sure it was your DVD player not liking the VCD, or the "burn" app.
HOWEVER, you don't want to compress your video before burning it.... to put it on VCD or DVD the program has to re-encode anyway. You're wasting time and lowering quality by doing that. Save it has a MOV file with the DV codec.

You can still save iDVD movies to a .iso image file within the iDVD app and then burn on your unsupported DVD-R drive, if iDVD doesn't see your burner. I think this feature was available in iDVD 5 and definitely was in iDVD 06.

The more I think about it, the more I think you might want to buy iLife 5 if it's super cheap... I mean $5-$10 range. iLife 06 is really good, but I just don't want you to be disappointed especially if you have to possibly get a new DVD-R drive... you're approaching the price of a used *intel* mac mini on ebay ( ~$200-300 ) which would come with iLife and DVD burner.

 

[n8mac]

When you stick in a CD-R, with no apps open, does the Apple finder pop up a window that says "what do you want me to do with this disc?

Yes, I put a blank one in and it asked me that.

As for your VCD, I'm sure it was your DVD player not liking the VCD, or the "burn" app.

Since replying I have tried the VCD on a XP PC at work and it had the same flickering, yet when I played it from my Mac using QT it was fine, no flickering. I also forgot to tell you that I had another video on the same disk, an .avi from my camera that I was experimenting with. It played fine on all players. I have 4 more 'coasters' to experiment with so I will try an uncompressed DV this time. I was thinking that it was an incompatibility of .mov with non-Mac players.

Just read the help from the burn.app and got this..."Select some video files, most video files are supported.
Note: some protected QuickTime files may not work."

I mean $5-$10 range. iLife 06 is really good, but I just don't want you to be disappointed especially if you have to possibly get a new DVD-R drive

iLife 06 was about $25 where as some iLife 05 wasn't even bid on. But since I am doing a wedding I will go for 06. Getting a new burner however is too much as the one I have is nice and fast.

thanks
n8

 

[huntercr]

Yes, I put a blank one in and it asked me that.

Oh good! This means it is much more likely your DVD-R drive will work in iDVD directly.

Since replying I have tried the VCD on a XP PC at work and it had the same flickering, yet when I played it from my Mac using QT it was fine, no flickering. I also forgot to tell you that I had another video on the same disk, an .avi from my camera that I was experimenting with. It played fine on all players. I have 4 more 'coasters' to experiment with so I will try an uncompressed DV this time. I was thinking that it was an incompatibility of .mov with non-Mac players.

Hmm... you're using confusing terms here. You burned a 2nd movie on your VCD, or you put the movie file on the CD-R?
Authoring a VCD is similar Authoring a DVD... there is a required format that gets built and all video(s) get re-encoded into that as one volume.

Now the confusing part is that many DVD players and all PCs/Macs will *also* play CD-Rs that simply have the files copied to them... that is not in the VCD format(s), however. This is simply CD-ROM data that the player also knows how to read ( i.e. this is not a standard )

If it's truly a VCD ( or several variations ) you won't see the filename anymore or be able to click on it or anything... it will look like a bunch of DAT files like a DVD does.

Just read the help from the burn.app and got this..."Select some video files, most video files are supported.
Note: some protected QuickTime files may not work."

They're talking about unsupported codecs, and/or itunes content here.

iLife 06 was about $25 where as some iLife 05 wasn't even bid on. But since I am doing a wedding I will go for 06. Getting a new burner however is too much as the one I have is nice and fast.

thanks
n8

Yes, I wouldn't recommend getting a new burner either. I think you'll be happy with iLife 06. Good call.
Just a note: Burning a DVD in iDVD takes *forever*, and I mean forever x 100 cause you're on a G4. I think the rule of thumb is take the actual time on the video and multiply it by 4.

This is because of the encoding, not the burning...If you're burning multiple copies it takes far less time for the copies.

While you're learning how to do this, I also highly recommend buying one DVD-RW disc to play around with and learn on. You can burn a disc, and then erase it ( using Apple's disc utility program ) so you won't have a bunch of coasters.

 

[dhd]

Hi there,

If I were you:
1.- I will open the avi's on your camera with MPEG Streamclip (freeware) save them as DV (choose PAL or NTSC according to your country of residence).
2.-Edit the DV clips on IMovie HD
3.-From IMovie "Share" to IDVD or export at full quality and open the resulting file on IDVD
4.-Make your dvd menu on IDVD and when you are finish save it to an image, you can burn that image to a physical dvd as many times as needed.

Hope it helps

 

[huntercr]

Hi there,

If I were you:
1.- I will open the avi's on your camera with MPEG Streamclip (freeware) save them as DV (choose PAL or NTSC according to your country of residence).
2.-Edit the DV clips on IMovie HD
3.-From IMovie "Share" to IDVD or export at full quality and open the resulting file on IDVD
4.-Make your dvd menu on IDVD and when you are finish save it to an image, you can burn that image to a physical dvd as many times as needed.

Hope it helps

That is great advice for him. He doesn't have iDVD yet. We're working on getting him that

 

[dhd]

That is great advice for him. He doesn't have iDVD yet. We're working on getting him that

Ooops, didn't check that!!!, OP run to ebay!!!. And if you don't want menus, then you can encode and author to dvd with FFmpegx (also free), then you can burn that dvd folder with Disk Utility, but if you get IMovie 6 HD you'll get the rest of ILife. (wasn't IMovie free to download somewhere?).

 

[n8mac]

Hmm... you're using confusing terms here. You burned a 2nd movie on your VCD, or you put the movie file on the CD-R?

I meant that I had at the same time burned two different videos to a CD. I was trying to weed out any possibility of why it messed up, and thought that maybe 'burn' couldn't handle encoding two different formats at once, or maybe it could only handle certain types of formats.

Burning a DVD in iDVD takes *forever*, and I mean forever x 100 cause you're on a G4.

Yes, I just found that out . I bought the G4 for cheap off ebay a year ago for some older gaming and web-surfing. It is fine for the short films I am doing but if I ever get the chance to do this more seriously I would at least have a G5 with at least 2 processors.

While you're learning how to do this, I also highly recommend buying one DVD-RW disc to play around with and learn on. You can burn a disc, and then erase it ( using Apple's disc utility program ) so you won't have a bunch of coasters.

I will do this along with getting iLife. My friend might let me borrow the money if need be.

(wasn't IMovie free to download somewhere?).

Yes, imovie 3 which I am using.

@dhd
I will try what you suggested and thanks for the freeware tips.

This is kind of fun once you get into it

EDIT: I just exported a DV file from imovie, then used burn.app to create a mpeg1 file which I played in both quicktime and real player which came out fine. Then I used burn.app to burn another CDR, popped it in my DVD player and it had the same problem, flashing at every title screen without the black. So it must be a bug in the burning part. At least I can use burn.app to encode a mpeg2 file for me then try out disk utility. But I am not going to make anymore coasters and wait till I get some DVDRW's. Later I will go for iLife 06.

n8