converting imovie to DVD video

[dylanb2cm]

Hey Everyone, I have had an apple for a while but finaly just got my first Mini DV Camcorder. I have IMOVIE and Roxio Toast 5. I don't have IDVD. Is there anyway of converting my IMOVIE files to DVD-R. I don't care about menues or any thing fancy.

Thanks In Advance for any help.

[Frobozz]

Quick. Get one of the LaCie FastCoders before they're gone. I'm thinking you have an older (more than 2-3 years old) Mac which means MPEG encoding will be very slow unless you get a FastCoder. It also comes with a DVD authoring application called CaptyDVD 2.

[dylanb2cm]

Ya I do have an older apple, more like 5 years old. Where is a good place to get LaCie FastCoders. I live in Canada. I was also thinking about getting a stand alone DVD recorder with a DV input on it. Would I be able to transfer my IMOVIE back to my DV camcorder then transfer it to the stand alone DVD recorder?

[dylanb2cm]

Does anybody have any other suggestions (software, hardware)? I'm not too concerned with the time it takes to process as I will probably only be doing this once every couple of months at the most.

[Case]

Software suggestion: iDVD ($79). It's just made for easy DV to DVD.

[Frobozz]

Ya I do have an older apple, more like 5 years old. Where is a good place to get LaCie FastCoders. I live in Canada. I was also thinking about getting a stand alone DVD recorder with a DV input on it. Would I be able to transfer my IMOVIE back to my DV camcorder then transfer it to the stand alone DVD recorder?

The only place to get a FastCoder is directly from LaCie.com. If you get a standalone DVD recorder you won't need the FastCoder. Yes you can export your iMovie back to the DV camcorder (presuming the camcorder supports recording via the Firewire link). I have a Pioneer standalone DVD recorder and it will record via Firewire directly from iMovie.

[rumplestiltskin]

Toast will convert almost all movie formats to DVD. If you don't have an internal DVD burner, then buy an external FireWire DVD burner. Shouldn't be more than $90 for that if you shop around or build your own with a Pioneer DVR-110 and a FW enclosure.

[Case]

Toast will convert almost all movie formats to DVD.

Well, Toast 5 Titanium introduced VCD MPEG-1 encoding, v6 and v7 will do DVD. Product comparison.

[babgolis]

As Frobozz said, many set-top dvd recorders can record directly from firewire. I have a Cyberhome 1600 I got for under $100 US and it has that capability. I use 6 year-old mac & MPEG-2 encoding on it is tedious to say the least. So I opt for passing video through the 1600 & editing the resulting MPEG-2 files painlessly on the commputer.

[dylanb2cm]

As Frobozz said, many set-top dvd recorders can record directly from firewire. I have a Cyberhome 1600 I got for under $100 US and it has that capability. I use 6 year-old mac & MPEG-2 encoding on it is tedious to say the least. So I opt for passing video through the 1600 & editing the resulting MPEG-2 files painlessly on the commputer.

Thanks for the feed back Frobozz. When you say MPEG-2 encoding is tedious how tedious are we talking, because again I'm not going pro here i just want to take some family video that will probably take at least 2 months to take 2 hours worth of video so I will rarely be making DVD's of my DV footage. Also what software do you use. Does anybody no any free software that will do this?
Also you say you say you do the editing after you have converted it to MPEG-2 ond DVD. Do you use IMOVIE to do this and is there any advantage to doing it this way?

[rumplestiltskin]

iMovie works with DV-Stream. It's converted to MPEG-2 when it gets to iDVD or Toast 7 during the encoding process right before you burn the disc.

[dylanb2cm]

Does anybody know of some basic free software that will convert IMOVIE to DVD video?

[rumplestiltskin]

Well, "DVD video" can mean many things. Do you want to end up with the VIDEO_TS folder that can then be burned to a DVD disc?

[dylanb2cm]

yes

[rumplestiltskin]

ffmpegX is shareware and has an encoder for mpeg-2. It will produce the proper structure for a DVD. Then there's an option in the program to "image" it so that it may be burned to a DVD using Disk Utility. Pretty cheap registration fee, IIRC.

[dylanb2cm]

Thanks for all the help everyone. A lot of great suggestions. I've decided to upgrade to Toast 6. Hopefully it won't be insanley slow for converting to MPE2. It can also capture DV right off the camcorder so it seems fairly straight forward for a pretty basic guy like me. I can't wait to start handing out plastic discs of borrowing family video to my relatives. I'll let you know how it goes. Probably be back for more help.

[Makmic]

Take a look to MovieGate:

it is donationware, it's main purpose is to to go from iMovie project, including chapters info, to an authored DVD with simple menus.

And the encoder to MPEG2 is not worse than Toast 6's one.

[AntnyMD]

Although the solution for the original poster has been reached, just a note for those of you who want to go with a FastCoder or a standalone DVD recorder. At best quality, a standalone DVD recorder will max out at one hour (mine maxes out at one hour and one minute). Presumably a FastCoder will allow a best quality encode with a runtime equal to the amount of free space available on your hard drive.

This is only important if you're trying to encode at best quality to fill a dual layer disc.

[rumplestiltskin]

Makmic,

Thanks for the pointer to MovieGate. Even though I have iDVD (and it works), MovieGate allows converting content other than that generated within iMovie using a more direct route.

Excellent advice!

[dylanb2cm]

well I finaly had a chance to test out toast 6...and it worked! Like you all said it was slow. Took about 20 minutes to encode a 3 minute video but I'll only be making a couple of movies a year so good enough for me. I also noticed a slight reduction in video quality. There were a few times where I panned the camera very fast(too fast) and after I converted to MPEG2 there were some serious artifacting (mostily pink blocks). That can be fixed with some better camera technique. Anyway, once again thanks for all your suggestions. Look for my documentary coming out next month on PBS...ya right. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions as I travel down this road called video editing.

[AntnyMD]

Disappointment: FastCoder seems to work whenever it wants to work, and I cannot figure out whats the optimal condition for it to complete an encode. I bought this thing for $99, and it works sporadically (I'm running 10.4.6 if thats an issue). Before I came to post this, I went to the LaCie site and discovered it is now only $79, so they really are dumping these boxes on the market. On the one hand, when it works, its awesome. When it doesnt, its just a complete frustration as to why.

[Frobozz]

Disappointment: FastCoder seems to work whenever it wants to work, and I cannot figure out whats the optimal condition for it to complete an encode. I bought this thing for $99, and it works sporadically (I'm running 10.4.6 if thats an issue). Before I came to post this, I went to the LaCie site and discovered it is now only $79, so they really are dumping these boxes on the market. On the one hand, when it works, its awesome. When it doesnt, its just a complete frustration as to why.

If anyone can make it work, you can. Since it is a Firewire device the problem could be Firewire related. The usual cure for odd Firewire issues is to apply the combined system update on top of your existing 10.4.6. I don't have one of these because I can use my Pioneer standalone recorder to do real-time encoding at various settings. But you might recall that the FastCoder was at one time cancelled by LaCie because of problems with Tiger (or possibly QuickTime 7). Then it resurfaced so presumably the issue was resolved.

You might recall my comments about the ADS USB Instant DVD and heat. Try putting your FastCoder in the freezer for a half hour before using it. That worked with a crappy DV capture box that my brother has since tossed in the trash.

[AntnyMD]

Thanks for the confidence! As for the FastCoder, two successful encodes later, I think I know whats going on. The failures happen when I try to encode to elementary streams. Thats it. Whenever I encode to program stream, it works fine.

[Frobozz]

Thanks for the confidence! As for the FastCoder, two successful encodes later, I think I know whats going on. The failures happen when I try to encode to elementary streams. Thats it. Whenever I encode to program stream, it works fine.

That sounds typical for Pixela. There has to be something that doesn't work right. What I'd do in your case is use Capty MPEGEdit EX to convert the program stream to elementary streams.