Help with the basics.....Please

[JCMACMAN63]

I have never posted anything before and I am totally new at creating DVDs but here goes.
I am a huge movie buff with tons of old stinker movies on VHS . I want to convert them to DVD.

I have a G4 running System 9.2.1. I have iMovie 2.0.3 and iDVD 1.0. I purchased the Canopus ADVC-100 to convert the analog video to digital. I connected the Canopus ADVC-100 to my firewire port and “sucked” the video into iMovie no problem. I exported the movie in a .dv file figuring this was the correct format. My 1 hour 36 minute movie wound up being 19 gig! after some research I find that MPEG-2 will provide me with great quality and lesser file size. I open the 19 gig file with Quicktime 6 and export as MPEG-2 but then I get two seperate files, an m2v and .avi file.

Is there a way to join these files? is there another format to save the file so I can import into iDVD? I also believe that iDVD will only let you record 90 minutes worth of video is this true? anyway around that? any help would be greatly appreciated[/img]

[mhar4]

How did you "open the ... file with Quicktime 6 and export as MPEG-2"?

[galactica]

here's a little info on iDVD
http://lonestar.utsa.edu/llee/idvd.html

you can mux those files with any muxer app
ffempgx for example works well.....

[JCMACMAN63]

I opened the file with file open in Quicktime 6 and exported the movie as mpeg-2.

[galactica]

i thought quicktime had a size limit
2 gigs or something like that.

was the entire thing exported?!?!?

[WiseWeasel]

He wouldn't have run into the 2 GB limit with 36 minutes of footage.
JCMACMAN6: Your options are actually pretty limited in OS 9. Using iDVD or DVD Studio Pro are your only options. To export video from iMovie to iDVD, set up your video in iMovie's timeline, and choose 'Export' from the file menu. Set the export setting to 'iDVD', and hit OK. It should automatically open iDVD and import your files there (theoretically, I've never tried iDVD). Then, you should be good to go with iDVD. If you want more options, and have money to spend on it, DVD Studio Pro will build more advanced DVDs and allow you to fit more playtime on a DVD. iDVD is limited to 90 min, but with a good encoder and mastering software, you might be able to fit about 3 hours on a DVD-R. Your options are much, much better in MacOS X.

[JCMACMAN63]

"but with a good encoder and mastering software, you might be able to fit about 3 hours on a DVD-R."

Thanks for the help and advise.....I have access to DVD Studio Pro is that good "mastering software"? Are iMovie & Quicktime good "encoder software?"

I know these questions must seem extremely basic but who know maybe some day i will be able to help you guys out!

Happy Thanksgiving!

[WiseWeasel]

QuickTime is not really an encoder, but it makes use of many different encoders. If you have DVDSP 2.0, the QuickTime MPEG2 encoder installed by it is pretty good (or you can use Compressor), allowing you to fine tune quality and compression much more flexibly than the one that comes with DVDSP 1.x. Mencoder and mpeg2enc also give very good results, and you can use ffmpegX to encode your video to MPEG2 with that. DVDSP will then allow you to take that MPEG2 and master a DVD with all the menus and options you could want, along with the AC3 audio that you've converted from AIFF or whatever using A.pack (comes with DVDSP). iMovie is also not an encoder, but it relies on QuickTime and its encoders to export video.

[JCMACMAN63]

Weasel,

Thanks for all you help. Sorry I haven't posted back for awhile been busy with the Holidays and everything. Since I last posted I got a new g4 iMac 1.25mhz 80 gig 1 gig ram. Also a friend lent me DVD Studio pro 2. I have converted my video into a mpeg2 (creating m2v & aif files)> I have created the menus I want in DVD STUDIO PRO but when I go to burn the disc I get a message saying something like "Not enough room on the dvd" or something to hat effect. I guess i need to compress the m2v 7& aiff files. Compressor which came with DSP2 doesn't seem to recognise m2v format. Any Ideas?

All this trouble for some old stinker Roddy McDowell movies! (ARNOLD & NIGHT GALLERY)

[macsys]

I know I will probably be corrected here but, here goes. Doesn't iDVD when burning look at how much time the actual movie is instead of the size. If this is so then if the video is 1 hour or more then iDVD will not burn. Doesn't matter that it is under the 4.4 gig or whatever limit, iDVD works with time vs. size?