Tutorials: The Complete Guide to Macintosh Video Conversion

[galactica]

Here is a complete list of the Tutorials Avaliable to Mac OSX Users. Please look to them if you have a conversion that one of them covers

SVCD with two audio tracks authoring with ffmpegX
VCD and SVCD to DVD
DIVXTo DVD
DVD To SVCD
Mac DVD to DVDr Advanced - Guide for Movie only with working menu
Mac DVD to DVDr Using DVD2ONE and Toast 6.x
DVD Studio Pro 2: Custom Template Creation Tutorial
Mac DVD to DIVX Using Handbrake v1.0
Mac DVD to DIVX using Handbrake v2.0
Mac DVD to DVDr For Newbies
How to convert Final Cut Pro 4 movies to VCD with ffmpegX (MacOSX)
How to convert AVI DivX or XviD to SVCD with ffmpegX (MacOSX)
How to author a DVD with Sizzle
Guide to DVD/VIDEO_TS folder to DivX conversion with ffmpegX

[tgpo]

The bad thing is it doesn't include any of the previous guides that I wrote...they are still under the PC sections of what they were.

[galactica]

that sucks
perhaps resubmit them?!
or maybe we can make a sticky with links to all teh avaliable mac guides.!?!?

[macsys]

just an fyi, the handbrake 1.0 and 2.0 links aren't working!

[galactica]

They are working for me!?!

[thoughton]

They aren't working because the forum is adding the 'tool' URL to the word 'handbrake' within your tutorial link. Same thing happens with DVD2ONE in the line above (move your mouse around and you'll see http://http://www.blahblahblah)

[galactica]

if you click to the left of the wordd "handbrake" the link loads the pages for me.
please try that.

[earwig999]

The sizzle tutorial is not working, does anyone have a tutorial for Sizzle?

[thoughton]

Looks like tgpo has redesigning his website (very slick tgpo!). Anyways, the sizzle page has changed name slightly, use the link as above but add an 'L' to the end (so it is html instead of htm).

[galactica]

fixed

[baturjan]

Is there a DVD authoring program that I could use with MPEG2 files and the program will NOT transcode my files resulting in quality loss

[thoughton]

Sizzle (cheap) or DVDSP (expensive)

[galactica]

agreed...
you can also look to

http://www.hillmanminx.net/transcoder/index.html

[baturjan]

thanks!

[galactica]

For those of us who are new, please understand that my tutorials say to use DVDBackup. This has long since been out of date since the introduction of Mac The Ripper.

Please just substitute DVDBackup for Mac the Ripper. Also there are some new features with the newest DVD2ONE, they are basically self explanatory.

I would updat them but my liscensing board exams are right around the corner and some how that seems to take all my time.
G

[Macfixer01]

Here is a complete list of the Tutorials Avaliable to Mac OSX Users. Please look to them if you have a conversion that one of them covers

SVCD with two audio tracks authoring with ffmpegX
VCD and SVCD to DVD
DIVXTo DVD
DVD To SVCD
Mac DVD to DVDr Advanced - Guide for Movie only with working menu
Mac DVD to DVDr Using DVD2ONE and Toast 6.x
DVD Studio Pro 2: Custom Template Creation Tutorial
Mac DVD to DIVX Using Handbrake v1.0
Mac DVD to DIVX using Handbrake v2.0
Mac DVD to DVDr For Newbies
How to convert Final Cut Pro 4 movies to VCD with ffmpegX (MacOSX)
How to convert AVI DivX or XviD to SVCD with ffmpegX (MacOSX)
How to author a DVD with Sizzle
Guide to DVD/VIDEO_TS folder to DivX conversion with ffmpegX

Galactica,
Your tutorials are great and certainly helped me as a beginner. I've found a couple ways to improve and streamline them though.

Regarding the SVCD TO DVD tutorial... I've found that VCDtoolsx is not really neeeded if you have Toast as the tutorial calls for. There's an option in the Toast Utilities menu to mount a disc image file, and it can also mount bin files. Then just drag the AVSEQ01.DAT file from the mounted image to your hard drive, and change it's extension to .mpg.

Also in your SVCD TO DVD tutorial the end result is, as you describe it, like a Chapter DVD. So for example if the movie had been on 2 or 3 VCD's then there will be 2 or 3 separate titles on the DVD which must be run individually from a menu created in Sizzle.

What I do instead is to use ffmpegx to join the two mpeg files first. Then I follow the rest of the tutorial as written and end up with a more normal DVD which plays the whole movie without having to go back to a menu in the middle of it. In fact there's no need for a menu at all, which is good since the only Sizzle that works for me consistently is the 0.1 version. The 0.5 version almost always refuses to recognize any .mp2 sound files for me.

Note that if the movie is in more than two parts you must join parts 1 and 2, then afterward join that combined file to part 3 in a separate step. Although ffmpegx has three fields for filenames, it will only join the first two listed files.

The same trick applies if I'm converting an AVI movie in two or more pieces to a DVD. I use ffmpegx to combine the two avi files into one intact movie, then follow the rest of the tutorial as written. As above, if it was split into 3 avi files you must combine parts 1 and 2 first, then combine that resulting file with part 3.

Macfixer01

[galactica]

thaks for pointing that out. The site of mine is quite old, and as it says in the NEWS section its going to be updated eventually.

There have been MANY advances since i made that page, however I am in my 3rd year of chiropractic school at the moment and well...... things like National Boards, Diagnostic X-Ray IV etc seem to take up all my time.

But at least readers can see your suggestions
thanks macfixer01!

[minh2020]

Tutorial for MAC: Copy DVDr to DVDr using Toast

One of the simplest method I found.

Basically you just drag the VIDEO_TS folder from the DVD disc and copy to the desktop. Once copying is complete, open Toast 6, go to Video and select DVD-Video from VIDEO_TS and start burning.

That's it. There's no need to re-encode or anything.

Note:
**Works with unprotected discs only. I've only tried this method using DVDr discs I've created from a DVD recorder and making copies of it. Have not tried retail movie DVD discs.

[vwDavid]

I am looking to burn a Xvid file to either CD or DVD. My portable DVD player supports DivX playback, but, by first attempt at just burning the file to a ISO9660 format failed.

What is my best bet? use ffmpeg to convert to SVCD, or, can I decode the movie to mpeg2 and author a DVD with sizzle like I usually do for my tivo files? IS this later process covered in a tutuorial anywhere (looks like no from the details above).

thx

-David

[galactica]

Tutorial for MAC: Copy DVDr to DVDr using Toast

One of the simplest method I found.

Basically you just drag the VIDEO_TS folder from the DVD disc and copy to the desktop. Once copying is complete, open Toast 6, go to Video and select DVD-Video from VIDEO_TS and start burning.

That's it. There's no need to re-encode or anything.

Note:
**Works with unprotected discs only. I've only tried this method using DVDr discs I've created from a DVD recorder and making copies of it. Have not tried retail movie DVD discs.

All true...... for already backed up discs. Wont work however for "commercial" disks. Hell it wont even work if you have a dvd5 retail disk.

But it is the way you copy a copy

[galactica]

I am looking to burn a Xvid file to either CD or DVD. My portable DVD player supports DivX playback, but, by first attempt at just burning the file to a ISO9660 format failed.

What is my best bet? use ffmpeg to convert to SVCD, or, can I decode the movie to mpeg2 and author a DVD with sizzle like I usually do for my tivo files? IS this later process covered in a tutuorial anywhere (looks like no from the details above).

thx

-David

My website has a DIVX to DVD. Note that Divx spelled backwards is Xvid so there should be no problems running that file through mpeg2works to get a dvd compliant .mpeg file which you can author as dvd with sizzle.

But if its me, and you have divx enabled dvd player, find the codex it plays and convert this Xvid into that and burn as cdr so you let the player do the work for you

[qsek]

your dvd advanced guide simply ROCKS!!

GREAT WORK I REALLY APPRECIATE IT

[galactica]

qsek - GREAT
I got some time off in a few weeks, so ill go though and update things hopefully
but glad it worked for you!

[qsek]

If I can help you tell me. I just have to mention that the calculation thing sometimes doesn't work if you take mb's => doesnt' fit on a dvd...even if you calculate with bytes sometimes it doesn't work out correctly...

[baturjan]

I've got a simple tutorial for editing the audio of mpeg2 files on the Mac. I own a Camcorder that records mpeg2 onto an SD card. To avoid ruining the video quality by decompressing and re-compressing, I have found a simple way to at least edit the audio tracks of these files (volume level, audio effects, adding additional tracks).

I'll attempt to attached the tutorial to this post (pdf). Feel free to post it along with your other tutorials, or if it needs tweaking before posting let me know.

[galactica]

If I can help you tell me. I just have to mention that the calculation thing sometimes doesn't work if you take mb's => doesnt' fit on a dvd...even if you calculate with bytes sometimes it doesn't work out correctly...

huh, its fit on everyone of mine. If you lower it by like 50 megs would it fit then?

Just curious how far off it was!

[qsek]

galactica: sometimes it just needs 10mb or lower sometimes more... I just don't know why it doesn't fit everytime...

[galactica]

Yea I understand. I think its because this is a estimation down to only 4 significant figures in the whole number when reporting in megs.

any way, it works!

[Manolo]

Problem solved.

Post ready to be deleted.

Cheers lad,

M.

[seattlejoe]

Shoot, I don't even know where to start! The list of "formats" is meaningless to me.

Put simply ... I have some TV shows on DVD-R using a simple DVD recorder. I have a new LaCie burner, and want to insert appropriate chapter breaks (and images) and re-burn as DVD to view on a standard DVD-R player. (My main DVD player does not do DVD+R).

Any help/guidance for this newbie would be appreciated!!!