.img vs UHD?

[essjay]

On my mac, I used iMovie to create an .mp4, which I put into iDVD and created a disc image, which gave me an .img. I used disk utility to mount this, which gave me a UDF. At this point, I am not sure if I should burn the .img or the UDF (assuming both are possible). Another wrench - I don't really understand systems, so please be gentle. I am in Ukraine, and I am using a computer purchased in the US to burn onto DVD+Rs that were purchased in Ukraine. I would like these DVDs to be playable on all systems - computers and DVD players in both countries, if possible. As far as I understand, burning it will not input a region code, so I only have the systems to worry about - maybe?

[hello_hello]

The IMG file is a bit like a zip file for disc files. You should be able to open it with a burning program and burn it straight to disc.

I'm not sure about the disk utility "giving you a UDF" but UDF is a file system used for discs, much like NTFS or FAT32 for hard drives.
Universal Disk Format
You'd open and burn the IMG file with a burning program.

If you created the disc yourself there shouldn't be any region restrictions to worry about. I'm not sure if any software for creating or burning DVDs will apply region restriction even if you wanted to. Maybe some can, but if so, I'd imagine never as the default burning method. All you need to worry about is NTSC and PAL. Most PAL players will play NTSC discs but apparently NTSC players that will play PAL discs are far less common.

[Cornucopia]

It is NOT the burning which will give you a region code, it is the authoring. You will have already done that in iDVD. BTW, it being a consumer authoring app, does not allow you to set the regions, therefore it is set to Region 0 (which actually means ALL regions). No need to worry about that.

What you DO have to worry about is TV systems. North America (US, Mexico, Canada) and Japan (and a few other countries) use NTSC. Rest of the world uses PAL (those countries that broadcasted SECAM: France, Russia, Ukraine, etc also fall under PAL's domain). You DVD has to be made with ONE of these 2. It is possible to put one of each on the same disc, but there are certain rules about it, and it cannot be done with a consumer app such as iDVD, so you have to choose.

I recommend you choose NTSC, because it seems that the great majority of PAL countries & users who encounter an NTSC disc are still able to play the disc (the equipment is built to be forgiving enough, modifies it). The reverse is not true: NTSC countries & users who encounter a PAL disc seem to have at best a 20% chance of their equipment working with it (usually by modifying it in playback). BTW, when I say equipment, I don't mean computers, because they don't care either way, just dumber settops.

Assuming the quality is good (very important), where you bought the discs makes no difference - they are standards & regions agnostic.

AFA discs & images: you burn the disc image as an image (not as a file), this gives you a burned disc. You mount the image (.img) and it gives you a virtual "disc" (that happens to use the UDF filesystem) - not burned but temporarily created in RAM. All standard DVDs and BDs use the UDF filesystem, so no surprise there. I'm pretty sure it's not giving you another FILE that happens to have the .udf extension, though.

Hope that helps,

Scott

...hello_hello beat me to it!

[manono]

And if quality is a consideration, you should never have created an MP4 from your source file but gone straight to DVD.

[newpball]

I recommend you choose NTSC, because it seems that the great majority of PAL countries & users who encounter an NTSC disc are still able to play the disc (the equipment is built to be forgiving enough, modifies it). The reverse is not true: NTSC countries & users who encounter a PAL disc seem to have at best a 20% chance of their equipment working with it (usually by modifying it in playback). BTW, when I say equipment, I don't mean computers, because they don't care either way, just dumber settops.

"built to be forgiving", seriously?

Gosh!

It has everything to do with the movie and video industry syndicate in the USA that tries to block those things.

[newpball]

And if quality is a consideration, you should never have created an MP4 from your source file but gone straight to DVD.

If quality is a consideration you should stay away from SD video.

[Cornucopia]

I recommend you choose NTSC, because it seems that the great majority of PAL countries & users who encounter an NTSC disc are still able to play the disc (the equipment is built to be forgiving enough, modifies it). The reverse is not true: NTSC countries & users who encounter a PAL disc seem to have at best a 20% chance of their equipment working with it (usually by modifying it in playback). BTW, when I say equipment, I don't mean computers, because they don't care either way, just dumber settops.

"built to be forgiving", seriously?

Gosh!

It has everything to do with the movie and video industry syndicate in the USA that tries to block those things.

You didn't read my post correctly (again).
The PAL countries (esp. euro & aus) have built consumer protections to allow for accommodation IN THE FACE OF industry pressure to limit access. The NTSC countries have not (for whatever reason you want to infer). Those are the facts. We all know the industry wants to eak out every dime possible and limit access to just what they can get paid for (it's what greedy corporations DO), but it is how the people and their representatives respond to that pressure that determines whether they end up with consumer-friendly features or not.

Besides, I wasn't commenting (at the time) on WHY we are in the state we are in, I was just commenting on WHAT state we are in. You can whine all you want about which one is better or worse, but we are in this state now, and my response was what PRAGMATICALLY & TECHNOLOGICALLY the OP is able to do while keeping in mind his intention for (near-) universal DVD playback.
Stop being a curmudgeon!

*********************

Once again, you are on your soap box about how SD quality is shitty and should be avoided, but in your fervor to proselytize you once again have forgotten that the main mission of this website is to HELP people who have questions about video (or to be one of those people with questions).
If the question from the OP were, "I want to send a file to people and have it be the best quality", then MAYBE your answer would make sense (although even then, you do not ever need to be so condescending as you habitually are, nor deflecting to rant about what you prefer). But that is not what the OP asked for, and you don't know anything about the source file nor about the intended recipients to make any remarks about whether SD would or would not be the appropriate resolution target.

The OP asked about getting his stuff out on DVD (DVD-Video application format) in a way that would hopefully guarantee universal playback of such discs. Manono's comment is actually spot-on, in that the OP could possibly revisit his workflow and export to a ~lossless intermediate (probably Quciktime/ProRes) and then, using iDVD, output to DVD with much better quality for the same intended destination.
Your answer, OTOH, is just more derogatory and inflammatory grandstanding with FUD thrown in to sidetrack everyone: pure trolling. You are not HELPing, because you are not listening, just talking. There are plenty of ways you can do that elsewhere, blogging, ads, etc.

Scott

(I realize I am not the "thread police", but I can comment on the tenor of threads just like everybody else)