mac-pc-dvd player friendly video conversion

[SJDuncan]

I started transferring our family videos to dvd and I can capture the video just fine onto my pc. The problem is that when I burn the dvd using AVS Video Editor, the dvd is not recognized on my brothers mac. Works just fine in a dvd player and on a pc, just not on a mac. Is there a different software I need to allow the video to be played on all 3 formats or am I doing something wrong?

[johnmeyer]

I don't use AVS Video Editor, so I don't know what its DVD Authoring is like. A true video DVD is authored, and should have a VIDEO_TS folder. If it does not have that folder, then you have instead created a data DVD, and that will not play universally. Some newer DVD players will play video files that are simply copied to a DVD, just as later model audio CD players can play data CDs that contain MP3 files, even though a "true" audio CD is created using the redbook audio standard, and does not actually contain files, as such.

If you are not creating a true video DVD, and instead are creating a data DVD that contains video files (e.g., "1988_Birthday_01.mp4") that is just fine and does have the advantage that you can store HD video onto this data DVD. However, it will not be guaranteed to play on every computer because each computer has to have the software for the specific codec you use to create the video. If your brother's Mac doesn't have an h.264 codec installed, for instance, and you encode the video using h.264 and then burn that onto a data DVD, he won't be able to play it. The good news is that computers can be modified to do just about anything, and if this is what you have done, he merely needs to add that codec to his computer and he should be able to play it.

Since you are transferring home videos which are presumably VHS or 8mm or Beta, and therefore very low resolution which will not benefit in any way by being encoded to HD resolutions, my strong recommendation is to burn a real video DVD, because it will be compatible with absolutely everything.

So, the key question is: does this DVD contain a VIDEO_TS folder?

[SJDuncan]

Thank you for your response. Yes there is a Video TS folder and an Audio Folder. That said, the video I produce plays well on everything except a Mac.

[johnmeyer]

Another question: can he play regular "commercial" DVDs, like Hollywood movies? If so, then the focus shifts to your authoring program. In the early days of DVD authoring (fifteen years ago) it was quite common to come across "DVD Authoring" software created by people who didn't know what they were doing and which didn't create discs that were 100% compatible with the DVD standard.

An even more likely cause just popped into my head: you might not have "finalized" the DVD. Authoring software sometimes lets you create DVDs to which additional video can be added at a later date. This is quite common with those VCR to DVD transfer systems that were quite common a decade ago. With those, you could record several episodes of a TV show, each aired a week apart, and continue to add until the disc filled up. When the disc was finished, you'd tell the machine to "finalize" the disc, which added some additional headers so that no more video could be added.

Most hard-wired DVD players would not play these discs until they were finalized, and it was very common to see posts like yours where the person would say that they could play the disc on the machine on which it was created, but not on other players.

So, if your authoring software is not finalizing the DVD, then it is possible that your brother's Mac isn't capable of playing an un-finalized disc. The solution is simple: put the disc back into the computer, fire up the authoring software, and finalize the disc.

[SJDuncan]

John,
Thank you again for your help on this and please forgive me as I may ask some relatively "dumb" questions, but, it would seem to me that if the dvd plays in a standard dvd player hooked up to my tv, it must be finalized. Also, yes he can play hollywood movies no problem on his Mac. So I have contacted AVS and they just told me that their editing software is not compatable with both the Mac and PC - DVD player. So I am going to agree with you that it is my authoring software. Do you have any suggestions on editing software that would help me on this?

[johnmeyer]

The answer you got makes no sense to me because there is a singular DVD standard that was created by a standards committee back in the mid-1990s. All players and all authoring software is supposed to conform to this standard. There is no "Mac DVD standard" that is different from the "PC DVD stanard" or different from the "set-top DVD player standard". There is just one standard.

So, it seems to me that AVS is simply admitting that their DVD authoring software isn't very good.

I am afraid I can't help you with what to use instead. Fifteen years ago I started using Vegas Pro and its built-in DVD authoring program DVD Architect and have never had reason to use anything else. In that time I have authored hundreds of DVDs and burned thousands and thousands of them. I have shipped these all over the country. After all that time and all those DVDs (I have gone through almost a dozen DVD burners) I have not had one single return, and no one has ever told me that they can't play it on their Mac, PC, Linux computer, set top player, portable player, etc.

Unfortunately, Vegas is an expensive program (hundreds of dollars) and most people who only do this once in awhile don't want to pay that kind of money.

I am sure someone else will come up with a good recommendation for a cheap or free program you can use. In the meantime you can probably find other recommendations that have been posted over the past few years, both here and in other sites.

[SJDuncan]

Thank you for your help...it seems AVS is not the program to use. Hopefully, someone can steer me in a little more affordable program, I cannot be the only one with this dilemma.
Thank you again!

[pasja]

Just have a look to DVDStyler. It is free and they even have a portable version.