mpeg4 .mov to DVD

I've got the HD feed of the Rose Bowl game in two 4GB 1280x720 mpeg-4 .mov files... I want to create a dual-layer 16:9 DVD from the files... What would be the best program to use for the conversion? Should I just use iDVD 06, create a 16:9 DVD, and drop the files on to the menu? Will the 2 files fit on one DL disc after converting to 720x480 (is this the correct resolution for 16:9?) mpeg-2? How much will I have to compress the files?

Also, I'd like to make the files into one big title, instead of 2 seperate titles on the menu... Any suggestions for this?

You don't say how long the videos are, but if it is less than 3-1/2 hours total I think they can be encoded to fit on a DL disc with iDVD 6. But I wouldn't do it that way because iDVD uses uncompressed PCM audio which takes away the space that can be used for better picture quality. I would use Toast 7 with its AC3 audio instead.

As for joining two HD MPEG-4 files, I don't know how to do that. You could use Toast (or iDVD) to save a disc image, convert its VOBs to MPEG 2 using Toast or MPEG Streamclip, and join the MPEGs using MPEG2 Works or CaptyMPEG Edit EX. Then author a new DVD from the joined MPEG2 file.

I think it is about 3:45 minutes... Should dual-layer be able to hold 4 hours?

Originally Posted by njhorn

I think it is about 3:45 minutes... Should dual-layer be able to hold 4 hours?

I'm not sure what the maximum is with iDVD but that may be too much. iDVD reserves some of the disc's space for its menus plus it gobbles up space with the PCM audio. If it did fit you'd be encoding at iDVD's lowest picture quality. It's easy to find out. Drag the videos into iDVD and see if it reports there is room for the project.

Toast 7 can handle well over 4 hours on a DL-disc at good quality because of the AC3 audio.

I've never tried using iDVD to down-convert HD sources to SD. I have done it with Toast. If you try iDVD 6 I'd like to know how it goes.

I may do what I did last week for a DVD...

1) Encode the Rose Bowl with Toast (I guess I can just drop in the mov file and let it go to work without using menus)...

2) Create a DVD with a single menu and one title in iDVD using a small 50mb video or so

3) Rip the iDVD to the hard drive in MacTheRipper

4) Delete the first title from the rip directory and replace it with the vob's from the title from the Toast DVD

5) Burn the DVD using the "burn using video_ts" option in Toast and drop in the ripped directory

It's a long process, but it will work...

Okay, but why? I don't understand what is gained by that. Also, I wonder what happens at the layer break using your method.

You don't need MacTheRipper to rip a DVD created with iDVD. You can just copy its VIDEO_TS folder to the hard drive.

What I gain is the DVD recorded with AC3 using the menu I want from iDVD... I did this the other day with a DL disc and the layer break was fine...

Thanks for sharing that approach. Very innovative!

no problem, thanks for the tip on not need to rip the DVD...

Toast has been encoding the DVD with just the 2 mpeg-4 files since 7pm last night... At 8am this morning it was at 80% or so! Go Mac Mini go!

Hi.

Was wondering if I burn a anime video file which is a mp4 file with x.264 codec ( one piece eps 169.mp4 ), to dvd without converting the video file. And watch it on my dvd player which plays , MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid ?


Thx in advance.

Originally Posted by Kebhe

Hi.

Was wondering if I burn a anime video file which is a mp4 file with x.264 codec ( one piece eps 169.mp4 ), to dvd without converting the video file. And watch it on my dvd player which plays , MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid ?


Thx in advance.

If it fits you should be able to burn it to a CD-R. Check your DVD player's manual for any disc format instructions. I think you should be able to burn it as a data CD-R in ISO 9660 format but I may be mistaken.