Help me offload my movies offshore to DVDs

February 13, 2009 12:23 PM

Hi everyone. I have a some of movie files that I'd like to transder to DVD. However...

I have a DVD burner on my computer, however, my MacBook Pro (OS 10.5) will not give me the option of burning the file directly onto the blank DVD. When I try to do so, all it does is make a shortcut to the movie rather than to the movie itself.

The only other option it gives me when I insert the DVD is to create a movie through iMovie, which won't let me transfer the file either.

Why yes, these are downloaded BitTorrent files. Are there fundamental barriers to burning them coded into the files? Is my only option to transfer them to an external hard drive?

I've found some answers on burning DVDs on a Mac generally, but not with these specifics. Will Mac the Ripper (currently unavailable online) or Handbrake solve my problem?

Thanks for your help!

posted by anonymous to technology (4 comments total)

videohelp.org
posted by rhizome at 12:40 PM on February 13, 2009

I'm assuming these are compressed files (avi, etc)...are you just trying to back up the files themselves to DVD, or are you trying to convert them into a 'watchable' authored DVD?
posted by anazgnos at 12:41 PM on February 13, 2009

Go grab VisualHub from your favorite torrent website. Its an abandoned video converter, which can convert anything to pretty much anything. One of the conversion options is DVD-- click into the DVD menu, then check the boxes for "author as DVD" and "burn when done". Insert disc and it'll pop out a watchable DVD in however long it takes to convert +~6 mins-- on my late 2008 Blackbook (2.4gHZ C2D/2GB RAM) it takes somewhere between an hour to two hours to convert, but your Pro is probably going to do it faster. Note that this is going to leave a .iso on your hard drive-- make sure to delete it.
posted by baphomet at 12:50 PM on February 13, 2009 [1 favorite]

You mac won't put the files to the DVD until you actually "Burn the DVD."

There are two types of DVD worth mentioning right now:
Data DVDs (Just copy and go!)
Video DVDs (has to follow the DVD specification)

I've never used it, but here is some freeware DVD burning software called Liquid CD.

Visual Hub is open source (now.) Here are the ridiculously easy instructions to build it.
posted by filmgeek at 3:15 PM on February 14, 2009