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DVD Burning 101 for Macintosh

snap_dragon — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:52:36 -0800

I was hoping someone could recommend a one-stop DVD burning software for my Mac. I am wanting to make dvds that will work on my regular home player...I am running the latest operating system. My hopes are to have it be able to put a movie on a DVD-R and not invest in more expensive DVD-dual layer discs. Unfortunately, I am not good at using three different types of software to rip, edit, and burn, and hence the request for one all in one package. I know Wondershare does only dvd burning to dual layer. I have seen Fast DVD Copy but not sure how good it works, though it looks nice. Any suggestions? I appreciate all advice and wish all respondents and awesome week. Thanks.

DVD Burning 101 MetaQuestion

snap_dragon — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:11:22 -0800

How do I back up my movies to DVD-R so I can take the backups to the gym on my portable and prevent my good ones from getting scratched? I just bought a new IMac running Leopard. It has the burner. From research, it looks like I need 1. Mac the Ripper---2.DVD 2toOneX (for compression)---and 3.Roxio Toast to burn (even though there is burning software on my computer).....I have no really good clue and am open to any support and advice you might have to offer. I don't want to buy things that are not so easy to work. I am a very basic computer user. thanks for your time!

How do I turn a dozen DVD-Rs' worth of home movies into files I can edit on a Mac?

gompa — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 11:06:42 -0800

Help me make my daughter's grandparents' year. I've got a pile of home movies shot with an obscure Panasonic DVD video camera and no Mac-friendly software. Help! [more inside] The camera is a Panasonic VDR-M70, and it records onto 2.5" DVD-Rs that can't be read by (indeed don't fit into) a contemporary Mac's DVD drive.

If you connect the camera to the computer by USB, the discs contain a handful of files labelled "VIDEO_TS.BUP," "VIDEO_TS.IFO," VIDEO_TS.VOB," or else "VTS_01_0.BUP," "VTS_01_0.IFO," VTS_01_0.VOB," etc. Plus there's one file called "DVDCAM.IFO."

The camera came with a CD full of what appears to be PC-only software (drivers plus DVD-MovieAlbumSE 3 and MyDVD 4.0). I've got an iBook and my wife's got a more advanced MacBook.

The recorded discs contain lovely moments from the first two years of my daughter's life, and if I can turn them into a single DVD by Xmas, I'll be Son of the Year. I can figure out most end-user-friendly software apps, but my programming/professional-app-fu skills are nil.

What do I do?

Whither the data on my DVDs?

yggdrasil — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:17:11 -0800

["Halp!!eleventyone! Diagnose my computer troubles from far far away" filter]: Why does my DVD-+R drive show up on the computer, let me apparently record, burn and/or write data to the disc, and close the session, but not actually do any of those things? I want to burn some large video files to DVD. The files are perfectly playable on the computer, they can be copied and moved via ethernet connection, but when I try to burn them to disc, strangeness happens.

Doesn't matter if I use name brand Nero Suite that came with the drive, third party burners, or drag and drop in My Computer: it will pretend to burn the disc, show progress, even erase/format the disc before getting down to business, but it will not, you know, actually burn the file. Everything looks fine, until you eject and reinsert, at which point the computer insists there's nothing on the disc.

Doesn't matter if I try to create video DVDs or just data DVDs. Blinkenlights, whirr whirr, look at me go, and then nada. Nothing on the disc.

I've tried DVD+R, DVD-R, in all the various combinations and permutations with different burning software sets. Made sure the drivers were up to date and checked the versions of the firmware. All check out. Even went out and picked up a new burner. Same thing. Which makes me think it's a problem with windows.

OS: XP Home SP2
software: Nero Express Suite, CD Burner XP Pro 3
hardware: Samsung DVD Writemaster SH-S182D

anything jump out at anybody? Cuz right now this thing just makes shiny coasters. This used to work, though in fairness I haven't used the burner in the better part of a year. I'm about to just nuke from orbit and reinstall (that panacea of windows owners).

I don't want to start from scratch!

kosher_jenny — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 23:16:17 -0800

After I installed a new hard drive on my laptop my DVD burner/player no longer works, but plays and burns CDs just fine. I own a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop (running XP) and some months ago the hard drive crashed (lost all my data) and I had to install a new one as well as all the programs I lost, etc. Everything else on my computer is now working just fine, with the exception of the DVD player and burner. When I insert a blank DVD I am prompted to format the disk but the formatting always fails. I am also unable to watch regular DVDs regardless of the software I use to view them (mediaplayer, VLC, and various viewer programs on the DVDs themselves). I am still able to listen to music CDs and record data to blank CDs.

I've tried Dell's tech support, and they said that my only option is for me to back up all my data and restore everything on my laptop to the default settings! Surely there is a less drastic measure to take?

Help my Toshiba laptop recognize DVD-Rs.

ootsocsid — Thu, 17 May 2007 18:15:19 -0800

Help my Toshiba laptop recognize DVD-Rs. Posting for a friend: I recently reinstalled Windows on my Toshiba Satellite laptop, restoring the factory settings, including Sonic RecordNow and Sonic DLA. This has resulted in the computer no longer reading or recognizing DVD-Rs (though it still recognizes DVD-RWs). It also won't burn to DVD-R, acting as if the disc is either not in the drive or already full. How can I get the computer to start reading DVD-Rs again? Uninstalling Sonic hasn't helped, nor has installing additional CD burning programs.

Difference between DVD+R and DVD-r

calhound — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 15:15:13 -0800

What is the difference between DVD+R and DVD-R, from the standpoint of a casual computer user? I do occasional DVD movie backups and burn backups of my HD to DVD. I've always used DVD+R but my wife recently got a pack of DVD-Rs (not RWs, just regular Rs) and I'm not sure what this means as far as I'm concerned. Is there any difference at all if I'm not using pre-2000 equipment?

Wikipedia didn't have anything on this, but it did link to a very technical essay on the difference, but it's way over my head.

All I want to do is back up movies and back up my HD. I don't know what issues I'll have mix/matching discs.

Choosing my own "file sequence" when burning DVD-R

Moistener — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 12:54:10 -0800

I'm archiving important data to a DVD-R. In addition to the important data, I'm burning recovery files (QuickPAR PARity files) to the DVD-R so that I can recover the data in case sections of the DVD-R surface are damaged. It would be smart to have my burning software (Nero) "interlace" the recovery files and the archival data across the surface of the DVD-R: (data file, PAR file, data, PAR, data, PAR, ...). How can I make Nero (or any other burning software) do this?

How to Backup my Powerbook to DVDs

terceiro — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 01:33:24 -0800

I have a Powerbook with a CD burner and I have access to an iMac with a Superdrive. I'd like to backup my disk (or at least my user folder) to DVD-Rs. One catch: I can't install any software on the iMac. There's enough space on the iMac disk that I could fit my whole user folder there and just burn via the Finder. But that will force me to fineagle with messing around with splitting the contents of folders between discs, or having odd bunches of stuff stored on discs together.

Is there some simple solution I'm missing? All I really want is a snapshot of my hard disk as a just-in-case before I move across the country. That way, if my Powerbook gets dropped or otherwise made incapacitated, I have all my research (and music and photos) in a fairly safe, long-ish term, medium.

So: what's the best technique for backing up 45 gigs to some optical media?

Burner will not recognize 16x dvd-rs

weretable and the undead chairs — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 10:44:19 -0800

Why will my burner not recognize my DVD-Rs as 16x? I have a Pioneer DVD-R/DVD-RW burner that is supposed to handle 16x on either media. I had previously used 8X media and in Nero it would pop up as 8X and I could set it at 4X or 2X if I wanted. However I just bought some Taiyo Yuden 16X media and when burning it does not give me a speed option and defaults at 2X. Any ideas?

How to burn a MPEG-2 file.

NoMich — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 11:12:11 -0800

How do a I burn a MPEG-2 file to a DVD-R with my Windows XP Pro (SP2) and Lite-On DVD R/RW drive? When I burn files to a CD-R in the same Lite-On drive, all I need to do is drag the files to the DVD R/RW drive and Windows XP does is wizardly magic. However, with a MPEG-2 file onto a DVD-R, I get some generic error that this action won't happen. Winamp can't burn video files, so that's right out the window.

Is recorded media such as CD-R completely permanent?

jwhittlestone — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 07:46:12 -0800

Does recordable media "go bad" after a while? and if it does, are there any media that is less susceptible? I am going to buy some DVD+Rs for mastering my movies to, how do I ensure that they still will work in 10 years time? I heard a long time ago, that there is some kind of parasite that eats the dye from CD-Rs and DVD+-Rs is this true?

Have you every experienced anything like this?

I have a wallet of unbranded data DVD-Rs, sometimes they are mildly mistreated, but it seemed like they had all developed in fault manifesting as read errors.

I am going to buy some DVD+Rs for mastering my movies to, how do I ensure that they still will work in 10 years time?

What are your views on unbranded vs. branded?

Need a very reliable cd burner for audio cd burning

EvilKenji — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 00:12:38 -0800

Need a reliable cd burner to burn audio cds for radio show. I recently have a radio show on college radio and i need to burn audio cds (from mp3s). The worst thing that has happened (a lot so far) is that my burner sucks and the cd's i have burned dont play/ are corrupted / skip. Mostly...they just dont play and i get owned. I am using Nero, which i do not suspect to be a problem. I am using these generic brand of cd-r's from a company called "prism"...but i dont think the media is a problem either as the person who has a show before me uses the exact same brand and has had no problem with his burned cd's. My friend burned me an audio cd from his burner as well using this media and it worked fine.

Further complications to this is the fact that I used cd check "http://www.elpros.si/CDCheck/" to check the cds for readability. so far like 10 out of 12 of my cds have some corruption (very bad). Further more, i played a cd that had a certain track corrupted but i didnt play the corrupted track (track 13 on this cd was bad, but i played track 5)...still didnt work out. This other cd i burned that had no errors according to cd check (one of the few), actually played fine, but a few of the tracks skipped. To make matters worse, it is very hard to check whether these audio cds will work in the station or not because computer drives seem to be able to read this semi-corrupted audio fine.

I really need a burner that will burn audio cds reliably. I don't know which drive is particularly reliable and was hoping for suggestions. I did some price checking and actually found that a lot of dvd-/+r drives are around the same priceas the cd-rw/dvd drives. I know that most dvd-r drives can also burn cds so it doesnt matter if it is a dvd burner either. As long as it is reliable, burns 40x or faster and is decently priced. Some of the newer drives have all this error detection technology; that sounds nice too. One last note is that i'm on a laptop, so usb 2.0 external or a suggestion for a good external enclosure would really help :).

dvd problem

the cuban — Sat, 04 Jun 2005 05:20:52 -0800

DVD-R plays on standalone machine, but not on PC. Using Nero I burned 4 gigs of mp3s onto a DVD-R. I can browse the disc and play the tunes on my standalone dvd player, but the disc appears as blank on my PC.

I've tried running the disc through isobuster, but no joy. Other discs work just fine on the PC.

DVD Burner

mds35 — Mon, 24 Jan 2005 11:44:21 -0800

I'm replacing the zip drive in my 450MHz AGP "Sawtooth" G4 with a DVD burner. Any tips? The new drive was a steal, but it's not entirely compatible/supported (it will burn CDs with iTunes and DVDs with Toast but it won't be bootable) so I need to keep the original CD-ROM drive. I know I could just house the new drive in a USB or Firewire enclosure, but I never use the Zip100 drive anymore and I am determined to follow this route. I have found the bezel door that I will need on-line. The question I still have is, what type of carrier/hardware and cables will I need to mount the drive in the lower (zip) bay? Will I need to rearrange anything on the inside of my tower to make room for the DVD burner in the lower bay?

In case it's relevant, I'm running OS X 10.3.7 and plan to upgrade to Tiger once it is shipping.

Buying a DVD Player

luriete — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:07:15 -0800

A little over a month ago, my home was broken into and you were all very helpful. I am slowly replacing items, and now I need to find a DVD player. It must allow playback of many different regions - we have (well, we had, and they were stolen too, but we will replace) a lot of non-US region DVDs. On Amazon, many of the items listed don't seem to support DVD-R - and since my powerbook superdrive can only burn DVD-R, I guess I need something that will support this format. Any recommendations? And should I even consider a DVD/VCR combination, or is the prevailing wisdom that the more complication, the more likely it is to break down?

We had a mid-range Apex code-free player before, maybe $75, worked great. I'd rather not spend more than $125 or so to get something as good or better.

Will iDVD Convert MPEG2? Will It Output VIDEO_TS?

scarabic — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 18:24:57 -0800

iDVD presales questions [mi] 1) if you already have an MPEG2 movie, can you make menus for it and burn to a DVD-R?
2) can it output VIDEO_TS folders which can be burned elsewhere? Or is it SuperDrive-only?

Archival quality DVD-R recommendations

stbalbach — Tue, 15 Jun 2004 17:33:51 -0800

DVD-R media.. archival quality that will last as long as possible.. what is the best brand or type? Or should I stick with acid-free paper.

Does anyone know of a program available for Mac OS X that can read the Media ID of a DVD-R?

the biscuit man — Thu, 03 Jun 2004 19:52:06 -0800

Does anyone know of a program available for Mac OS X that can read the Media ID of a DVD-R? I have tried MissingMediaBurner and even DVDINFOPro under Virtual PC, but neither one gives any info.

Which recordable DVD should I use, DVD-R or DVD+R?

riffola — Tue, 11 May 2004 22:37:27 -0800

DVD-R or DVD+R? [More inside] I recently got a shiny new NEC 8X Black DVD+RW/-RW Drive, Model ND-2500A, and I know if I want to make DVD copies for friends who have Macs, I need to use DVD-R, but beyond that I'm not sure which format is better. I see far more DVD+R media available in stores here in NYC than DVD-R.

What's your take on the two formats? Which one do you use the most and why do you prefer it over the the other?

What type of DVD burner should I get?

DaShiv — Wed, 04 Feb 2004 10:34:08 -0800

DVD+R? -R? *R? /R? I'm confused on what type of burner to pick up. [more inside] CD's are getting smaller than I'd like for backing up photos, and I figure that DVD burners are a mature enough technology now to warrant picking up a drive. (Okay I'm a bit behind the curve on this one.) But I get conflicting recommendations from Googling for +R vs -R. Or should I get a drive that does both? My main priorities are forward compatibility, price of media (storage size is important here), burn speed, and price of drive, in that order.

This will be strictly for backing up data (not trying to copy commercial DVD's or CD's), with an occasional movie playback. Also, hypothetically speaking, is region encoding a problem for DVD playback? If it is, which drives have encoding that's easier to circumvent were I interested in doing so, purely for educational purposes? And it would help further my PhD research in this area if someone could describe "how" as well.

Recommendations for specific brand and models (or places for good reviews) appreciated!

How do you get DVDs of a just-released movie?

MiguelCardoso — Sun, 04 Jan 2004 12:35:39 -0800

One of my nephews (the lucky one everyone in our family loves, featured in this thread) presents us every week with a faultless DVD of a just-released-in-the-U.S. movie. How does he do it? [More inside.] Years of avuncular grilling have produced little in the way of answers, besides saying he belongs to some sort of swap club and that downloads take up to seven days(!). Now, I've watched Asian pirate copies and they're unwatchable - in some of them you can see members of the audience sitting down and getting up. These, however, are pristine and, shockingly, have perfect Portuguese sub-titles (better than the legit translations which eventually emerge). As you might know, there's a one or two month gap between American and European releases - so how does he do it? There is no underground market of DVDs in Portugal, so far as I know.

In other news, certain far-flung internauts (of which some may or not be members of MeFi) have access to the full texts of newly published U.S. and U.K. books. I realize this is all highly illegal but I'm still curious as hell as to their methods and techniques.