playing a quicktime file on dvd player

Popcorn's not going to help you, I'm afraid, since it only copies existing DVDs (unless I'm missing a feature not mentioned on their web site); it can't create a DVD from scratch. You'll need Toast, iDVD or some similar application that can create a video DVD to achieve a disk that can play on a video DVD player.

File size is basically irrelevant. It's the running length of the video that's at issue. Most current DVD creation tools including iDVD 5 and 6 can put up to 120 minutes of video on a single DVD. If your video is much longer than that, you'll need to either split the video or compress it significantly more that might be acceptable in terms of quality.

I don't know of a full set to free tools that can accomplish this, though you might find something on VersionTracker. A $10 possibility is MPEG2Works, though I can't tell from the descriptions whether or not it will handle AVI. If not, you'd have to have QuickTime Pro to convert the movie to something MPEG2Works could handle.

Jeff, your question if a bit coonfusing since avi's aren't usually a format associated with QuickTime.(Try D-Vision 3) Also, the only files that will play on a DVD player -afaik- are MPEG-2 files. Since it seems you have quicktime, you'll need to get that avi nto a format that Quicktime can understand then Export as MPEG 2, there are several compression options out there, one of them being the MPRG-2 component for QuickTIme from apple.com, but you might check into ffmpegX or MissingMpegTools, they might help you. I don't understand why you think iDVD won't work though. I think all you'll need to do is get you video into a form that iDVD will recognize. Hope this helps.....

There is no single codec for movies that have .avi extensions. AVI is a container format, not a specific type of file. An AVI movie may use one of the Indeo codecs (there are at least four that I'm aware of, none of which have been ported to Mac OS X) or one of the various flavors of DivX, among other possibilities. You'll have to find out what codec was used for the movies you want to view to determine what you need. Note that not all codecs for the various .avi movies are available for QuickTime.

If you want to try "hit and miss", you can try the codecs at http://www.divx.com/ and http://www.3ivx.com/ and see if one of them will work for you.

The only xvid codec for QuickTime that I know of can be found here. It probably will require that you have QuickTime Pro to be able to convert an xvid file to another format. ffmpeg also is a possibility; it says that it handles xvid, but I'm not sure whether it will import xvid or just export it.

Jeff,
If we had a bit more info we might be able to give some better assistance. If, for instance, this file is on the small size, less than or = to say 320 x 240, then upsizing it to 720 x 486 ~ and re-compressing it might yield a fairly unwatchable video. You might try taking it through MPEG Streamclip just for fun, output an MPEG2 and drop it into iDVD and see what you get. Avi's are loads of fun eh? Any chance you can get the original footage?

Can you successfully play the video in QuickTime at all? Or will it not even play?

OK, then, to what format are you trying to export it, and where exactly is the process breaking down?