how do I use Burn to create dvd for dvd player?

There is no real alternative to iDVD.

Apple believes that the entire world has access to fast broadband and wants to distribute home movies to friends and relatives via download (iCloud) rather than mailing them a DVD. The fact that in reality not all users do, has so far had no effect on this policy. If you scream and shout loudly enough down the phone Apple may send you a free copy of iDVD. That worked for some, but is now said to have been withdrawn by Apple. Also, you can complain bitterly here, perhaps suggesting that Apple could have provided a choice between using iCloud and burning DVDs:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/

Whilst Macs with a Superdrive continue to be able to burn video DVDs, the software for so doing, iDVD, is no longer included in the iLife bundle that comes with OS 10.7 Lion (which also omitted iWeb) or will come with OS 10.8 Mountain Lion. And it is no longer included in the iLife 11 from the online Apple Store: http://www.apple.com/ilife/. Your only solution is to look on Amazon or eBay and try to get an older version that includes iDVD.

However, the vastly more expensive FCPX can burn a DVD without iDVD or DVD Studio Pro involvement, but lack the themes etc of iDVD. Also, of course, there is Roxio Toast.

And if you think Microsoft are any better, their new Windows 8 operating system will not play DVDs, or burn them, unless customers buy an extra upgrade, the company has announced.

In other words, computer manufacturers have declared optical media as dead, long before consumers are ready to stop using them, which is fine as long as they offered us a choice, but they won’t even do that.

Here are directions for Burn.

http://www.creativetechs.com/iq/easily_burn_movies_to_a_dvd_without_apples_idvd. html

I have a new iMac with iMovie but no iDVD

Call Apple they will sent out iDVD at no charge. (There are no realistic substitutes.)

408-996-1010

800-692-7753

If you are still within your 15 day return period, nicely explain that you may/will return the computer without iDVD. That usually does the trick. You MUST speak to a senior advisor to get a free copy. The first tier people cannot do it.

IDVD is specifically designed to work with iMovie. I have about a half a dozen other DVD authoring programs, including Toast, Burn and others. IDVD is vastly superior and easier to use.

Am I exporting from iMovie incorrectly or do I need different software?

There is NO (good) alternative. But iDVD is very easy to get.

IDVD is a wonderful piece of software and well worth the low cost of $43.

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MC623Z-A-iLife-VERSION/dp/B003XKRZES/ref=sr_1_1?ie=U

Klaus1 wrote:

There is no real alternative to iDVD.

Ziatron wrote:

There is NO (good) alternative. But iDVD is very easy to get.

IDVD is a wonderful piece of software and well worth the low cost of $43.

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-MC623Z-A-iLife-VERSION/dp/B003XKRZES/ref=sr_1_1?ie=U

Do you say this, because it has the best quality? Does it have the best encoder of all authoring apps?

My iDVD-5 does always choose PCM for audio (although I would prefer AC3). iDVD doesn't offer much influence by the user other as graphical&menue stuff. But it does everything without the user having to think about what format and codec to pick and what the standards for DVD-confomity are.

BURN, I just today learned, that it has the ability. It is as "don't anoy the user, let me pick all decisions" as iDVD. It just encodes the source file you throw at it to DVD standard and burns it (including the TS folders, etc., just like iDVD, but without fancy menues etc.)

Toast, is very easy, too. You have to choose "DVD" from the media types (where there is: data disc, audio disc, image, copy).

Then you have "automatic" checked or pull out the options menue and set the bitrate etc. as wanted (more to decide, but not as much as it might sound, right now). One can set/pick the menue picture, too. You just drag any source file on it and Toast encodes it and you have the ready DVD with the TS folders etc.

Would be nice if there was a fourth way: use an encoding tool like Avidemux (has a auto-DVD option, too) to have the newest encoder available. Then use the resulting file to author a DVD (creeate the TS folders, menue etc.). That is what I am missing.

I wonder, what of the 3 has the best encoder: iDVD7 is the last version, so is certainly not the newest possible, Toast is always available in a sort of recent encoder. Burn? I don't know where it gets its encoders from, does it take the freeware encoders made by the ffmpegX and libravcodec projects that Handbrake and Avidemux use?

I am attracted to iDVD primarily because of its menu system capabilities. One can have moving menus starting at the exact frame you wish.

Regarding encoding times, I find I can encode a one hour movie in about 40 minutes using iDVD.

I also use Toast, the final result of the movie is the same as iDVD, but the menu systems are much simpler than what you can do with iDVD. I've tried six or seven different DVD authoring programs, NONE of them come close to the ease-of-use and power of iDVD.

Thanks for your insights. (and sorry, if I double posted in the other thread, I didn't see that post coming in my mail account).