Q: What is the best DVD Creator for a Mac Book Pro to replace iDVD?

Ziatron  You write;

I have a new Mac Pro.  It's a shame that I must continue to use iMovie 06 and iDVD because I have found nothing better.

Why is it a shame?

You seem very happy with it and are still actively encouraging people to use it. I'm confused.

Well, for one iDVD and iMovie 6 are only 32 bit and if were continued to be developers into 64 bit apps they would be much faster and more powerful.  Both represent old technology even if the best available for creating video DVDs on a Mac.

You should follow this workflow to help assure the best qualty video DVD:

Once you have the project as you want it save it as a disk image via the File ➙ Save as Disk Image  menu option. This will separate the encoding process from the burn process.

 

To check the encoding mount the disk image, launch DVD Player and play it.  If it plays OK with DVD Player the encoding is good.

 

Then burn to disk with Disk Utility or Toast at the slowest speed available (2x-4x) to assure the best burn quality.  Always use top quality media:  Verbatim, Maxell or Taiyo Yuden DVD-R are the most recommended in these forums.

Is  the 1 hr 59 minute length for the project or just the movie  What type of menu are you using?  Animated or static?  Music added to the menu? In the Project ➙ Project Info menu window what is the projects total length? 

Why is it a shame?

You seem very happy with it and are still actively encouraging people to use it.

It's a shame because iMovie 06 And iDVD Is 6-8 year-old Technology.    As far as I can tell, Apple offers nothing better for authoring a DVD.

I've seen just about all of my other movie editing friends, and associates move to Windows, where there are many excellent choices for editing movies in standard definition and high definition.  There are terrific Windows tools for authoring DVDs and Blu-rays also.

I've purchased over 100 Macintoshes, both professionally, and personally and gotten hundreds of others to switch from Windows to Macintosh.   Now I am seeing some of these same people going back to Windows for the sole reason of movie editing and DVD/Blu-ray creation.

If iMovie still had the ability to set chapters (chapter setting was removed in iMovie 08 and 13) and if iDVD was updated to do Blu-ray's all these people would still be Apple customers.

I plan to continue using outdated software on my Mac until I have no other choice.  But clearly, in the future, an OS update will break iMovie 06 and iDVD.

I am using Toast 11.2 to back my video files to DVD.  It is painfully slow with HD content.  Does anyone know of a better/faster way?

You're just creating a data DVD and NOT a video DVD?  Frankly, for backup I would get an external hard drive formatted OS X Extended (journaled) and copy the video files to it for backup.  Much faster and quicker.  Also get a second EHD to use with Time Machine to backup both your boot drive and the video EHD.  Redundancy is good. The TM drive should be about 2 - 2.5 times the size of the drives it's backing up.

Do these instructions to El Capitan?

I am using an iGrabber to capture a VHS video.

I then try to copy the .mov or convert to MPEG4 or H.264 and copy using Wondershare Ultimate Video Converter or Toast 11 Titanium.

I Then burn using T 11 T.

Problem is that the quality of the DVD isn't as good as the VHS.

DIsk is being viewed in a DVD player and television.

Any suggestions?

jandrgold

Does this apply to El Capitan?

I am using an iGrabber to capture a VHS video.

I then try to copy the .mov or convert to MPEG4 or H.264 and copy using Wondershare Ultimate Video Converter or Toast 11 Titanium.

I then burn using Toast 11 Titanium.

Problem is that the quality of the DVD isn't as good as the VHS.

DIsk is being viewed in a DVD player and television.

Any suggestions?

jandrgold