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How to burn .m4v and .mov to DVD for DVD player?

I am new to iDVD and to burning movies to DVD-R.
I downloaded "The Mummy" 1932 movie-Universal Studios, free Podcast, no apparent DRM, from "Old Time Radio Nostalgia" in iTunes Store. Part one is a .mov file - 114 MB; part two is a .m4v file - 68 MB. Using iTunes, I burned Part one .mov file to a DVD-R but neither my portable DVD player nor my TV-DVD player recognize the file. I did not try burning the .m4v file. The portable DVD player says "disk error" regarding the .mov file. Both downloads are saved to iTunes and they both do open and play as a movie in iTunes. Quicktime also plays both files as movies. I have iDVD version 5.0.1. and Super Drive PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-127D, with DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW. +R DL
What should I do in iDVD or with some other program, to re-encode these two movie files to something else so when I burn them to DVD-R they show up on my DVD player? Thank you very much.

eMac Mac OS X (10.4) PowerBook 190 OS 7.5.5

Posted on Mar 10, 2007 4:28 PM

20 replies

Mar 13, 2007 6:07 AM in response to altero

¡Mala Suerte!

Went to bed while encoding in progress at 11% done (which took 1 hour to do - so I figured for entire movie would take another 9 hours at about 11% per hour).

Just got up Tuesday morning and to my horror, dismay, total depression and tears (not really) I see on Mac screen: "Application unexpectedly quit. Reopen or close?" I closed. It had quit at about 26% done during the night. So file in progress is still here, but how do I resume where it left off? I never got a chance to "save as".

¿Ahora que hago? This is how file looks like now:
The Mummy 1932 Part 1.mov.ff.m2v -and from Get Info: "601 MB on disk".

¿Que pasó? What happened to make it quit unexpectedly?

Mi muy estimado amigo, esto es horrible. We will be stuck with this project for another year. Consuélame por favor. At least you will learn spanish as we move along. Buy a spanish-english dictionary.

Contéstame pronto. ¿Me permite usar "tú" en vez de "usted"? One always asks permission to use "tú" the familiar form of address for "you" as opposed to "usted" - the formal form of "you".

Saludos de la tristíssima
Generosa

altero

Level 2

489 points

Mar 13, 2007 7:27 AM in response to Generosa Rader

Well, mala suerte happens... I cannot know what went wrong. (Maybe the computer got too hot?)
I don't think there is a way to recover what was already encoded, so you can delete the files resulted.

Start it over, and cross fingers this time 🙂

Look, go here ( http://web.mac.com/altero/iWeb/altero/39ADFB80-242F-4E81-AD91-E510738B136C.html), it's a page on my website. Down the page I put some pictures with the settings for ffmpegX. I hope you can see what's there, the pictures are quite small.

As for the Spanish, I didn't need till now any dictionary (I already have a Spanish - Romanian, and back), I told you I understand a lot. You know, like a dog: understands all, but can not talk...
And for sure, use the "tu", not the "usted", please. That's good in English, that they have the same word for both. But I guess they loose some subtle details because of that.

Don't be sad: imagine how glad you'll be when you'll watch The Mummy on the DVD player!

Mar 13, 2007 8:48 AM in response to Generosa Rader

Estimado amigo,

I printed your ffmpegx instructions from your web page. Thank you very much. I can read them pretty good to work from them.

I will try again later today. This is crazy. ¡Esto es una locura!

I can buy the stupid DVD movie from amazon.com for about $9.00 - why are we spending all this time and effort to be victorious over this trivial encoding problem?

I love challenges - guess that's enough reason. And you have a helpful heart, determination, and an inexhaustible supply of ideas.

As to spanish vs. english - amo mi idioma natál. It is so much more expressive and beautiful, and like you say, has shades and subtle meanings, respect and courtesies which go along with the spanish culture, that english lacks.

Hasta luego, tú amiga que permanece muy agradecida,
Generosa

altero

Level 2

489 points

Mar 13, 2007 1:53 PM in response to Generosa Rader

Hola Generosa,

One more suggestion, if you run in errors again with ffmpegX:
- Load again the movie in MPEG Streamclip, then export it as DV (it will take like 14 GB of space)
- Open iMovie, and import the DV movie (drag it over the icon in the Dock); you can also try to import the original movie in iMovie, but I doubt it will work.
- in iMovie, drag the imported clip in the timeline (the strip on the lower part of the program).
- Go to Share > iDVD; that will send the movie to iDVD, in the wright format.
- in iDVD verify that Preferences > Projects - Encoding is set to Best Performance, and no backgroung encoding
- then go to File > Save as Disk Image (I don't remember if there is that option in iDVD 5, I have version 6); that option would build the DVD as an image on your hard disk, by that allowing to test the DVD before burning. Actually, iLife 06 is a big update over version 5. But version 07 should come soon.
If you don't have that option, just do File > Burn. Leave the Mac alone, is a demanding task. Also, make sure you have at least 10% and no less than 12 GB free on the hard.
iDVD will take care to compress the huge file in a normal DVD.

Hope it helps,
La revedere (see you / goodbye / hasta pronto),
Alexandru

Mar 13, 2007 6:02 PM in response to altero

Estimado Alejandro, (spanish name)

Well, the news is mainly very bad.

I made all the changes you wrote out for me to do in the ffmpegX encoding window. I transferred part 2 of the movie (a smaller file of 68 MB as opposed the Part 1 which is 113 MB) to the proper place in the window.

Everything started moving very fast at 2:15 PM - within 15 minutes the blue progress bar was totally filled and stated 204%. At 4:40 PM the progress bar was 1895%. How can that be?

How much more progress is possible beyond 100%? I don't understand this at all.

I checked the Mac at 5:40 PM and the crash had taken place. All had stopped due to "application quit unexpectedly" or words to that effect.

This time I got a "Report Request" (what were you doing when the crash took place) and sent it to Apple - plus I made a copy for you of the details as RTF file. How can I get this to you? Do you have e-mail address I can send it? Or can I put it somewhere in your home web page? It is only 20kb. It was a KERN PROTECTION FAILURE. There are more details in computer nerd language. If you don't want the report let me know.

Mi querido amigo, I believe I have reached the end of my patience with all this. I don't like my Mac crashing like never before, twice now. I will look over your latest instructions and see if I have any espiritu, paciencia, y valor para continuar.

My e-mail is halekoa2@cox.net if you want to talk further or want me to e-mail the report to you as an attachment.

Sin más, me despido.
Mil gracias por tu solicitude.
Generosa

How to burn .m4v and .mov to DVD for DVD player?