At 12:40 PM -0400 3/22/2010, [email protected] wrote:
what should I use to convert the .avi to make a playable DVD?
(encoding?)
The .avi file contains video and audio in any of a dozen codecs,
currently most often divx or xvid. Avi, like mov or mkv, is just a
"container file" format. A playable DVD-Video contains MPEG-2 video.
(The "info" window in QuickTime Player will show you what codecs are
used in the file).
The best fundamental tool to do transcoding (convert one format to
another, frame by frame) is called ffmpeg, a free open-source
package. This multi-platform tool uses a command line interface, so
it can be a bit difficult to use.
ffmpegX (shareware) includes a fully built release of ffmpeg plus a
nice GUI.
Burn (freeware) comes with ffmpeg built in, plus other tools. You
drop the avi onto it and it does all the transcoding plus the
necessaries to produce a basic DVD-Video.
Commercial apps such as Toast do all this too. Expensive tho.
My current fav... is to do the transcoding myself with ffmpeg, then
use an old freeware app called Sizzle to create the DVD-Video as a
DMG file, with some nice menus and backgrounds. Then I test the DMG
by mounting it on my desktop (just double-click on it) and playing
the video with VLC. I burn the DMG to a DVD using Disk Utility.
HTH,
- Dan.
Dan,
Thank you for this illuminating, easy to understand, lucid, plain
English (American) explanation. I have spent hours, days, weeks
researching this mystery and it only made me more confused. Your post
deserves a nice frame and a place on my wall.
Warm regards,
Roman
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