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Replacement for iDVD?

lkalliance

lkalliance

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 17, 2015
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Hi, all,

I'm running macOS Mojave, and I've come across a situation where I need to burn something to a DVD, meant to view on screen via a DVD player. I used to do this sort of thing occasionally in the past on iDVD, but of course that's no longer an option.

Can I create a playable movie that I can launch using the DVD player's remote just by burning a DVD-R with the file on it? Or, absent that (and more slickly anyway) can anyone recommend a product that can do it like iDVD did, like a regular movie DVD? I don't need any menus or anything: I just want this movie to play when I put it in the player, without the jarring experience of having to run a file.

Thanks for any guidance!
 
Burn for macOS

sourceforge.net

Burn

Download Burn for free. Simple but advanced disc burning for macOS. Create data discs with advanced data settings. Create video and audio discs, Burn will convert if needed.
sourceforge.net sourceforge.net
 
Compressor can burn DVD and/or BluRay discs using the built-in presets: https://support.apple.com/guide/compressor/built-in-destinations-cpsre58ac23d/mac

1597566964433.png
 
Dave Braine said:
Another vote for Burn. If you don't want the Blu Ray option then Burn is all you need and it's free.
Click to expand...
I saw a screenshot from Burn that showed the menu it creates and it looks sloppy. Is that from an old version? I don’t need anything fancy, plain black with white text will do, but this looked like the text was misaligned with the button image.

As I understand it from the Apple support document above, I can make a DVD that auto-plays, which would be nice.

Some background: I’ve been clandestinely putting together a birthday movie for my partner. Just 10 minutes, but we both work from home so working on it in secret is a challenge! The uncompressed file size is about a gig and a half.

I have arranged a ruse that will buy me a three-hour window to get the burn done (fingers crossed!). I think that will be enough for one shot at this. On an iMac of about 2016 vintage and an Apple external SuperDrive. I worry that I won’t have enough time to try a second time. Gotta make a good choice!

Would there be any difference in burn time between the two?
 
Not sure what you mean by "sloppy". This is what is offered in my version of Burn(2.5.1).
Screenshot 2020-08-18 at 21.27.32.png

You won't get anything like the Menu choices that iDVD offers. I have used Burn a few times, but mainly still use iDVD(with Mojave).

I can't find any option in Burn that offers autoplay of discs.

I couldn't say what the difference in burning time would be, but for a 10 minute video, the burn time only going to be about 10-15 minutes anyway.
 
Dave Braine said:
Not sure what you mean by "sloppy". This is what is offered in my version of Burn(2.5.1).
View attachment 945303
You won't get anything like the Menu choices that iDVD offers. I have used Burn a few times, but mainly still use iDVD(with Mojave).

I can't find any option in Burn that offers autoplay of discs.

I couldn't say what the difference in burning time would be, but for a 10 minute video, the burn time only going to be about 10-15 minutes anyway.
Click to expand...
Hm. I had an unexpected opportunity to try out Burn this evening. I did get it to burn, and it played in my DVD player (both on the computer and attached to my TV, but for a couple of things perhaps someone can help with:

(1) Both the disk and the text where it shows "Title Menu" in your preview have the title "Untitled". In Burn I have text "blah" in the main field (the one with the disc image next to it), and I've got the title of the movie file the same "blah." I also see that the disc itself is named "Untitled," and I don't see where or how I can change that. Can someone advise?

(2) The menu button function is disabled; once I am playing the movie, I can't return to the menu, nor can I use the back button to return to the beginning of the film. Any ideas?

Thanks for any help!
 
Hey, all, Burn worked fine, after a couple of tries. I tried to find "Compressor" on my Mac and I couldn't locate it. Perhaps it gets installed with Final Cut Pro (which I don't have)? Anyway, mission accomplished, thanks for your guidance!
 
lkalliance said:
Hey, all, Burn worked fine, after a couple of tries. I tried to find "Compressor" on my Mac and I couldn't locate it. Perhaps it gets installed with Final Cut Pro (which I don't have)? Anyway, mission accomplished, thanks for your guidance!
Click to expand...

Compressor is a paid app from Apple ... it’s one of the ‘pro’ apps along with FCPx, Logic Pro, Motion 5 and Main Stage.
 
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Oh yeah? That’s cool. I was able to get the project burned with Burn, but iDVD would have made it prettier, lol.
 
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Try DVDStyler. Its open source and a little bit unstable at times, but you can make menus the way you like them from scratch, supports SRT subtitles and its also super fast in encoding. I use it as a replacement for DVD Studio Pro.
 
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I have struggled with this since iDVD does not run on modern OS's. I have tried many of the iDVD "replacements" and have not found any that does the job as iDVD (Though Rixio Toast does..."ok"...)

So what I have done was to use one of my old macs as the iDVD mac, using Mountain Lion and it runs well.

Maybe buy a used mac mini for $100 or so and use it as a iDVD system (and older programs if needed).
 
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loby said:
I have struggled with this since iDVD does not run on modern OS's. I have tried many of the iDVD "replacements" and have not found any that does the job as iDVD (Though Rixio Toast does..."ok"...)

So what I have done was to use one of my old macs as the iDVD mac, using Mountain Lion and it runs well.

Maybe buy a used mac mini for $100 or so and use it as a iDVD system (and older programs if needed).
Click to expand...
That's kind of similar to what I sometimes do! If I want to burn a DVD, I can just either connect my Mac OS El Capitan external drive to my 2012 Mac Mini and boot from that, or I could use my 2009 polycarbonate unibody MacBook that runs Mac OS High Sierra and use iDVD on that, as it does have a working SuperDrive. (With the Mini I use my LG external USB Blu-Ray burner.)
Of course, if I want to burn Blu-Rays, I could still use Roxio Toast Pro. So far I only burned one Blu-Ray disc, of my mom's 60th birthday surprise party that I shot on my Canon Vixia HF R600 camcorder in high-definition and edited on iMovie, then exported in full HD and authored the Blu-Ray disc using Roxio MyDVD. But this year Roxio apparently discontinued the Mac version of MyDVD and instead merged all of its' features into Roxio Toast 19, so at least there's that.
 
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dwfaust said:
Burn for macOS

sourceforge.net

Burn

Download Burn for free. Simple but advanced disc burning for macOS. Create data discs with advanced data settings. Create video and audio discs, Burn will convert if needed.
sourceforge.net sourceforge.net
Click to expand...
I've tried Burn a couple times--has anyone noticed the video quality is mediocre at best? When it wanted me to convert an MP4 to MPG, the quality was horrible. I tried again, this time letting it convert a MOV to MPG--the quality was better. It's definitely the only program I've been able to use fully without a trial version or other hassle. It's easy to use, but am I alone with the quality output, or am I missing something?
 
Are you trying to put several hours of video on a DVD? I forget if Burn allows you to adjust bit rate. I usually use compressor to create/compress the video for DVD and then something like burn to author/format/burn the DVD from the already processed video files.
 
DVDStyler - good quality and fast. Best iDVD replacement I have used. Also, free..

dvdstyler.org
 
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