[fishguy]

Ok I'm new to DVD. I am just about out of space on my hard drives and would like to store either finished iMovies or video that I haven't had a chance to edit yet. I would like to go back at another time, and finish editing in iMovie. I guess I'm asking if I can burn iMovies on to a DVD as a data disk so that I can open them in iMovie later on. My concern is preserving the original footage so that I can use it at a later time. I don't want to compress it if I would lose too much quality.

I just swapped out my drive for a Pioneer 104 DVD-R in my G4 DP533.

My questions are as follows:

1.When I burn a DVD using iDVD, the footage is compressed? MPEG4? I would assume that DVDs burned via iDVD are optimized for viewing only or can you work with files off of a DVD burned via iDVD, such as open a movie up in iMovie and re-edit it?

2.What is the raw footage format that goes from my camera to iMovie?

3.If I finish a DVD and am happy with it, can the DVD be easily copied to another DVD?

4.Is there another cost effective solution that I should consider to store my video footage? I already added a second hard drive (internal). I don't want to keep adding others such as external drives.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

fishguy

[Usama's Carcase]

1. compressions is mp2.
2. from cam to imovie, format is almost always DV. like your miniDV tapes.

[lucylawless]

1. actually it's MPEG-2. mp2 means MPEG-1 Layer 2 (the normal audio of mpeg files is mp2). MPEG-2 is indeed optimized for playback, but the quality is still quite good, and it would be possible (but a pain) to convert the DVD back to DV (with quicktime pro + $20 mpeg-2 component, or with an mpeg-2 decoder like MacMPEG2Dec, MacMPEG2Converter, or MediaPipe, then to DV with Quicktime Pro). You'd have to do the audio separately, then import into iMovie again.

3. It should be possible to duplicate the DVD just like a CD in Toast Ti, or Disc Copy. But I don't know if it is, and I've seen a few threads here and in OS X Software or General about it, so there might be a trick.

4. The best would be to get a bunch of DV tapes and export back to there. It should be lossless, and tape is the ideal storage form for a linear data stream like DV storage (seek time is not important, but mass storage is)

[booboo]

Originally posted by fishguy:
I guess I'm asking if I can burn iMovies on to a DVD as a data disk so that I can open them in iMovie later on....

fishguy

Yes, this is exactly what you want to do, so all the talk of compression, etc, is entirely irrelevant.

You do not want to make a DVD to play in your DVD player, you just want to burn a data DVD. (In exactly the same way, I often burn audio files to CD as data - they can't be played on my CD player, but then I'm not writing an Audio CD, I'm writing a data CD of files, some of which just happen to be audio files...)

Toast has the ability to burn DVD's in this way. Just click the Data button and drag your files over to Toast's window as you do for CD's... Toast will automatically recognise that you're burning to DVD-R when it asks you to insert a blank disk, and you insert a DVD-R...

[fishguy]

Which version of Toast can burn Data DVDs or do they all?

[ft2bme]

Originally posted by fishguy:
Which version of Toast can burn Data DVDs or do they all?

The free Apple OS X Backup utility can back up to one or more data DVDs too.

[MountainMac]

Under OS X, when you insert a blank DVD in the drive, doesn't a dialog box automatically pop up asking you how you want to prepare the disc?

Maybe this doesn't apply to you because either you have an aftermarket drive or you're not running OS X?

But if the dialog doesn't pop up automatically, can't you still burn your iMovie projects to DVD as data with Disc Copy? If not, then Toast Titanium is the answer (methinks).

Judging from what your original post stated, backing up to DV tape is not the right solution, since you still want all of the cuts, transitions, etc., from iMovie, right? If that's the case, as a corollary to this discussion, I'd suggest investing in Final Cut Pro, since you can take footage offline w/o losing any editing info. Among all the other cool stuff you can do with FCP. Like sample Bill O'Reilly screaming, "I want to go to a gay bathhouse!" over video footage of Dubya and Saddddaaaaaaam. I mean, theoretically...

[fishguy]

I am running OSX. I swapped out my internal CD/RW for a Pioneer 104 DVD-R. Do I not consider it a superdrive instead of a "third party" drive?

You're right, I do want to keep transitions, effects, etc so I think a data DVD is the way to go. Where do I find Disc Copy, the back-up utility, or whatever else I need? I searched on Sherlock and cannot find either. If that works to copy a DVD to another that will be a huge help as I have to make several for family members.

I inserted a blank DVD and did get the message asking if I want to prepare it (format). The DVD icon (for the DVD I just prepared and named) appeared on the desktop so I then dragged a folder (iMovie) for a movie to the DVD icon. It started copying the files but soon stopped and gave me error code - 36 and said that some files could not be read or written.

What am I doing wrong?

[fishguy]

Ok, I just tried opening the DVD to drag something else to it and then a window opened stating that I inserted a drive that OSX does not recognize and asks to either initialize or continue. I reinserted the DVD and tried to initialize it again. Mow I can't get the dam thing to eject.

Can someone please explain to this idiot what I do to burn a data DVD.

thank you

[fishguy]

I just burned an audio cd so that works.