Mac Mini DVD authoring?

Posted by: robricc

Mac Mini DVD authoring? - 24/05/2005 11:43

I am considering buying a base ($499) Mac Mini solely for DVD authoring. I recently bought a Neuros MPEG4 Recorder as an easy way to digitize my VHS collection of stuff recorded off television. I have various video input cards for PCs, but I find them all to be of poor quality. There’s almost always either a picture full of interference, volume level problem, or audio sync issue.

I would like to convert about 200 VHS tapes to DVDs using the MPEG4 encoder to capture the video. My DVD authoring software must be able to convert MPEG4 to the proper DVD MPEG2 format without me having to fire-up another program. I would assume iDVD fits this requirement?

If I bought the base-model Mac Mini without DVD writer, would I be able to author a DVD with iDVD and then burn it on my PC somehow?

I’m not against using an all-PC solution, but they all really suck. The Ulead stuff is cheap but buggy and I don’t recall if it converts on-the-fly. DVD Lab won’t convert video formats on-the-fly either. Are their any other easy choices for the PC?
Posted by: mschrag

Re: Mac Mini DVD authoring? - 24/05/2005 11:59

If you want to put up a sample, I'll be happy to grab it and try it out on iDVD to make sure it does what you want ...
Posted by: robricc

Re: Mac Mini DVD authoring? - 24/05/2005 12:03

Cool, I will try and make something tonight and upload it somewhere.
Posted by: tman

Re: Mac Mini DVD authoring? - 24/05/2005 12:10

Quote:
If I bought the base-model Mac Mini without DVD writer, would I be able to author a DVD with iDVD and then burn it on my PC somehow?

Yeah. You can create the DVD image on the Mac with iDVD 5 and then transfer it over to your PC for burning.
Posted by: andym

Re: Mac Mini DVD authoring? - 24/05/2005 12:12

Quote:
If I bought the base-model Mac Mini without DVD writer, would I be able to author a DVD with iDVD and then burn it on my PC somehow?


You shouldn't have a problem, now that iLife 05 is out iDVD will make an ISO for you. I upgraded recently to 05 and burnt my first iDVD DVD with k3b on my linux box, worked a treat and seeing as you'd be buying now, you should get 05 anyway.
Posted by: andym

Re: Mac Mini DVD authoring? - 24/05/2005 12:13

Dammit, beat me to it!
Posted by: robricc

Re: Mac Mini DVD authoring? - 24/05/2005 12:33

Will the Mac see my Windows shares natively, or will I have to install Samba? The last time I installed Samba (4-5 years ago), it was a pain to get it working.
Posted by: tman

Re: Mac Mini DVD authoring? - 24/05/2005 13:04

Quote:
Will the Mac see my Windows shares natively, or will I have to install Samba? The last time I installed Samba (4-5 years ago), it was a pain to get it working.

It's built in now. Just go to the Network page and you should be able to browse the network and select your Windows machine. You can do it the other way around if you want and mount the Mac HD from your Windows machine by enabling Windows Sharing.
Posted by: mlord

Re: Mac Mini DVD authoring? - 24/05/2005 13:36

External USB2/Firewire drive enclosures could be handy for situations like this.. makes sharing the DVD burner easier, if that's of any help here.

Cheers
Posted by: robricc

Re: Mac Mini DVD authoring? - 24/05/2005 13:41

That's a possibility. I have an empty enclosure already...

Looking at some reviews, it looks like I will be upgrading the memory to 1GB myself. 256MB is universally regarded as too little.
Posted by: eliceo

Re: Mac Mini DVD authoring? - 24/05/2005 13:58

Quote:

It's built in now. Just go to the Network page and you should be able to browse the network and select your Windows machine. You can do it the other way around if you want and mount the Mac HD from your Windows machine by enabling Windows Sharing.

I thought I read somewhere that the mac end (Tiger) changed something made windows SMB shares act funny, But Samba worked fine.
Posted by: tman

Re: Mac Mini DVD authoring? - 24/05/2005 14:28

Quote:
Quote:

It's built in now. Just go to the Network page and you should be able to browse the network and select your Windows machine. You can do it the other way around if you want and mount the Mac HD from your Windows machine by enabling Windows Sharing.

I thought I read somewhere that the mac end (Tiger) changed something made windows SMB shares act funny, But Samba worked fine.

I'm using Tiger on my mini and I've not noticed anything particularly odd about it. Mounting the SMB share works okay apart from it disconnects sometimes when it's idle it seems which is a bit annoying.