The Burn Disc Workaround

[johndparsons]

Guys, I need some reassurance in my battle with Premiere 9 and my Mac. It should be simple this. I want to burn a dozen edited movies on a 4.76GB Dvd. I have burned two without too much trouble but when attempting a burn with a third movie it is 'inappropriate disc'! Its the same disc,the same software but disc burns have never been a barrel of fun. I figure this means using The "Burn Disc" workaround so with Steve's Guide on PRe 9, it is Burn to a folder, Share/Computer/Mov and then press Save. I get the file name/Mov So far looking good. However, the next instruction:- "delete all of the video, then place [presumably open?] the Mov on the timeline" Scary Why so chicken? I tried all of this with a short old movie which I did not mind losing....and guess what, I lost it. Damaged file I was offered. So, tell me i am on the right track and I will take the plunge. If there is any possibility that something can go wrong in computing then it comes my way. Thankyou
John







Mac book Pro 2.53 Ghz core 2 Duo Mac OS X Ver 10.6.8. Mem 4GB Iomega 500GB portable HD

[Chuck Engels]

Hi John,
99% of these kinds of problems are due to the type of discs being used.
Many DVD that are manufactured are poor quality, take a look at this list
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=273

Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden are among the best, what brand of discs are you using?

For the workaround you should be exporting the DVD files to a folder with Premiere Elements and then using Imgburn to burn the DVDs, is that what you are doing?

When using these programs there is no way that your original files will be changed or damaged, it is not possible.
Only the export files can have issues but that is not common either. Do not worry

[Bob]

Something doesn't sound right. "delete all of the video, then place [presumably open?] the Mov on the timeline" doesn't sound like something that should be happening. It sounds like you chose the option to export a mov file, not a dvd folder. If you successfully exported a mov file, you could open a NEW project and place the mov file you just created on the timeline, recreate the dvd menus, and burn a dvd from that. But, that's not what you should be doing. When you share, choose the option to create a dvd and from within that select the burn to folder option. That will create a folder containing the files, including the menus, in the proper format and naming convention for a DVD.

Once you have created that dvd folder, you need a program that knows how to burn that folder to the dvd disc. Imgburn is a Windows program. I don't know whether or not you can run it on your Mac using one of the virtual machine or windows emulation facilities on the Mac. But, there should be Mac based burning programs that you can use -- including some free ones.

[johndparsons]

Thanks guys for all the help. I have been using Verbatim DVD-R, not too easy to get this side of the pond. When I moved over to Apple I
never transferred any over from Windows; too complex for my old brain. Yes, I was using para 18 and appendix to the guide but probably did not paraphrase too well that problem in my previous. I will have another try in a day or so and hopefully not have to bother you all again.
John

[Chuck Engels]

Imgburn is a Windows program. I don't know whether or not you can run it on your Mac using one of the virtual machine or windows emulation facilities on the Mac. But, there should be Mac based burning programs that you can use -- including some free ones.

Oooops, thanks for covering that Bob. Sorry, I missed the MAC part of the post

[mferris]

Steve or Chuck — Have been trying to burn a DVD from folder using the workaround (Chapter 18), and the burn utility built into Windows 7. Can’t seem to get it to work correctly. Here’s the step-by-step I used:

From the Elements 9 project, I “Shared” the movie to disc, then specified “Folder(4.7GB)”, and the process created a folder with the name I gave it (“MovieFolder1”).

This folder has 2 subfolders: “OpenDVD” and “VIDEO_TS.” The first folder contains a “Source folder, with a bunch of Source subfolders and some other files. The second contains 2 .BUP files, 2 .IFO files, and 5 .VOB files. There’s a short, blank VOB file — also called VIDEO_TS — and 4 VOB files with segments of video on them from the movie. The first one, named VTS_01_0, is 53MB, has the menu screen on it, and appears only to be as long as the audio loop I selected for the menu.

The next 2 (_1 and _2) are movie segments, each .99 GB long. (Apparently, the burn-to-folder program in PE9 likes to segment the actual video into .99 Gigabyte pieces.) The last clip (_3) is only 52MB, and represents the last part of the movie.

Question 1: how do I play this movie in it’s entirety on the PC? It appears that only the 4 VOB files actually play, and only for their individual segment length.

Question 2: how do I burn this movie to a physical DVD? Following the instructions implied in Chapter 18, I selected only the VIDEO_TS folder for the actual burn to a physical disc. The Windows 7 burn utility said only some of the files could be burned. I said go ahead, and it burned the movie, but not the menu items. Instead, some stills from random places in the movie showed prior to the movie starting. Very weird.

I tried the burn process again, and this time everything on the DVD was blank.

Would appreciate some more detail on how this workaround is supposed to work.

Thanks,

Mike in Chicago

[Steve Grisetti]

To burn your DVD files to a disc, make sure you select the option to burn a folder. You want the VIDEO_TS folder itself with the files in it. Not just the files. The folder is what indicates to your DVD player and your computer that you have a DVD disc.

Likewise, to play the DVD files on your computer, you must select the option to play a folder. (Not all media players have this option.) Then you select the VIDEO_TS folder to play.

[Bob]

Don't use the Windows utility to burn the DVD from the folder. It's best if you use a burning program that knows how to create a valid DVD. Many people here use the free utility Imgburn for this purpose. You can get it at http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download. You don't need the OpenDVD folder.

The structure and naming convention of the files in the Video_TS folder are defined by the DVD specification. The VOB files do contain the video and menus, but they aren't intended to be played independently. They are actually one logical VOB that has been arbitrarily divided into aproximately 1GB chunks -- that's not Adobe's idea, the whole industry does that. To play back the movie and menus, the DVD player uses the Video_ifo file which defines where the menus and content is located.

To play back the DVD folder on your computer you need a player that understands the structure of a DVD and how to use the ifo file. There are many players that will do that. Many people use the free VLC media player http://www.videolan.org/vlc/.

[mferris]

Thanks, Steve . . . that's consistent with what I thought the book was saying: folder, not file.

And thanks, Bob, for suggesting Imgburn and VLC. Both worked flawlessly. I have VLC on my Mac, but had forgotten about it. The version for Windows 7 is just as easy to use.

Appreciate you guys!

Mike

[Steve Grisetti]

That's Muvipix for you!