Burning your multi-media files on DVD and CD - Part two: Video DVDs

Meanwhile Apple hides the iTunes function for copying Audio CDs, every Mac can easily copy DVDs with the systems own Driver Utility.. This however covers only unprotected DVDs. In case you have to work with a DRM protected DVD you need to get a software that can remove the protection. I, as I would recommend, you use the VLC player, choose FairMount to do the job. Actually some mid price DVD Rippers like the Wondershare DVD Ripper are supposed to get rid of DRM in some language versions.

If you want to combine several videos in one and burn it on DVD you would need a special software for that as well. Companies like Wondershare, Leawo and Xilisoft (among many others) offer tools that will do that. If you, however, need to re-sample a very large movie file to fit on a 4.7 GB writable DVD you will have to reach out for one of the higher priced products like Toast.

A very common task is to create a custom DVD from self made videos. Once more, you will need specialized DVD authoring software for that. This kind of software takes separate audio and video files, combines them into an MPEG2 stream and creates a custom DVD out of it. (You might have seen the folder "VIDEO_TS" before.) In order to play that DVD on an ordinary DVD player a special UDF file format is needed.

Top UDF Formats:

- Blue-ray and DVD(AVCHD) use UDF 2.5 or UDF 2.6
- UDF 1.02 with ISO 9660 and UDF 1.02 file system are used by DVD Videos
- Philips DVD+VR uses UDF 1.02 with ISO 9660

The UDF file format can be added by one of the low to mid priced DVD software, that was mentioned earlier.

Dealing with MPEG video files is a little special, as these have to be converted before they can be burned. MACs own iDVD is too limited for that and again a decent DVD burning or creation software will be able to do the job.

As a result, you will need additional functionality to your standard MAC tools (iDVD and Disc Utility). You should probably look into buying a DVD Ripper, media file converter and/or authoring tool depending on what you plan to do If you plan ahead you might be able to save money and get a nicer integration of your work flow by purchasing a suite.