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About Jonathan H Pienaar
Expertise
Professional Final Cut Pro HD editor, with some experience in DVD Studio Pro, Motion and Shake. Currently working mainly for South Africa's version of "60 Minutes" - "Carte Blanche". Please include in your question they type of computer you have (PC or Mac) and which operating system (e.g. OSX Leopard, Windows XP, Ubuntu Linux) so that I can be sure I'm giving you the right advice.

Experience
20 years as a professional editor: worked in feature films, commercials, music videos and actuality. Never worked in Reality. Never will.

Organizations
South African Guild of Editors

Education/Credentials
High school, 2 years of university degree.

Awards and Honors
CNN African Journalist of the Year Category winner (twice)

You are here: Experts > Computing/Technology > Desktop Video > Desktop Video > Burning MP4'S to dvd?

Desktop Video - Burning MP4'S to dvd?

Expert: Jonathan H Pienaar - 10/26/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hi John,
I have a wealth of video footage in MP4 format, from concerts I have been to all over the world. I have backed them up using disks and also online storage. But ive always wanted to watch them on my tv, so how can i do this. I know im going to have to use a program that converts the file before burning to a dvd videos file or an iso, because not many dvds play mp4s from what i understand.

Which program is best for this and are there any other suggestions you could offer as to how i can watch my mp4 clips on my tv while backing them up at the same time.

Best, Lee

ANSWER: Hi Lee

My assumption, as always is that you are running Windows.

Yep, you'll have to convert them, which includes increasing their size to fit on a video/tv screen. Seeing that they're probably compressed quite a lot, you shouldn't expect the greatest quality- once blown up, all the tiny artefacts you can't see on your mobile are suddenly very apparent.

FFMPEgX on my Mac - the windows version is available here: http://code.google.com/p/winff/ This should allow you to convert your clips directly to MPeg2 - check

then you will need a DVD authoring program in order to take those video clips and make them into a DVD format that you DVD machine can read. If you have one of the latest versions of Nero or Roxio, these normally have a perfectly adequate DVD authoring program which will allow you to sort and create basic menus etc. for playing your files.

Alternatively, I have given recommendations in previous answers for various types of DVD authoring software - just search "DVD Authoring" and I'm sure you'll find it.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for the response, I've made my mind up Im not going to convert them to dvd format, because as you said it compromises the quality. So what im going to do is copy them to a disk in their original format (mp4). What Im asking now is apart from nero whats the best way to do this as I want to back them up on the strongest software available for easy access in the event I should need them.

thank you very much.

Lee

Answer
Hi Lee

Converting to DVD should not necessarily degrade the quality - in fact you are "uprezzing" - you are increasing the size and frame rate. But while increasing the size, any softness or blurriness or artefacts will become more apparent, so watching them on a larger screen may make them more obvious... depending on the quality of the originals, this may be acceptable for your personal viewing pleasure.

If you are simply wanting to copy the files to DVD or CD disks for backup, then it's pretty irrelevant which software you use - even Windows can burn files to a DVD as far as I know (sorry, I'm using Mac, which has sees CDs and DVDs as writeable disks). What is more important is the quality of disks you buy... it's worth buying branded disks like Verbatim, rather than "no-name brand cheapies".

Always burn at a low speed to guarantee consistency, and check the disks afterwards.

But before you resign yourself, try the uprezzing option on one or two clips... maybe it'll be ok ... then at least you can share your videos and enjoy them in another way ;)

all the best.

j0n

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