How can I convert m4v to avi? Need help making vcd

I need to make a vcd of photos for my mother who is not computer literate. I want her to be able to play it on her dvd player. I made a little movie slideshow with imovie and it's mv4 format and I want to convert it to avi because the program I got online ivcd can't use m4v. At least I don't think so. I tried and it didn't work. I think it needs to be converted first. I found one program but it's the trial version and puts an ugly watermark on the video.

Give Handbrake a try - it's easy to use and free.

Thanks!

Well I tried handbrake but no luck. I am not sure if I was doing it wrong or what but it just kept saying no valid source found. I wish there was a simpler way to do this. I suppose I could just go buy dome dvds and make a dvd rather than a vcd. I wanted to avoid that though.

I was able to select an m4v file with no issue. Is it a valid and non-corrupt m4v file?

I don't know what you were doing to select the video but when it opens, a open dialog should appear. When it does, simply select the video you want to convert. Note, you will have to change the output format as it defaults to encoding to MP4.

I click on the source button and choose the m4v file. It's not corrupted. I made it with idvd. It plays fine. But then it says "no valid source file found" and I can not proceed further.

Sorry I posted this in the wrong place.

I have been going crazy to figure this out. I didn't expect it to be so difficult to find software to convert the original file and then use that same software and or another one to make a vcd.

What I have done so far is find a program that did indeed convert the m4v I made but when I used ivcd trial edition to then make the vcd it didn't work and I wasted a disc. I put it in the dvd player and all it did was show a screen that gave info on the ivcd website. That could have been a matter of me not completely reading the limitations of the trial software. Perhaps it doesn't actually let you get that far but it gave me the option to burn so I don't see why it wouldn't have worked completely. I know my dvd player plays vcd's I have played them in it before.

This would all be much easier if my mom was computer literate but she is not and I know if I give her a disc of 200 photos to put in her boyfriends dinosaur of a computer it will bug out. That's why I wanted to make her the vcd. I made her one a long time ago but I no longer have that software on my PC. It was a very simple software I think it came with an old printer or scanner I used to have. I have just burned the photos to a disc but to have 200 photos developed will not be cheap. This is why I wanted to put them on a disc she could view as a slide show on her tv.

I don't completely understand the handbrake software. But as I said before it just kept saying that there was no valid source code and I don't understand what's going on.