people's experience burning dvds on the mini

I burned my first dvd on my mini last weekend.
I have used Panasonic set top dvd recorder for years and have been very happy with the results.
I have also read a lot about people who have used their computers to burn dvds, so I was looking forward to trying it. I took a 30 minute home video and turned it into a great dvd. For me, the big downside was that it took 2 hours to do it. It was the same thing I could have done on my Panasonic in about 35 minutes, so I was very disappointed in the amount of time it took. In anybody else's experience, is this the norm?
I have the 1.42 mini with 1 g ram and 80 g hard drive.

I have recorded many home videos that require little or no editing. I have recorded many tv shows and movied that require little or no editing. What might be my advantage in using the mini to burn dvds other than my Panasonic set top recorder other that more extensive editing or special effects?

Unfortunately, my experiences with burning DVD's on my mini are the same. If I had known how slow it would be I probably wouldn't have bought it with the Superdrive because I already have an external burner (I thought an internal one would be faster). On the other hand, even though it takes longer the tools we can use on the Mac far outpace those that you can use on your set-top burner.

dstopsky said:

On the other hand, even though it takes longer the tools we can use on the Mac far outpace those that you can use on your set-top burner.

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That's true, but they are tools I will rarely ever need or use. If I need something with special editing or effects I might use it once a year. About 14 years ago I made a music video of home movies using a camcorder, a vcr, and an audio mixer. The result was not professional, but I was happy with it and those who watched it liked it, but it was such a chore and pain in the butt to do that I have never done it again. I love to eat, but I hate to cook. I love to drive, but I don't want to tinker with cars. I want my dvd burning to be simple and straightforward. My set top recorder fills that need nicely.

I don't think the Mac Mini would be too swift at burning DVD's. I believe it has a 4x DVD burner. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

It took 2 hours just for the burning process, or was that some encoding also?

That will be encoding it as well otheriwse something is wrong!

My 2x Superdrive can write 6Gb in about 40mins

The only burning I have done with my mini was staight data with a 16x external burner, it went pretty quick.

It sounds like you are doing a lot of converting also. My 1.25 mini to copy a DVD I OWN using Mac The Ripper, and Shrink it to fit a 4.7GB Blank and burn it takes 30 Minutes or so max. You must be converting from some other format and that is taking the time. Even my old G4 Sawtooth only takes 45 min doing the above.

mynameis said:

It took 2 hours just for the burning process, or was that some encoding also?

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For me the 2 hours included the time it took to import the 30 minute video from my digital 8 camcorder to the time the dvd was finished.
I could have connected the camera to my set top recorder via firewire and been finished in about 35 minutes. It needed no editing. If I need to burn a dvd with extensive editing or rearranging of segments or special effects I will use the mini. Otherwise, the process is much easier on my set top. Also, I have a lot of RAM discs that cannot be used on the mini.

Sounds like to me the reason you are getting better times on your Panasonic set top recorder, is that you are doing only one pass with video data. Striaght from the camera to the DVD. Whereas on the mac mini your video data is going to your hard disk first and then to the DVD.

rman said:

Sounds like to me the reason you are getting better times on your Panasonic set top recorder, is that you are doing only one pass with video data. Striaght from the camera to the DVD. Whereas on the mac mini your video data is going to your hard disk first and then to the DVD.

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Yes, that's it. I do not have a set top recorder with a hard drive, but I do use RAM disks which are like mini, removable hard drives. I could have burned the 30 minute home video from my camera to a RAM disk, done some editing and then record a dvd-r from the RAM in maybe an hour and 15 minutes which is still 45 minutes faster than what I got on the mini. Like I said, for something special I would use the mini, but for the straightforward simple dvd I would use the set top to burn it.

While I've yet to do any video work on the mini - Rman is correct about the double loop - first to memory then to HD or CD burner ---- just the way the architecture works on a PPC or x86 (unless maybe you have a some kind of bus mastering drive) --- so unless you want to do some creative / post processing - don't put the mac in the loop - plus you still may have some additional processing involved depending on formats or software settings