Can't copy Non-Commercial DVD

Help please guys,

it's my first time trying to burn anything and so far I've toasted 3 DVD+R's lent by a mate, plus 3 DVD-R's I bought.

I am trying to copy a video DVD made by a mate on a PC. The video is of us having fun flying our rc gliders. I don't know what software he used to create it but it plays just fine in my DVD player.

So far I've tried:

- Using Disk Utility, make New Image, then rename image to .iso (from .cdr), then Burn using Disk Utility. This comes up with a verify fail message and the DVD will play on the mac but not on the DVD player.

- as above but without renaming the image file. This produces a Can't Burn error and although the disk will play in the mac it is missing most of the data. It certainly won't play on the DVD player.

- Download and use Mac the Ripper to rip a VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folder, then use DVD Imager (freeware) to create an .iso image, then Burn with both Disk Utility and Burn (freeware). In both cases the verification step fails and the DVD will play on the mac but not on the DVD player.

This is not something I'll be doing often so I don't want to buy Toast. Is there a free method that works with non-commercial DVD's?

Oh, I'm using Leopard 10.5.3 on a near new Macbook Pro.

Ken.

Once you have the VIDEO_TS directory I have always used toast to create the disk. Hopefully someone will come along with the answer you are looking for.

You can try using Disk Utility to make a .dmg image and then burn that.
I usually use Toast.