Newbie question on burning video DVDs

Hello, everyone, I have some questions regarding video DVD creation.

I have a number of .avi videos of music performances which I need to burn to DVD (so that they play on any standard DVD player, and not just on computers). I also need to manually put chapter marks at the start of every movement. In the past few days I've already burned 2 such video DVDs, but it has been extremely time consuming. I had to import files to iMovie, and the import process usually took just as long as the video was. Then, after I added the chapters, I exported the iMovie project to iDVD and burned it out, and iDVD would take just as long to process the video... If I had a video of a 90 minute concert, it would take about three hours to get the whole process done (90 minutes importing to iMovie, 90 minutes for iDVD to process the whole to DVD)
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Is there any possible way (or software) that can let me add chapter marks to an .avi file, and then do a one step conversion directly to DVD video? I used to use Nero Vision on my PC, which could do exactly what I wanted, I hope that I could do the same on my new Mac.

Umm... does anyone have advice?

Is there anyone who could give me advice on how to quicken up the process? Or is there a more efficient way to get my tasks done? I urgently need help on this, since I have a large number of video files I need to process for work.

Have you tried using iMovie and iDVD???

EDIT: My bad... didn't read the whole post (was really just giving you a "bump"). I don't know of a faster way given the fact that you are wanting to edit Chapters into the movies. Can you do the editing in iMovie (or used the edited .avi) then do the burning through Toast?

I don't believe there is a trial version, but if you do much DVD creation at all it is worth the investment IMO.

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast/titanium/overview.html

Also... To speed up the process... I turn OFF the disk verifying. That cuts off a great deal of time. I can "verify" it myself by throwing it in my DVD player to see if it works.

RIDE said:

Have you tried using iMovie and iDVD???

Click to expand...

If you read my first post, I AM currently using iMovie and iDVD; I'm looking for a more efficent way of doing the job, since I have to convert each file two times (once on iMovie import, once on iDVD burning)

I feel your frustration. I am in the process of burning my camcorder files onto dvds. It is a lengthy process, but I convert them all to a disk image which makes it easy to make multiple copies, and it takes up less space. if you find a better way, let me know

EDIT: My bad... didn't read the whole post (was really just giving you a "bump"). I don't know of a faster way given the fact that you are wanting to edit Chapters into the movies. Can you do the editing in iMovie (or used the edited .avi) then do the burning through Toast?

I don't believe there is a trial version, but if you do much DVD creation at all it is worth the investment IMO.

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/toast/titanium/overview.html

Also... To speed up the process... I turn OFF the disk verifying. That cuts off a great deal of time. I can "verify" it myself by throwing it in my DVD player to see if it works.[/QUOTE]

I got some advice from another forum on bypassing the importing to iMovie step, and it worked well enough for me... at least I'm spared the entire trouble of two-step conversion. I'll try using Toast next time and see whether Toast or iDVD is quicker in converting the project to DVD format. I guess the only thing missing in Toast is the ability to manually create chapters (which can be done in Nero Vision); other than that Toast is perfect for my needs.