burning cd's on g4
 

Is it possible on a g4 with DVD burner to burn cd's with video (quicktime files) from fcp 3?
I have no trouble burning music cd's, just want to burn data and small video clips.
What would I have to do to make this happen?

Regards
Rick

Yes, you can burn data (QT files) to a CD or DVD. The file can then be opened in another computer with QT or a QT compatible player.

Toast Titanium is a very handy utility for this purpose. It's one of the "it just works all the time" utilities.

You should be able to export your file as Quicktime from FCP3 using whatever codec and settings you desire. Or for that matter just export as a FCP movie if you're using the DV codec (FCP files are just Quicktime with DV compression). After doing this you can open it in Quicktime Pro and set some other options if needed, like high quality, autoplay, controller, etc. Then just insert a blank CD and drag the file to it...

Hi all:
Just posted this as a seperate thread, but guess it should have been here in the first place...
I just exported a project as a QT file directly throught to Toast Video CD - it appears as an option if Toast is installed. I got a VCD alright, correctly set up and plays back fine, with image quality much better than I had expected - except that the squashed 720 x 576 PAL image in FCP remained just that - a squashed image.
when I exported the same project as a QT fle at highest resolution and quality, and used it to burn a DVD in iDVD, I got a DVD with the image unsquoze - and more than decent quality.
Is there something else I have to tick as an option when exporting to Toast VCD from FCP? (I have FCP 3.0.2 on a Dual i GHz).
Thansk and best,
Ram

Rick, if you want to burn a CD that can be read on Windows PC's, be sure to use Toast. Using the Finder's CD burning feature is a sure bet that Windows users won't be able to read the disc. But choosing the "Mac extended and PC hybrid" setting under Toast will make all things good. Toast is also over twice as fast as the Finder, as the Finder must first copy all of the files at burning speed before the actual burning begins (what's up with that?). Also, when you burn a disc on a Mac and you are coming close to the full capacity of the CD, be aware that there will be a 2 to 4 meg invisible file added just for the desktop database.

N., MPEG1 (VCD) is limited to a 4:3 aspect ratio. It cannot do widescreen. If you are encoding anamorphic video into MPEG, then it will remain anamorphic. You could "unsquash" it with a 16:9 TV, but it won't do it automatically in the DVD player since there are no anamorphic flags on VCDs. I'd recommend making a letterboxed FCP movie and then encoding that into a VCD.

Ted, thanks: Guess I didn't make my problem quite clear, so let me sort that out...
I am not working with anamorphic video: I'm working with standard PAL 4:3 (768 x 576) video. FCP captures that from DV as a 720 x 576 frame because of the square pixel/non-square pixel display issue.
When I export the QT file from FCP, it seems to export the 720 x 576 frame ( which is why I used the word 'squashed' - didn't mean it in terms of anamorphic video... my mistake!)
iDVD correctly restores the 720 x 576 frame to 768 x 576 when encoding into MPEG-2 - not sure how it does that - so that it plays back perfectly as a 4:3 frame on standard def TV sets.
The Toast VCD option, however, does NOT seem to restore the 768 x 576 frame. The result I'm getting is that everything looks slihtly elongated when played back on a standard def 4:3 TV; and if I switch the TV frame to 16:9, everything looks more flattened than it should be.
There - does that explain my problem a little better? :-)
Sorry if my previous post was confusing!
Over and out!
Ram

Toast does not force the 16:9 aspect ratio settings that you are looking for. If you go to Studio Pro 2 then make the project force 16:9 ratio then export it to Toast then you could do this. Also if you have the project in FCP you may be able to force 16:9 aspect ratios from there as well.