DVD authoring: some success, mostly failure

[Randy Clark]

I apologize in advance for my rantings. I'm a frustrated DVD authoring
wanna-be.

I guess I should consider my 500mhz G3 iMacDV SE a "legacy" computer. I
don't have an internal SuperDrive (although my Cendyne DVR-105 from
MicroCenter is now resting proudly inside my old QueFire external case) so I
can't use iDVD. And, DVDSP requires a G4 & a wad of cash.

1st, my limited success: I was able to take an .mpg file of a music video,
demux it using ffmpegX and then create a disk image file using Sizzle. With
Toast Titanium, I chose the Other:Disc Image format and burned it to a DVD.
Miraculously, I was able to play this on my Panasonic RV31 player. The image
quality was spotty, but I assumed the original .mpg file was of lower
quality to begin with.

With this minor success under my belt, I tried my next test: taking a short
iMovie and getting it to the point where I could burn a DVD from Toast
again. 

I exported a high quality QT file from iMovie. Next, I tried demuxing the
.mov file.  My demuxing program (ffmpegX) reported that it wasn't a valid
MPEG file and spit it out. It appeared like it was looking for some type of
file header information and didn't find it.

So now I'm trying to use a newer version of ffmpegX (0.0.6c) to encode my
.mov file into a "valid" MPEG file.  At least this new version has a preset
for encoding at NTSC DVD parameters.  Of course, then I'll have to demux it
into video & audio components, then use Sizzle to combine them into a disc
image for Toast to use.  Let's see, how many hoops can I jump through?

Someone previously Software Architect's GreatVideo for Mac. I can't remember
what it's requirements are and what exactly it does for making DVD authoring
simplified. I think it lists for $99 but I'm not sure if it's X-native. I'll
see if it holds any promise for my situation.

Can anyone else share their results/processes for taking the DVD authoring
road less-traveled?  Specifically, the iMovie to simple DVD (without iDVD)
path? 
-- 
Randy Clark
hawkgx at planetkc.com
Kansas City