How to export?

[wscrivens]

I want to make a DVD of some shows to give to my son who has a Mac. I simply burned a DVD (data format, no conversion) of the .mpg file that is in my recordings folder, and the Mac says it's in an uknown format, so I tried viewing it using windows Media Player 9. It too does not recognize the format, says it must be using an "Unsupported CODEC" so I went to the Microsoft support site and learned that the necessary CODECs are supposedly automtically installed.

The DVD plays fine in GBPVR, by the way. Do I need to do anything special to make an "exportable" file from my recordings? I read about "Showburner" in the WIKI but that's a lot more than I want - I am just looking for a "quick-and-dirty" way to save a show in a format that can be read on a Mac. I don't care about including Comskip or anything like that.

Thanks!

Walt

[sub]

I want to make a DVD of some shows to give to my son who has a Mac. I simply burned a DVD (data format, no conversion) of the .mpg file that is in my recordings folder, and the Mac says it's in an uknown format, so I tried viewing it using windows Media Player 9. It too does not recognize the format, says it must be using an "Unsupported CODEC" so I went to the Microsoft support site and learned that the necessary CODECs are supposedly automtically installed.

I'm not sure about the Mac, but a clean install of Windows wouldnt normally have an MPEG2 decoder so the file would not be playable in Windows Media Player, and it would not download one automatically. Companies are supposed to supply a fee to a licensing board when they supply an MPEG2 decoder to a user, which is why Windows doesnt come with an MPEG2 decoder.

If the Mac is expecting to play a DVD, then you'll probably need to author a real DVD rather just copying a .mpg file onto a DVD disk. This would need one of the thousands of DVD authoring applications, or the showburner plugin.

Alternatively look for an alternative video file player for the Mac that lets your browse to and play the .mpg file.

[pBS]

there's also a BurnDVD plugin on the wiki that will author as well..
http://gbpvr.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Plugin/BurnDVDX2
yes, the disk needs to be 'authored' eg: the input mpegs files are altered and some other files are added to make it a true 'dvd' disk...

also make sure you're recording to proper formats when recording..
[USA = 720or352x480 with 48khz audio normally]

oh and on Mac, tell him to download VLC player and it includes everything needed to play tons of media files..
[free] including dvds..

usually mpeg decoder on mac is plugin for quicktime pro and costs $ extra..

[wscrivens]

Thanks for the replies. I was trying to avoid having to make video dvds but I guess that's the best solution for the Mac.
After making the posting this morning, I tried one of the dvds on another Windows PC and they are playable, so there may be something wrong with the Windows Media Player installation on the first PC.

Thanks for the help!

Walt

[sub]

After making the posting this morning, I tried one of the dvds on another Windows PC and they are playable, so there may be something wrong with the Windows Media Player installation on the first PC.

It'll be because the other Windows PC had an MPEG2 decoder installed, while the first one didnt.

As I mentioned above, an MPEG2 decoder isnt normally installed with Windows, but lots of software installs one on the machine. You can get a free one from http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Dsca...ilters.htm which should get your first PC playing it.