MPEG-4 to DVD conversion guide:

This guide is designed for converting MPEG-4 type files (DIVX, XVID…) to DVD 
5 in Mac OS X.

Software you will need:
Quicktime player 6
iDVD or DVD Studio Pro
3ivx D4 4.0.3 or higher
3ivx Divx Doctor II

Be aware that Divx version 5 for mac has a known conflict with quicktime and 
will not allow audio playback. A quick solution is using the 3ivx codec instead.

Ok, this process is fairly straight forward so don't worry about having to go 
through a thousand steps.

First, use Divx Doctor II to fix all known problems with playing AVI's in the Mac 
environment. 
1. Open Divx Doctor II
2. Check boxes 'Make Stand Alone Movies' and 'Auto Run First Movie'
3. Select File>Add AVI and select your Divx movie
4. Press Start
5. This will output an AVI file that has been renamed 
yourmoviename(Converted).avi along with a MOV file with the same file name.

If you are using iDVD, skip forward to iDVD output.

Now open up your new converted AVI in Quicktime player
1. Select File>Export
2. Set your export option to 'Movie to MPEG2'
3. Click options
4. Select NTSC and 16:9
5. Select 'Save Audio' and field dominance to 'Automatic'
6. Adjust your bitrate to make the file size to 4.5 GB usually 5.2 for a 700mb Divx 
file.
7. Click Ok
8. Type in your new file name and click 'Save'

This process will take about 2 hours. The up side, this is the longest part of the 
process.

When the conversion process is complete, you will have an m2v video file and 
aiff audio file. 

iDVD output
Open up iDVD and import your MOV file. Select your menu template and link 
everything together. Now burn your DVD. Yes, this is a brief how-to on iDVD 
because I never use it and I hate it. I recommend DVD Studio Pro if you can get 
your hands on it.

DVD Studio Pro output
1. open DSP
2. import your m2v and aiff 
3. click add track and link your m2v file to it
4. click the audio icon and link the aiff file to it
5. if you want to create a menu, go ahead, but it would take to long to describe 
the process here
6. click file>build and format
7. this will give you the option to directly burn it to your DVD-R or make an 
image file that you can burn in your favorite software like toast

The process should now be complete and you should now have a pretty, shiny 
new DVD that will play in your home DVD player and should produce quality 
comparable to a new DVD.

Brian Critchlow