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Burning audio CDs, video and slideshow DVDs - Mac OSX

Last updated: 03 November 2010
Published in: Creating new digital media |
Tags: accessibility | conversion | dvd |

Burning your photos or movie files to a disc sounds, on paper, like a relatively simple task, but can often turn out to be a confusing and time consuming one. Choosing the right file types and knowing which software to use is often never clear and instructions on the simplest method to create CDs and DVDs on the whole do not come pre-installed on a computer. With these things in mind, this document provides step-by-step guides and practical advice on how to create audio CDs and video DVDs using the simplest approaches on Macintosh machines (see also our guide for Windows).

This document contains the following how-to guides:

How to create an audio CD
How to create a video DVD
How to create a slideshow DVD

How to create an audio CD

The simplest way to burn an audio CD on a computer is to do it through the built-in media library application, iTunes.

1. Open iTunes by double clicking on the iTunes icon in the Applications menu, in the Finder window.

Image 1 - The Finder window

2. If your audio files are not already in the iTunes Library add them by dragging and dropping them onto the music icon in the Library sidebar, shown below.

Image 2 - iTunes Library sidebar

3. Burning a CD in iTunes has to be done from a playlist. Create a new playlist by selecting the + button from the toolbar in the bottom left hand side of the window.

Image 3 - Playlist toolbar

3. You will see a new playlist appear in the Library sidebar called ‘untitled playlist', as shown in image 8 below. Double click on the text to rename the playlist. This will be the name of your CD.

Image 4 - Playlists

4. Click on the music icon in the Library sidebar and drag and drop your selected audio files onto your new playlist. You can rearrange the order of your playlist (and CD) by clicking on the playlist icon and moving the tracks up or down.

5. To burn your playlist to disc click on the burn disc button in the bottom right hand toolbar.

Image 5 - Burn disc button

6. iTunes burns CDs with a default 2 second gap between each track. If you wish to change this setting select a different time in the drop down box in the Burn Settings window, as shown below. The standard gap time on most commercial audio CDs is 0 seconds. Click on the Burn button and inset your blank CD when prompted.

Image 6 - Burn Settings

How to create a video DVD

For Mac users, all computers come with iDVD preinstalled.

There are two video programs installed with Mac OSX, iMovie and iDVD. iMovie is designed primarily for editing video files and allows you add captions, integrate photos and sound files with video files to produce a final rendered video. iDVD is then the next stage in creating a DVD from your rendered video files. It is a very simple DVD authoring application which allows you create menus and put slideshows and movie files on the same DVD. If you have video files (or photos for a slideshow) which do not require any editing then iDVD is the perfect tool for authoring video DVDs.

These steps assume that you have one, or a number of video files ready for burning to a disc.

1. Open iDVD from the Finder window in the Applications folder.

2. From the menu page select Create a New Project . This allows you to customise your menu settings as shown in the following steps. Alternatively, Selecting the option OneStep DVD allows you burn a DVD from a movie on your hard disk, skipping the creative process involved in creating menus, modifying themes, and so on. When you insert the burned disc into a DVD player or a computer, the disc plays automatically, and with no menus. This is a good option if you only have one video file and you do not wish to have a menu. However, if you do choose OneStep DVD, iDVD burns the disc according to the format (NTSC or PAL) settings specified in iDVD preferences. To correctly amend this, see step 5.

Image 7 - Create New project
Image 7 - Create a New Project

3. In the next window give your project a name and select a location on your computer to save it in the next window.

4. You also have the choice here to select the aspect ratio of the DVD. Choose 4:3 (standard) or 16:9 (widescreen) depending on the aspect ratio of your video file. Note that if your video file is standard ratio and you set the disc settings to widescreen (or both vice versa), you will end up with a squashed or (stretched) resultant video on your DVD.

Image 8 - Aspect Ratio

5. Make sure the DVD project is set to prepare a DVD that will be viewable on UK DVD players. Click on iDVD from the top screen menu and select Preferences. Click on the Projects icon and make sure the Video Mode is set to PAL.

Image 9 - PAL

6. The iDVD window is split into two sections, the preview section on the left hand side, which shows you how your DVD will look, and the toolbar on the right, where you can apply changes and add media to your project, which is then authored to DVD.

Image 10 - iDVD layout

7. Firstly you will need to choose from one of the themes from the toolbar. This will define the look of the menu that appears on the screen when you play the disc in a DVD player.

8. Once you have chosen a theme, double click on the title text box to rename, and drag and drop your movie file into the preview window from the media browser in the toolbar.

9. You can rename the video file to a name of your choice, but if you only have one video file renaming to the word ‘Play' will mimic the style of most commercial DVDs

10. Drop Zones, as seen in Image 10, allow you drag and drop images or movies to the menu page to create a unique menu.

11. When you have finished customising your menu layout, click on the preview button to test the DVD (this is how it will appear when played on a DVD player), as shown below.

Image 11 - Preview and Burn

12. When you are happy with the preview, click on the Burn button (see above image) and insert your blank DVD when prompted.

How to create a slideshow DVD

Creating a slideshow DVD can be done in almost exactly the same way as creating a video DVD, in iDVD, as described in the previous section. Alternatively, you can create a customised slideshow in iPhoto, or a video file from photos in iMovie if you wish to use the Ken Burns effect on your photos (to emulate a video camera slowly zooming out of a picture), as this feature is not included in iDVD. The following steps provide instructions on how to create a simple slideshow with custom transitions in iDVD.

1. Follow Steps 1 - 6 in the section above, Creating a Video DVD - Mac, choosing 4:3 as the aspect ratio.

2. Rename the menu title shown in Image 10.

3. To create a slide click on Project > Add Slideshow and then double click on the title new title My Slideshow created in the preview section to display the slideshow window.

4. Drag and drop images into the Slideshow window by clicking on Media, in the toolbar (see Image 10), and then the Photos tab to open photos from iPhoto, to create a slideshow.

Note: If you wish to use photos not stored in iPhoto you can drag and drop images into the Slideshow window from the Finder.

5. In the Slideshow window arrange the photos until they are in the desired order.

6. Use the Slideshow toolbar to customise the slide duration and any transition effects, shown below.

Image 12 - Slideshow Toolbar

Last updated: 03 November 2010
Published in: Creating new digital media |
Tags: accessibility | conversion | dvd |

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