DVD Architect DVD will not play on Mac;(

[Mike Kujbida]

This is in no way your fault.
My guess is that he doesn’t have an MPEG-2 codec installed on his machine.
Tell him he has to buy the codec for his machine, watch it using a regular DVD player & TV or install VLC.

[Ben Edwards]

Thanks, I guess in his infatuate wisdom Steve Jobs decided that we should all stop using DVDs and use apples proprietary quicklime format.

I am glade I am not a Mac user, I don’t think I could take the iPain.

Ben

[John Rofrano]

I guess the real question for the client is, “has he ever watched commercial DVD’s on his Mac before?” You can’t just play a DVD on a PC without DVD software. If a commercial DVD works and yours does not, then we need to find how what makes yours different. DVD Architect DVD’s should play just fine on any DVD player or PC/Mac with DVD Player software.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Al Bergstein]

You didn’t say if this DVD was HD, SD, AVCHD or Blu Ray or not (Or I missed it). I have two Macs and two Windows 7 boxes. Commercial DVDs work fine in all four. So there’s something in what you burned that is not set to play properly on the Macs. If it was a BluRay disk, Macs don’t have Blu-Ray play capability, as Jobs won’t license Blu-Ray from Sony. So you can burn a Blu-Ray on a Mac, but can’t play it (sigh). I routinely burn them on my mac and watch them on my Windows machines, as sometimes it’s essential to be using FCP. However, burning standard DVDs with Windows/Vegas/DVDA is not a problem. Hope this helps!

Alf

[Ben Edwards]

The clue is in the title ‘DVD Architect DVD will not play on Mac’;).

Interesting I’me getting mixed messages. Some say you need software/codec and some say it should just work. Are you sure you have not installed any extra software on your mac. You may be using the apple DVD player but maybe VLC installs codecs that work in apple DVD player. I have asked them to try VLC.

ben

[Al Bergstein]

Sorry, back again. I just created a DVD tonight for a friend. Created a standard def DVD on my HP desktop machine using DVDA. Nothing special. Used MainConcept MPG2 and created a WAV file for the soundtrack (it was a live concert recorded in HD on a HMC150). Burned fine on the HP, played fine on both the HP and my MacBook Pro. No issues. Played on the MBPro DVD player just like any old commercial DVD. I don’t believe I have ever installed anything special on the MBPro to play a Windows based DVD. I’ve played hundreds of DVDs on this machine. Not sure what to tell you. Did your client get back to you with any clues? I’m curious because for my current other project, I’m going to be burning a lot of DVDs in standard def. Wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something.

Alf

[Rob Strobbe]

It’s nothing to do with Steve Jobs or Quicktime. Unlike most other common video formats / codecs, MPEG2 playback must be licensed. So most computers do not come with MPEG2 (and therefor DVD) playback preinstalled. Even computers that come with a DVD-ROM drive usually come with TRIAL playback software so the user has to buy it in order to continue watching DVDs.

This has always been true for PCs also, though I think Microsoft started eating the cost of the license as of Vista. If Alf Hanna’s post is correct, then perhaps Apple has started doing the same.

Rob

[Brad Miller]

I had a very similar problem. Shot video with the Panasonic HMC-150, edited in Sony Vegas Video, and created the DVD in DVD Architect. Played back fine on my PC, plays fine on my Toshiba DVD player and my GO Video DVD players…

Give it to the client, and it doesn’t play on his PS3, IBM Thinkpad, or Macbook Pro, and now I look like an idiot for giving him a “bad” DVD.

[Brad Miller]

I think it has to do with using variable bitrates with DVD Architect. I ended up just burning the DVD using Window Vista’s default DVD software and the DVD played fine.