I’ve got some MP4 video files that I need to send to my dad. He has a TV with built-in DVD player.

Do I need to convert to anything before burning to DVD for him?

Using iMac and have iDVD and iMovie.

Get the tv model and you’ll be able to find what formats it’ll play (or it’ll be in the instructions). Many will play MP4 straight off though.

I don’t know anything about Mac software but DVDs aren’t just a movie on a disc, there’s all the menus and other complicated stuff. You can’t just copy a file to a DVD and expect a standalone player to work, you’ll need specific DVD authoring software to create a DVD to standards a player will accept. (Is that what iDVD does?)

Some DVD players can play files from USB, ditto some TVs, but that’s highly dependent on whatever the manufacturer decided to support.

Does he have a computer? Your simplest solution would be to tell him to use that as a playback device.

FWIW, the tvs I’ve had with built in DVD players all played MP4 files.

I would have thought a mac would have software to produce a proper DVD with a basic menu to choose clips.

does the Tv have usb? might be easier to put them on a pen drive instead of DVD.

FWIW, the tvs I’ve had with built in DVD players all played MP4 files.

Ah, I missed the “built-in” comment.

Equally I ve come across built in DVD players that fall over with compressed formats. I would make a standard DVD video using iDVD or similar or share via YouTube/vimeo