Help with .mkv files to DVD

Can anyone please advise what's the best way to put/convert MKV files onto DVD disk while maintaining the highest playback quality possible?
As an absolute beginner to video recording, here's what I'm doing at the moment:
I'm opening the files with Quicktime Pro and the Perian extension. I then select 'Window>Show Movie Properties' and delete the unwanted Chinese voiceover and subtitle tracks. When I exit Quicktime it saves a copy of the file as a MOV, which at least seems a step in the right direction (and takes under 10 seconds). While it's pretty hard to judge by eye, the picture quality seems about the same to me, so I'm guessing there are no losses at this stage...
I then burn the new MOV files to DVD disk using Toast (which doesn't seem to recognise MKV files, and why I'm converting them to MOV in Quicktime in the first place).
However, the burn process takes an eternity... well... 12 hours for a two hour DVD anyway! Also, the image quality is disappointing to say the least. Kinda like what happens when we start enlarging a low-res JPEG image. I've partly put the image quality issue down to the fact that while it might look acceptable on a standard TV, it was never meant to be viewed on a large-screen TV when it was originally recorded 25 years ago.
So, am I incurring any unnecessary losses in my conversion method? Is there a better way to tackle this, or any special Toast burn settings to watch out for? Is there a faster way (though I'm prepared to wait as long as the burn process takes if I can maintain the best image quality)?
Thanks in advance
Ernie

Lennart Thelander wrote:
Your question doesn't involve iMovie at all. Nor does the solution (if there is any).
Karsten is one of the most knowledgeable and helpful guys around and he guided you away from here, simply because we are iMovie experts. We are not generally video exports nor codec conversion experts.
So in your own interest: Seek the answer where there is expertise to answer YOUR question.
I can only repeat what I said in reply to the other poster:"I'm totally new to video editing etc., so how was I expected to know if it had anything to do with iMovie until I ask?"
For all I knew, iMovie might have given me the option to say, import the file after having converted it to '.this' format in QT, and been able to re-export it within a few minutes as a '.that' file-type which might have accomplished exactly what I was trying to achieve. As you said yourself, you're the "experts" with iM and that's why I came here asking.
I'd have respected and thanked him for the remainder of his advice... had he simply left off the totally unwarranted first paragraph. A simple: "Sorry, but iMovie can't do what you want. I suggest you look in x for y" would have gone down a lot better.
Thanks, and sorry to bother you

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matroska
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Over this past weekend I was moving, via Relocate Masters, large numbers of images from managed status on my MacBook Pro to referenced status on an external drive (an Air Disk, to be precise). This had gone fine for thousands of images, but Sunday night I returned to the computer to find that it was completely locked up in mid-Relocate, and seemed to have been locked up for a while. I'm not sure what happened, but it seemed bad -- I couldn't get to the Force Quit dialog, or anywhere else. I powered down by holding in the power button.
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Homme dArs wrote:
I hope someone else can join in with a definitive answer to your problem, but I don't believe you will be happy using the configuration you are attempting to set up.
Having Aperture access your images via wireless is going to be very very slow, and any connection problems will be very frustrating. I have even abandoned the idea of using wireless backup of image files because it so slow.
Perhaps someone can help with your immediate problem, but I would strongly suggest you find a way to store your referenced files locally (a firewire drive would be ideal).
Thanks. I certainly appreciate your thought, and before trying it myself, my instinct was the same as yours. That said, until the present problem cropped up, I have to say it has been quite a good solution. My network is 802.11n, and I've noticed no real lag in accessing the files or otherwise using Aperture with a library stored as this is.
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Copy
The operation cannot be completed because you do not have sufficient privileges for some of the items.
OK
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With hundreds of subfolders and thousands of files, I have no idea which ones it is failing to copy making this process quite painful.
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Help

You are probably better off using
ditto
In a terminal
man ditto
and read the description and instructions.
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Need help with connecting file inputs to arrays

In this assignment I have a program that will do the following: display a list of names inputed by the user in reverse order, display any names that begin with M or m, and display any names with 5 or more letters. This is all done with arrays.
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import java.io.*;       //Imports the Java library
class progB                    //Defines class
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        int length;                                                                  //Defines the length of the array for a loop later on
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                array [order] = temp;                                                  //<-
            for (order = newnames - 1 ; order >= 0 ; order--)                                //<-
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                System.out.println (" Name " + order + " is " + array [order]);             //<-
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                    System.out.print (" \n ");                                            //
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                }                                                                         //<-
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                length = array [order].length ();                                                   //
                if (length >= 5)                                                                    // Finds and outputs names
                {                                                                                  // with 5 or more letters
                    System.out.print (" \n ");                                                      //
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}The notepad file contains the following names:
jim
laruie
tim
timothy
manny
joseph
matty
amanda
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By "connect", do you just mean you want to put the names into an array?
array[0] = "jim"
array[1] = "laruie"
and so on?
That shouldn't be difficult at all, provided you know how to open a file for reading, and how to read a line of text from it. You can just read the line of text, put it in the array position you want, until the file is exhausted. Then open a file for writing, loop through the array, and write a line.
What part of all that do you need help with?

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I would really appreciate any help on this! I have my itunes library on an external hard drive. The power adapter to that drive failed. I replaced it, but now when I open itunes it doesn't recognize where any of my files are. A friend told me to try to go into Edit>Preferences and find the drive of my hard drive and reset that as where the files are. That didn't work. I can go in manually and click on a song where the window pops up that itunes can't find the file, and I am able to find it and then it will play. But to do that with all files in my library would take forever. Thank you so much for any help!
(I have itunes 8)

Try This. Hold the shift key down, and open iTunes. Do not let up on the shift key until you get a window that asks you to choose a library, or create a new library. If iTunes opens without giving you that choice, just close it and re-open it with the shift key down. Nine times out of Ten it works on the first try. Click "choose a library". You will get another window that allows you to navigate to your hard drive and show iTunes where your music is stored. In a folder called iTunes or iTunes Music, choose "iTunes Library.itl" This should bring back your entire library the way it was when you last used it.

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Because I'm not sure I want use aperture forever, and because I occasionally like to use other photo editors, I've opted for a referenced file setup. I typically arrange my pictures into year/month sub folders, with additional folders for special subjects, like my kids. I've been doing this for a long time, it works for me, and I don't want to change.
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Any insights would be appreciated. Thanks.

It is not as complex as you are making it. Aperture is not per se an editor. It is for storing and organizing, and quickly decoding RAW images. It is a pretty good editor, but it has the feature to allow you to specify an External Editor to which you can send images for more complex editing, and back -- all from within Aperture.
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You need to read further as to how and why Aperture works the way it does.
Ernie

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The file size in Aperture is 50mb and when I check it in photoshop the file size is 143mb this is killing my hard drive!!
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Message was edited by: d4an

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