Audio Encoding Spinning Beachball

Question

I have had the same problem for over a month now. As I am typing there is a spinning beachball going during the audio encoding process. What is a reasonable amount of time? I started to burn a DVD at noontime , it is now 7:00 pm and still spinning. The project is 48 minutes long with chapter markers, ten transitions, a slow motion clip, sound effects, and a song in the drop zone. I have even upgraded to 10.4.6, purchased Quicktime Pro 7.1.1 and reloaded the latest iLife update 6.02. I used to burn a DVD with the same content in about six hours before the update. I don't know what else to try other than a new Mac........ I even re-imported the original movie from my camera-but the same beachball is spinning!!! I have tried every solution that was offered in the discussion area but the beachball keeps spinning. I'm at my wits end-somebody please help. After twenty years with Apple, this is the first problem I have ever had-I hope they fix this bug soon..... I am ready to drink heavily.......Have easily spent a hundred hours trying to fix this problem....

Answer 1

I have tried every solution that was offered in the discussion area
Well then this is probably stuff you've heard before but here goes anyway -
Audio Encoding problems come in three flavors:
1) Vanilla - This is the most common - the "freeze" when encoding audio is normal, you get a spinning beachball, and even when looking at activity monitor iDVD and its helpers are "not responding." Solution? WAIT....and WAIT some more, wait at least as long as it took to encode the video, and iDVD will still often produce a great DVD. I agree it shouldn't work this way, but that's the way it works.
2) Chocolate - Still pretty common, but a bit more trouble. Often caused by 12 bit audio, iDVD needs 16 bit audio. Try "extracting audio" in iMovie or export and reimport to tape after setting the camcorder to 16 bit.
3) Pistachio - much less common. Could be other problems with your audio, such as CBR MP3s or who knows what....this is sort of the catch-all for other audio issues. Again, try extracting audio and/or exporting your iMovie to full quality DV. Convert CBR MP3s to AAC format.
Check other things in your project against this list:
http://discussions.apple.com/click.jspa?searchID=-1&messageID=2466511
What is a reasonable amount of time?
As I said above wait at least as long as it takes to encode the video. But if I were you, I'd wait overnight just to rule out waiting as a solution. Definitely look at that sound file you dropped into the iDVD menu, make sure it is not a CBR MP3, and that your CMs and transitions follow the rules in the link I provided. Make sure you are using "save as disk image" and have 20GB for free space..........
And since you do have transitions & special effects(slow mo) and sound effects, you might try exporting your iMovie back to your camera or to full quality DV. This will render all the sound and effects, and then you can re-import to iMovie, add chapters, and use that movie in iDVD. This simplifies iDVD's and QT's job during encoding.
I am ready to drink heavily
Well just skip the heavily part, and this is a good activity to do while waiting on the beachball.......
John B.