Audio encoding locks-up IDVD

I've tried to burn DVD's on two mac's and built new movie in each. All goes well in the encoding until it starts the audio, then locks up iDVD.
Mac Mini Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hi Willy
How do You really know that it has locked up ?
• By the info in Activity Monitor - iDVD doesn't answer
• By other means or by error message (if so what does it say?)
Activity Monitor - LIES !!!. Let it be (while processing)- several hours and it will be OK
If error message - Please tell us about what it says.
If the DVD coding time goes absurd (days and so) the You probably have
less than 20Gb free space on Your internal hard disk - resulting in heavely
virtual memory managment (a pay to UNIX that is the base for Mac OS).
(Yes You can run C-programs in terminal on Your Mac - You only need to
install C-compiler from install DVDs that You got with Your Mac)
Yours Bengt W

Similar Messages

IMovie audio stutter+ iDvD audio encoding = Toast ?

In the 8 days since I finally got into iMovie, then iDvD, I've encountered both the skittery / unstable audio Playback of iMovie audio & now iDvd's audio encoding issues . [ app "not responding" while still chuggin' away, etc\etc. ]
It was good to hear from an iApp specialist that these are known issues being 'addressed'.
But it's quite disheartening when a GoOgle ( or Forum ) Search shows woes & hope from 2005 & before.
Will iLife 7 iron out much ? [ or introduce a whole new set for us to spend months grappling with ? ]
My real question here, well the head-of-the-line question ! . . . is > after reading a Macobserver post from 2/06 on Toast 7, I have to wonder if it fills in many gaps and opens the pallette while solving some problems.
It doesn't have slide transitions , but it's work could go to iMovie/iDvd ??
( too many toys in the toybox !! -- pardon my overwhelment )
One hard-fact question that's more answerable is > After my 1st "hung in audio // not responding" Disk Image burn , a Wec-Chat Agent considered it 'dead' & I cancelled it. Is there a headless body in a folder somewhere ?, and is that what "delete encoded assets" is for ??
_TIA_
~~~=Dave

So !...I'm a' confused w/ all the ways to 'archive'
an iMovie project. i created an .img, a
Data-Disc...which could burn a DvD of the project,
but not open in iMovie...yes ?
Warning: we're going to jump a bit from topic to topic.
• An archive is a backup copy of something. The purpose of the archive is to preserve the thing as it exists today. An archive of an iMovie project "captures" it as it exists today. If necessary, months from now you can use the archive to re-create the project as it exists today.
• The archive can take many forms. It can be stored as a disk image — a file stored on your computer that uses a .dmg suffix and looks and acts like a hard disk. Or it can be a ".zip" file created in the Finder. Or it can be a simple duplicate of the project stored on a hard disk or DVD. (A disk image file or zip file does not save significant hard disk space. An iMovie project can't be compressed to any significant extent.)
• iMovie's menu command File > Burn Project to Disc is there for the convenience of iMovie users wanting to copy the project to a DVD — as a computer file. But iMovie can burn a DVD only if the entire iMovie project fits on one disc. Technically, it doesn't create an standalone archive, it simply copies the project — with all the files and folders the project contains — onto the DVD, then burns the DVD.
• The Finder lets us create an standalone archive of a file or folder, using the File > Create Archive Of command. The command copies everything to a file that has a ".zip" suffix. If we want, we can tell the Finder to burn the zip file onto a DVD. The zip file has to fit on one DVD.
• Backup applications like Retrospect can create archives too. Retrospect can store the archive on a variety of media. The backup is stored in a format only Retrospect understands.
• Most of us also have another backup solution available to use with iMovie. Exporting the iMovie project back to tape is a good backup. For most projects, the clips return as clips when the tape is re-imported to a new project. Clips like titles and transitions are no longer editable, of course. Note you must re-import the material to access it.
IS there a way to save a 29 GB project to one DvD
• Regrettably, no. An iMovie (or iDVD) project cannot be larger than will fit on one DVD. Most iMovie projects are larger, of course. For them, the File > Burn project to disk command cannot be used.
• Software exists, however, that lets us back up an iMovie (or iDVD) project across multiple DVDs. These include Toast and Retrospect, the pre-eminent Mac backup software.
• iMovie projects stored on DVDs have one huge disadvantage, however. We must copy the project back to the hard drive to open it in iMovie. iMovie doesn't let us open a project stored on a DVD, for Movie can't write to the disc. (The DVD is, by definition, a locked medium.)
Note too that if the backup DVD is created by Retrospect, Retrospect is required to copy it back to the hard disk. (Sorry, I'm not familiar with Toast.)
• The Finder's File > New Burn Folder lets us burn computer files to a DVD as files. It can copy disk images, zip files and any other kind of computer files and folders to the DVD. Used in this way, the DVD functions like a small hard disk. It can't burn across multiple DVDs.
• A DVD containing data files is different from the DVD iDVD normally creates for us. DVD Normally creates TV-playable DVDs, not data-file DVDs. For these, iDVD encodes the video of our iMovie projects as MEPG-2 video, the language a DVD player understands. No computer data files are involved, at least not files a computer normally understands.
• The iDVD command File > Archive Project serves a different purpose than the archive of an iMovie project. Yes, it backs up the iDVD project too, but we usually make it for a different reason.
The iDVD project has no video or audio of its own, just a link to the reference movie iMovie stores inside the iMovie project. If we want to be able to burn a DVD of the current iMovie project some time later, or burn a DVD after the iMovie project has been discarded, we will have a problem. The source material may be gone. The iDVD archive solves this problem by storing a copy of the source material inside its archive.
So If you want to preserve an iDVD project as it exists today you can tell iDVD to create an archive the includes all the necessary source material from the iMovie project. Now the source material will be "static". We can open the archive sometime later, edit the DVD menus if we want, and burn another DVD.
• iDVD also offers the File > Save As Disk image. This command is not associated with archiving. This command is almost the same as burning a DVD, but it "burns" the encoded material as a disk image file instead of a physical DVD.
The disk image can be played in DVD Player on our Macs, and we can use Disk Utility to burn a DVD of the disk image.
"Burning" a disk image from iDVD is a good way to check the encoding by iDVD. If the disk image "burns" okay, the physical DVD we burn with Disk Utility will probably be okay too.
• As you suggested, the best solution may be an external hard drive. It's not only the easiest to use, it lets us access the iMovie project whenever we want.
• Much of what I've said is associated with routine backups, so I want to say a word about those. We always need backups of our important projects. At the very least, we need to keep a copy on a separate drive. Drives fail.
Experts say that we need to back up our computers daily, and maintain three backup copies, called backup sets. We need two backup sets that we alternate every day or so, both stored on site. And a third backup set stored off-site. (Off-site because our beach house may burn down and the high tides caused by global warming may carry the ashes out to sea.)
Retrospect does an incremental backup for me each night, backing up all the Macs in the house. The on-site backup not being used by Retrospect is stored in a fireproof data safe — a fireproof paper safe isn't cool enough. The third backup set is stored in a safe deposit box at a bank. I rotate the bank set every month or so with one of the two in-house backup sets. The two in-house backup sets are rotated every few days.
For backup media I use "bare" drives connected to a Firewire "dock", like this ComboDock. The drives snap on/off in seconds.
http://www.wiebetech.com/products/ComboDock.php
• Some on-line retailers include Retrospect with the drives they sell.
Hope something here is useful.
Karl

Audio breaks up in iDVD preview/will not encode in burn

One of the folks in the iDVD group suggested I try here....This is the first iDVD5 project I'm trying to burn (of the first movie I've done in iMovieHD). All is well until I preview in iDVD then the audio/music track make a similar sort of broken up sound to what you would get if playing a CD on a portable player with your battery about to die. I used 2 songs - one purchased from iTunes store, one taken from a purchased CD. Both songs are a mess. Thought the problem might be in previewing iDVD project so went ahead and tried to burn a DVD. It couldn't encode the audio. Could the iTunes song be the culprit? Has anyone else experienced this broken audio and were you able to fix it? Thanks for any help you can offer.

I had similar experiences and discovered a couple things. They may sound crazy, but they worked for me:
Which of the two timelines are you using for your audio tracks in iMovie? I once used the bottom one only, and had errors with audio encoding every time. I moved the songs to the upper audio timeline and voila! It encoded and burned perfectly. Go figure!
I also fiddled around with "Best Quality" and "Best Performance" in iDVD. When I select "Best Quality" with a short movie, I get audio encoding errors every time. If I select "Best Performance" it encodes and burns perfect.
I'm not sure why either of these two things should matter, but for me they cause audio breakup in iDVD preview and then audio encoding errors...even though they play fine in iMovie and even exporting to QT as you also have...maybe one of these is causing your problem as well. Good luck!

IDVD audio encoding error

I currently have 10 different quicktime files that i've created by exporting 10 different iMovie projects.
I've created an iDvd project and dragged all 10 .dv files in. Everything works well in the preview. the total project is 3.6 out of the 4GB available.
the entire project is on an 250 GB external harddrive attached to a mac laptop (so having available space is not the problem, i have over 130 gigs free)
i press burn, and the encoding begins. everything's running smoothly for two hours, all the videos are encoded. once it reaches "Audio encoding" i come across an error. it recommends me to "Delete Encoded Assets" and try again.
Which i have, and it's still not working.
Something about the Track.
i've created dvd's before with this exact same hardware. I even just created one now, using just one of the quicktime files. For some reason, this big project just won't happen and i'm on the edge of reason here.
I'd appreciate any help.
Mac OS X (10.4.1)

Is there any audio associated with the video?
iDVD 5: Audio encoding error when burning a DVD
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301876
iDVD: Troubleshooting issues with burning discs
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302925
Sue

IDVD AUDIO ENCODING .. APPLE NEEDS TO FIX IT!

It would be nice if they would reply to this. I cannot complete my projects.
After trying EVERY TIP on this 200 + posts on the subject ( except pulling my RAM out ).. I have found only one solution:
Using iMovie .. save back to your camcorder.. then
Open iDVD and use the "OneStep Movie" feature.
Time:
30 min iMovie = 30 min. back to camera + 30 off of camera to iDVD + 30 min for encoding. ( approx )

..also .. when encoding ( video encodes first ) .. as soon it gets to audio encoding .. the Activity Monitor shows iDVD as "Not responding" as well as a 10% or lower ( which seems to be 5% with dual processors ) processing CPU power when the "audio encoding starts" .. this is trhe same thing that HANGS FOR HOURS .. on the SAME video.. but a few short min. later ( if you use OneStep DVD ) the audio finishes ( you wouldnt know from the progress bar, but the Activity Monitor shows iDVD jump starting .. and the processor kicks back in gear) ..and burns the DVD..
What a pain in the *** ... but it works.

IDVD audio encoding - Spinning Beach Ball (Help)

I have a project with two separate movies ( 31 minutes each). I've added menus for each and third sub-menu to show information about each. I've tried to create a disk image for the project. Everytime it reaches "audio encoding" it stops in the process with the spinning beachball.
I've upgraded the OS to 10.4.7 and Quicktime to 7.1.2 recently. I have not had this happen before with other projects and have been able to create the disk image to burn the DVD with Toast. Is anyone having a similar problem after upgrading?
I trashed the original DVD project and rebuilt another with the same results.
I'm open to suggestions.

This thread has lots of info.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=494268&tstart=0
Read the second post in the thread about how to check if you are really stalled or not.
Terri

No audio when burning from idvd 6.01

I have been watching this discussion point for several days as I have had exactly the same problem. I have created a 40 minute iMovie with 10 audio tracks then went to share it with iDVD. The movie came across but the audio didn't - just a horrible crackling noise. I just kept trying and on the 6th attempt it came through with the sound attached - I did lock the audio tracks to the relevant playheads as someone had suggested. But then I came to burn the dvd and idvd 6.01 went all the way to the encoding process then hung on the very last audio encoding forcing me to Force Quit.
So with the newly aquired tip about burning a disk image instead of burning direct from iDVD I first deleted the encoded assets - also kindly suggested on this forum then using Disk Utility I selected my disk image ann hit burn.
Hey Presto!! It worked, I now have all my underwater video set to music that I can bore everyone (except me) with. Thanks to everyone who takes the time to offer help and suggestions on this forum. It clearly is a bug that Apple needs to fix but at least I have been lucky enough to get around the problem.

I can bore everyone (except me) with

Hanging up on audio encoding + trade in slowness

I am also getting hung up on audio encoding. Have read all the posts. Went back and tried to export 1:50 minute iMovie to Full Quallity DV file and its been working over 12 hours with no end in sight. Has anyone tried going back to iDVD 5 with any success? Any other ideas GREATLY appreciated. Thanks. Love most things about this, my fifth mac, but his is driving me nuts.

I am also getting hung up on audio encoding. Have
read all the posts. Went back and tried to export
1:50 minute iMovie to Full Quallity DV file and its
been working over 12 hours with no end in sight. Has
anyone tried going back to iDVD 5 with any success?
Any other ideas GREATLY appreciated. Thanks. Love
most things about this, my fifth mac, but his is
driving me nuts.
This is normal.
I had a movie take over 33 hours to burn.
Everything looks locked up but it really is still working.
Too bad it takes so long. But dem's du breaks in iLife.

Audio Encoding & Ken Burns Problems Persist - More Help Please.

My previous thread (10/27): Encoding Audio in iDVD for 41 hours. Is there any hope?
--72min iMovie, many high res photos, iTunes music, voiceovers, sound effects (20.9G)
Since then:
I reimported Music Store songs from CD and tried iMovie to iDVD again , menu took 50min, video encoding took 4.5hrs, audio encoding went 12 hours till I force quit. (Should I have waited longer?)
I then was able to create a Quicktime Movie (Full Quality) in 36hrs, but the Ken Burns photos were so horrific (shimmering) that I decided to try creating a Disk Image. Is there any chance the results will be better? (Burn w/Toast6)
I also tried exporting iMovie to my JVC GR-DVP3 video camera. Only got colored checkerboard patterns.
If the Disk Image approach doesn't work, I'll be back at square one. Anything else I might try?

Wow, this sounds like a long time. Is this DV? Or
H.264?
The extension is .dv What is H.264
Remember that iDVD will create standard resolution
video, even if you are feeding it HD material. So
use Export> Quicktime> Full Quality DV.
I did.
The shimmering might improve once it is burned to
disk, but it might not. I also find it is different
on different players. PhotoToMovie does a better job
than iMovie/iPhoto of avoiding shimmers.
I heard that, but it took me 2 weeks to make my movie and at present I can't bear the thought of redoing all my KB photos.
I also tried exporting iMovie to my JVC GR-DVP3
video camera. Only got colored checkerboard
patterns
Check the iMovie forum for this one, but it sure
seems that something must not be hooked up right.
Was it in VCR mode?
I have a post on the iMovie forum, iMovie recognized the camera and it recorded, but all I got was sporadic patterns. The manual shows DV to DV operations but no computer to DV. Maybe my camera isn't compatable.

Solution to audio encoding problem achieved

I was using clips from my Sanyo Xacti Camcorder, imported into iMovie as mpeg 4 files and unable to finish the project in iDVD as the error would come in the audio encoding stage.A quick test is to export the iMovie files through Quicktime and it would stop cold, saying something is wrong with the file.
Going through the forum here,many had posted reasons is because iDVD cannot handle audio files with deviations from sampling rate of 48k, and somehow the audio files may work if it is converted to aiff , with sampling rate of 48k.I found a way to do it last night.
Export the imovie to GarageBand. When GarageBand finished the video track and sound track imports, adjust the volume of the sound track as desired.
Make sure the GarageBand preference to set export movie in full quality, not ipod or email quality. Then export the movie to disk, and the resulting Quicktime movie must have the original audio tracked enabled before it is used in iDVD. Check the Quicktime movie by quicktime player, and under movie property, you can check that enable box.
The finished product is a Quicktime movie that has both video and audio files that iDVD can handle and use.And it saves time in audio conversion by doing it in GarageBand first.

I was unable to export the imovie to quicktime, as the error message came within seconds , saying about something wrong with the file. The only way I could export the file to quicktime format is through GarageBand.
GarageBand is the application to add another sound track , and it preserves the whole imovie and could be exported directly to iDVD, instead of exporting to
Quicktime format first. The only reason I did this "extra" step was because I already knew if the Quicktime movie would not fail in iDVD, and it is quicker to check it this way then to wait 10 hours for iDVD time.
It was already recognized that iMovie does not do audio conversion, and when the audio files are not native to iDVD(i.e. 48 Hz sampling), the iDVD would crash.
See
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=800972&tstart=30

Audio encoding hang work around

After scouring this discussion and the internet, it seems the following is true:
1) The source of the audio encoding delay is the conversion of the audio to an iDVD friendly format;
2) There is indeed progress being made even though the activity monitor may say not or you may get a not responding message;
3) There are two work arounds that work well, but with a properly debugged iDVD we should not have to do this nonsense. Here's to iLife '07 fixing this mess, hopefully.
So, as to #1, even if you first convert the audio and then lay down the audio to the iMovie project there are still delays, especially with longer movies. It is quite apparent that this is an iDVD bug as other programs convert audio files quickly. (As to camera audion, you have to make sure you are in 16 bit with your camera.)
As to #2, by looking at the package contents (Command I) you can see the progress of the audio encoding even when you think it is hung and even if you get a not responding message. To do this open your local disk, go to documents which is where iDVD puts them, and look for the title of your project, highlight it and hit Command I. Note the bytes, close the info dialog, and then reopen again. You may need to do this a few times depending on RAM, clock speed, etc., but you should see a change in bytes after awhile. If so, there is progress being made, as painstakingly slow as it may be. (A 1h53m movie took about 40 hours on my G5 with 1.5MB RAM! Not acceptable!)
As to #3, the same thing is being accomplished, by different means. In both case you are creating a new file that handles the audio encoding on the way out and then reimporting with audio encoded. In the first, you export to your camera and then turn around and import into a new iMovie project. Add your chapters and then open from iDVD. Save as a disc image and then burn from the Disc Utility application which can be found under Utilities.
The other work around is sharing to Quicktime and then reimporing to iMovie as a new project, and do the same as above. Following the latter, it took me 40 hours plus before took about 5 hours.
I hope this saves you all some time.
iMac 20" G5 iSight Mac OS X (10.4.7) 1.5GB RAM, Ext HD 250GB

I think I may have found a solution to my problem. It seems
to be related to how much resources(RAM) I have available to the
program. If I try a lower resolution setting it works fine. If I
set the priority of the program high I can use higher
resolutions.

Audio encoding troubles

After some time off, I'm again burning old family vhs and Hi8 tapes to dvd but this time w/our new intel core duo. I've tried varying the themes in iDVD but with some of them I get the spinning beach ball after the video encoding--at the beginning of the audio encoding. It simpy hangs up after about 30 seconds and the dreaded beach ball appears. I've tried to re-burn after splitting the clips so that none are longer than 15 minutes--still no go. I never add music so the only audio is from the original tapes or the default music with associated with the theme. This was never a problem with the dvds I creaed on our G4 using some of the older iDVD themes. Any ideas? thanks

This was never a problem with the dvds I creaed on
our G4 using some of the older iDVD themes.
This lack of positive feedback has been around since
version 5 and has nothing to do with themes. Just
"bad" feedback.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302988
My computer can take up to 30 minutes to get through
this phase, depending on the iDVD project. Takes even
longer for some people; like overnight...
What I've done a few times is "force quit" and start over at the "share iMovie with iDVD" stage. Sometimes, after re-creating the iDVD project with the same Theme settings it whips right through the audio encoding (although it also has had to redo the video encoding first). I get frantic whenever I see the beachball on the screen and my impulse it to force quit whatever application I'm in.

Has Apple fixed the audio encoding problem?

As many other people seems to have experienced before me, iDVD6 stops working when encoding audio. Everything works before that step but when it reaches the "Audio Encoding" sequence iDVD stops working. Did Apple fix the problem? What else can we do?
Thanks for any reply.
Frank
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.5) PowerMac G4

I followed your advice and restarted at 6:00 pm last night - this morning it was still going on - over 13 hours! The funny thing this time is that I got the 'rainbow ball' encoding audio at the beginning of the 3rd step, 'Processing movie' after only 1-1/2 hour. The last time I burned the same project, I got the 'rainbow ball' encoding audio message at the end of the 3rd step - in other words, it had processed the entire movie (which took 6 hours) and then began the encoding audio phase. I'm letting it run while I'm at work, but do you think there might be something else going on?
Here are some facts which apply to both times that I have tried burning the DVD project:
1. I have iMovie project (26Gb) on my external drive with about 15 Gb available space
2. and the iDVD project is on the internal hard drive with about 50 Gb of available space
The reason I moved the iMovie project to the external drive was because I would have only had about 24 Gb of available space if I left it on the internal drive (less than the movie itself).
Which drive is doing all the encoding and needing the most space - the internal or the external? I was assuming it was the internal drive. Should I move the iMovie project back to my internal drive and start over?
Thanks again - I'm a new member of this site and so far, it has been very helpful and informative!

Audio Encoding problem at burn step...

working at high school...fair newbies here, have had about a half-dozen successful movies completed so far..
Issue right now (end of year so help is appreciated)...
all is good to go, but the process gets hung up up at the third stage..."Process Movies" where it appears to work to the end about to finish, and the burn icon ceases to move, the time signal comes up spinning and nothing happens.
Go to hit alt, open apple and esc and the window comes up saying iDVD quit..
at one point, the first attempt thru...something said an "audio encoding" issue...
so close to burning...any idea what is going on???
thanks...
Larry

Hi Larry!
This question is one of our 'most popular'!
It is probably not 'hanging'. Disregard any messages that iDVD is not responding. It is. Ignore the spinning beachball of death. Do not force quit.
Encoding audio is the slowest part of rendering, and can take many hours. Great patience, even an intermittent alternative hobby, is called for.
Make sure no other application is running, make sure you have not set the hard disk to go to sleep and that the screen saver will not come on. Leave it overnight, or have a 36 hole game of golf.
Sooner or later iDVD will finish!

Audio encoding problem

Hello,
I've successfully burned a half dozen iMovie projects with no problems but this time I am having a new problem.
Each time I attempt to burn an iMovie project to iDVD it progresses fine through the various stages, but when it gets near the end to the "Audio Encoding" stage it just sits there and never seems to finish.
I've been seraching through earlier postings but haven't found this specific issue.
Any ideas?
Much obliged.

I am also having this problem. iDVD gets to the end of the audio encoding and stops responding. If I leave it for a few hours it does finally finish but there is an error "timed-out" message on the screen. Very annoying. I've read elsewere that the problem may be caused by the latest QuickTime update (7.1.0) which I did install this week. Several threads suggest downgrading QT. I tried it via the suggested links, it mildly crashed the OS. I was able to recover after reinstalling the lastes QT. Coincidentally, I've since read the downgrade does not work with Intel iMacs. Come on Apple, let's get this FIXED.
Which version of QT are you running?

Audio encoding locks-up IDVD

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