Can't open saved iDVD project

Question

I've been working on my first iDVD project for some time now using iMovie/iDVD08. The first version (movie and slideshow) works fine and I can open the associated .dvdproj file and make amendments if and as required. The DVD which was produced looks good.
However, as it's a 57-minute long movie, I was keen to introduce chapters. I used GarageBand for this purpose, sent the movie with chapters back to iDVD and added appropriate Scene menus. All worked fine on my computer. I saved the new project and retrieved it (just to be sure to be sure). All OK so far. I burned a new DVD which looks good and scene selection works great, however ....
can't now retrieve the .dvdproj. Any attempt to do so causes iDvd to hang. Activity monitor shows "Encoder server not responding." I need to force quit this process and also iDvd itself to get out of this bind. Very frustrating. I've been through this entire process now twice (recreating from first chapter-free version) and the problem recurs.
Can anybody assist?

Answer 1

Hello, Conor,
Welcome to the discussions.
First, you should delete iDVD's preference file. With iDVD closed, go to your home folder(YourUserName)/Library/Preferences/com.apple.idvd.plist.
Drag this plist file to the trash. Don't worry; iDVD will create a new fresh one when you relaunch it.
See if you can open your project now.
Post back if this did not work.
Now, if you had an iDVD project that burned successfully, and you still have that iDVD project saved, you should be able to open it just as you did when you were working on it. Getting that message about the encoder server not responding is strange. Your project should already have encoded since you were able to burn a DVD. That problem may be resolved by deleting the plist file. You might also try just shutting down the computer and restarting it.
However, remember that iDVD is not like iMovie where the project's contents are actually saved within the project. An iDVD project should be thought of as a virtual or alias project. Its files point to their location on your computer. So, your iMovie is not physically within iDVD's files. If you move or delete any files that your iDVD project needs, iDVD will not be able to locate them.
It is highly recommended that you do a 'save as disc image' for each of your iDVD projects. This process looks just as if iDVD is burning a disk, but it is creating a disk image that can be used to do the actual burn, using Disk Utility.
It is useful to keep your projects as their disk images to do further disk-burning of that project in the future. The disk images cannot be edited, so be sure you are completely finished editing your project before creating a disk image. A disk image is a self-contained file, so you no longer need to keep your original iMovie or iDVD projects. Keeping only the disk images will also save drive space.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iDVD/7.0/en/6733.html
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93006
Why do you still need the iDVD project if you have already burned your DVD? If you want to make further edits to your iMovie and burn a new DVD, you can always recreate your iDVD project.....not the simplest solution, nut once you have created an iDVD project, it is usually fairly quick to recreate it .
If you just want to burn more disks from that project, you can always use the first DVD to make a disk image of your project, and use that disk image for further burning.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=DiskUtility/10.5/en/duh1945.html