Change iMovie project while Burning in iDVD?

I use iMovie to import and process football game clips from our games and scout games. I change some clips, add titles, etc., and then ship it to iDVD for making the .img file. This process works really well.
My question is once I start the .img burning process, can I close the source iMovie project and import a new set of clips (game) into a new project without harming the iDVD burn process?
I'm very hesitant to do this as I'm not sure of the relationship between the iMovie project and iDVD when burning the DVD/.img file. I don't want to harm the iDVD processes by going to another project. Yes, I know that I can probably recover quickly, but this is normally a time driven process done in the wee hours the morning after the football games. I don't want to have to recover and start anything over at that time of night.
My suspicion is that they are independent and I can import a second project while burning the first.
Thanks
Casey
IHS Vikings

... I guess I got a bit dramatic there...
that is the question... (besides the actual "what is showtime?" in about 30min???)
I think, this is a typical Karl Petersen question..
my knowledge stops at:
iDVD uses the .imovie file as a reference, to collect all items needed for conversion; the conversion itself is a step-by-step process (menu, audio, video...); if you now change anything WHILE encoding... e.g. change the ref.mov by editing the project, or, better, delete something (a music file)… then?!
that is a vry tricky process, a kind of "collaboration" as programmers would call it...- I'm no programmer, I'm a user: when finished, I quit iM, launch iDVD, tell my Cube "nitynight" and next morning (450MHz here), my .img is ready to burn on my disk....

Similar Messages

Imovie project when burned thru idvd looks horrible

I have worked for several months on making my first Imovie. It is about 1hr in length. It combines both narration, video, soundtrack and still images. When I previewed the project on imovie looked great. I can also export thru quicktime and it looks good, but not as good as it does in imovie. When I followed the directions on how to export to Idvd, I was unaware of how poorly the finished project looked in Idvd. I burned it and was let down as all my titles where pixelated and the still images are combing real bad. Also some of the images are jerky in the ken burns effect. I find this frustrating as I can save it as a quicktime file and it looks pretty good (but not as good as in imovie). It appears to me that everything I have tried as far as importing to idvd looks horrible when Idvd gets done with it. In fact even the Idvd menu I made looks pixelated and horrible. I am making this dvd to sell to others and to present at talks I am giving. The quality is so poor I am thinking about bagging the whole project. I noticed on the forums regarding both idvd and imovie many of the questions about the quality degredation in idvd dont get answered. Or when they do get answered, the answer is to purchase final cut or more software in general. What I want to know is can I make my excellent looking imovie look acceptable in idvd? If not, why? Why would mac make a option to make a movie project look good in imovie, but the only way to export it is to make it look horrible? Also, is there a way to make a dvd in idvd that looks as good as my Imovie project (without dropping 1,000$ for more software which I am not going to do as now I don't trust it until I see it first)? What am I missing here?

Hi Adam,
Just some general comments about exporting from iMovie '09. From posts on the forum, and from my own experience, it's best not to use Apple's preset export option "Share to iDVD". You may not have used this, but it produces an AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) movie that doesn't look good when burned through iDVD, for some reason. Odd, considering that iMovie edits in this format. _The option "Share to Media Browser" gives much better results._
You don't mention what format your source footage is (to the best of my recollection). This may have a bearing on the final result (burned DVD). Is it DV or AVCHD or some other format? iMovie '09 has a reputation for producing less than stellar results with DV footage, due to the way it handles interlaced material. AVCHD footage turns out quite well on DVD after editing in iMovie.
If you have not already tried this, export using "Share to Media Browser". In iDVD, from the Media tab, drag your movie into the background area of the iDVD theme, then proceed to set up the DVD as usual. When sharing to the Media Browser, you have a range of sizes to select from. Try Large (960x540) and also HD (1280x720). I've used both but see little difference, if any, in the final DVD. But I do get quite good results with both. The picture is softer and less saturated when compared with the original AVCHD footage viewed via the camcorder on an HD TV. This is to be expected, given one is HD and the other SD, of course. But it shouldn't be as bad as you are describing.
There are many posts about DVD quality on the forum. As you would be aware, some offer very good advice. Try different methods using a short test project to see what gives the best results for you. Look out for an e-book by Steve Mullen - not free, but some good tips there.
Hope this helps in some way. Quality issues can be frustrating!
John
Message was edited by: John Cogdell

Once iMovie project is burned with iDVD, picture on TV is cut off on both sides.

I made a movie slideshow using iMovie and used iDVD to burn it to disc. The movie plays fine, but when played on a TV, both sides of the picture are cut off. I inerted the disc into a computer and it plays fine there... I guess the problem is just TV format?

The following is just to illustrate Bengt's comment regarding TV-overscan:
Click to view full size
Click to view full size
OT

How do you send more than 1 iMovie project to the same iDVD project???

I have 3 separate movie projects in iMovie with chapter markers and am trying to send them over to ONE iDVD project. Every time I send a movie over, it creates a new iDVD project and I can't get all 3 movies in the same project.
I'm trying to put each movies as a submenu under the main menu in iDVD.
Any help would be appreciated!
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)
iMac G5 Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Thanks for the help Karsten...
OK, after a long night of trial and error, I've figured it out...
Issue 1: Files not showing up in the media pane--- miraculously after shutting down all open apps and then restarting the computer, my iMovie projects are now showing up in the movie pane of the media panel in iDVD...
Issue 2: Getting more than one movie project into iDVD with all the chapter settings--- a little more complicated!
In iMovie: SHARE > iDVD gives you a new iDVD project with 2 submenus: 1 with the entire movie, and 1 with "scene selections"
If you try to add a second iMovie project to the same iDVD project; it's not possible from within iMovie (at least not that I can figure out!).
You can add this second iMovie project to the same iDVD project by adding it to the project within iDVD from the MEDIA > MOVIES pane. This, however, will only add the movie and not give you the second submenu with scene selections.
To get the 2nd iMovie project into iDVD, I dragged the 2nd movie project from a finder window into the opened iDVD project. This adds the 2 submenus (1 with the movie and 1 with the scene selections) to the iDVD project.
Hope this is useful to someone else, too.
Thanks!

IMovie project quality poor in iDVD export

I'm having problems with the quality of iMovie projects exported to iDVD. The final dvd looks very pixelated, however, when I export the same project to iTunes and view the video on same TV, the video looks perfect...clear as a bell, when great definition.
Here's what I'm doing...
Video imported from my HD camera at Large 960x540,Optimize setting.
Clips moved from Events to Projects.
No major edits made in Projects outside of a trim or two.
Project 'Finalized.'
Project sent to iDVD via Share > iDVD.
Am I missing something? I've even tried omitting step 4 above...not finalizing. Same DVD result. The video looks perfect on my screen in both iMovie and iDVD as I work on it. Only experiencing problem with final DVD output.
I'm using iMovie 11 (v9.0.4), iDVD (v7.1.2).
This is the first time that I've used iMovie 11 to create my video before sending to iDVD. In the past, I've used iMovie HD and never had a problem with iDVD output.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Hi
There are lot's of thought's about this - read as much as You want of my notes.
DVD quality
1. iDVD 08, 09 & 11 has three levels of qualities. (version 7.0.1, 7,0.4 & 7.1.1) and iDVD 6 has the two last ones
• Professional Quality
(movies + menus up to 120 min.) - BEST (but not always for short movies e.g. up to 45 minutes in total)
• Best Performances
(movies + menus less than 60 min.) - High quality on final DVD (Can be best for short movies)
• High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6)
(movies + menus up to 120 min.) - slightly lower quality than above
Menu can take 15 minutes or even more - I use a very simple one with no audio or animation like ”Brushed Metal” in old Themes.
About double on DL DVDs.
2. Video from
• FCE/P - Export out as full quality QuickTime.mov (not self-containing, no conversion)
• iMovie x-6 - Don't use ”Share/Export to iDVD” = destructive even to movie project and especially so
when the movie includes photos and the Ken Burns effect NOT is used. Instead just drop or import the iMovie movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window.
• iMovie’08 or 09 or 11 are not meant to go to iDVD. Go via Media Browser or rather use iMovie HD 6 from start.
DO not use - "Share to iDVD" in any iMovie version !
iMä'08 to 11 - "Share to Media Browser" and as LARGE or Medium - NOT HD or other resolutions as this too degrades the final DVD.
3. I use Apple Disk Util tool (or Roxio Toast™) to make an as slow burn as possibly e.g. x4 or x1 (in iDVD’08 or 09 this can also be set)
This can also be done with Apple’s Disk Utilities application when burning from a DiskImage.
4. There has to be about or more than 25Gb free space on internal (start-up) hard disk. iDVD can't
use an external one as scratch disk (if it is not start-up disc). For SD-Video - if HD-material is used I guess that 4 to 5 times more would do.
5. I use Verbatim ( also recommended by many - Taiyo Yuden DVDs - I can’t get hold of it to test )
6. I use DVD-R (no +R or +/-RW) - DVD-R play’s on more and older DVD-Players
7. Keep NTSC to NTSC - or - PAL to PAL when going from iMovie to iDVD
(I use JES_Deinterlacer to keep frame per sec. same from editing to the Video-DVD result.)
8. Don’t burn more than three DVDs at a time - but let the laser cool off for a while before next batch.
iDVD quality also depends on.
• DVD is a standard in it self. It is Standard Definition Quality = Same as on old CRT-TV sets and can not
deliver anything better that this.
HD-DVD was a short-lived standard and it was only a few Toshiba DVD-players that could playback.
These DVDs could be made in DVD-Studio Pro. But they don’t playback on any other standard DVD-Player.
Blu-Ray / BD can be coded onto DVDs but limited in time to - about 20-30 minutes and then need
_ Roxio Toast™ 10 Pro incl. BD-component
_ BD disks and burner if full length movies are to be stored
_ BD-Player or PlayStation3 - to be able to playback
The BD-encoded DVDs can be play-backed IF Mac also have Roxio DVD-player tool. Not on any standard Mac or DVD-player
Full BD-disks needs a BD-player (in Mac) as they need blue-laser to be read. No red-laser can do this.
• HOW much free space is there on Your internal (start-up) hard disk. Go for approx. 25Gb.
less than 5Gb and Your result will most probably not play.
• How it was recorded - Tripod vs Handheld Camera. A stable picture will give a much higher quality
• Audio is most often more critical than picture. Bad audio and with dropouts usually results in a non-viewed movie.
• Use of Video-editor. iMovie’08 or 09 or 11 are not the tools for DVD-production. They discard every second line resulting in a close to VHS-tape quality.
iMovie 1 to HD6 and FinalCut any version delivers same quality as Camera record in = 100% to iDVD
• What kind of movie project You drop into it. MPEG4 seems to be a bad choice.
other strange formats are .avi, .wmv, .flash etc. Convert to streamingDV first
Also audio formats matters. I use only .aiff or from miniDV tape Camera 16-bit
strange formats often problematic are .avi, .wmv, audio from iTunes, .mp3 etc
Convert to .aiff first and use this in movie project
• What kind of standard - NTSC movie and NTSC DVD or PAL to PAL - no mix.
(If You need to change to do a NTSC DVD from PAL material let JES_Deinterlacer_3.2.2 do the conversion)
(Dropping a PAL movie into a NTSC iDVD project
(US) NTSC DVDs most often are playable in EU
(EU) PAL DVDs most often needs to be converted to play in US
UNLESS. They are play-backed by a Mac - then You need not to care
• What kind of DVDs You are using. I use Verbatim DVD-R (this brand AND no +R or +/-RW)
• How You encode and burn it. Two settings prior iDVD’08 or 09
Pro Quality (only in iDVD 08 & 09)
Best / High Quality (not always - most often not)
Best / High Performances (most often my choice before Pro Quality)
1. go to iDVD pref. menu and select tab far right and set burn speed to x1 (less errors = plays better) - only in iDVD 08 & 09
(x4 by some and may be even better)
2. Project info. Select Professional Encoding - only in iDVD 08 & 09.
Region codes.
iDVD - only burn Region = 0 - meaning - DVDs are playable everywhere
DVD Studio pro can set Region codes.
1 = US
2 = EU
unclemano wrote
What it turned out to be was the "quality" settings in iDVD. The total clip time was NOT over 2 hours or 4.7GB, yet iDVD created massive visual artifacts on the "professional quality" setting.
I switched the settings to "high quality" which solved the problem. According iDVD help, "high quality" determines the best bit rate for the clips you have.
I have NEVER seen iDVD do this before, especially when I was under the 2 hour and 4.7GB limits.
For anyone else, there seem to be 2 places in iDVD to set quality settings, the first is under "preferences" and the second under "project info." They do NOT seem to be linked (i.e. if you change one, the other is NOT changed). take care, Mario
to get this to work I
• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up (Mac OS) hard disk
• Use Verbatim DVD-R (absolutely no +/-RW)
• Set down burn speed to x4 - less burn errors = plays on more devices
• No other process running in background as - ScreenSaver, EnergySaver OR TIMEMACHINE etc
• and I'm very careful on what kind of video-codecs, audio file format and photo file formats I use
• and I consider the iDVD Bug - never go back to video-editor to change/up-date - if so Start a brand new iDVD project
• Chapters set as they should - NO one at very beginning and no one in any transition or within 2 sec from it
• Lay-out - Turn on TV-Safe area and keep everything buttons, titles etc WELL INSIDE not even touching it !
Try to break the process up into two stages
• Save as a DiskImage (calculating part)
• Burn from this .img file (burning stage)
To isolate where the problem starts.
Another thing is - Playing it onto a Blu-Ray Player. My PlayStation3 can play BD-disks but not all of my home made DVDs so to get this to work I
• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up (Mac OS) hard disk
• Use Verbatim DVD-R (absolutely no +/-RW)
• Set down burn speed to x4 - less burn errors = plays on more devices
• No other process running in background as - ScreenSaver, EnergySaver OR TIMEMACHINE etc
• and I'm very careful on what kind of video-codecs, audio file format and photo file formats I use
• and I consider the iDVD Bug - never go back to video-editor to change/up-date - if so Start a brand new iDVD project
• Chapters set as they should - NO one at very beginning and no one in any transition or within 2 sec from it
• Lay-out - Turn on TV-Safe area and keep everything buttons, titles etc WELL INSIDE not even touching it !
TO GET IT TO WORK SLIGHTLY FASTER
• Minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up hard disk
• No other programs running in BackGround e.g. Energy-Saver
• Don’t let HD spin down or be turned off (in Energy-Save)
• Move hard disks that are not to be used to Trash - To be disconnected/turned off
• Goto Spotlight and set the rest of them under Integrity (not to be scanned)
• Set screen-saver to a folder without any photo - then make an active corner (up right for me) and set
pointer to this - turns on screen saver - to show that it has nothing to show
• No File Vault on - Important
• NO - TimeMachine - during iMovie/iDVD work either ! IMPORTANT
• Lot's of icons on DeaskTop/Finder also slows down the Mac noticeably
• Start a new User-Account and log into this and iMovie get's faster too - if a project is in a hurry
• And let Mac run on Mains - not just on battery
Yours Bengt W

IMovie project to DVD without iDVD?

I'm a total newbie to iMovie and iDVD (using v. 4 of both). I'm trying to help my son get a simple 3-minute iMovie project onto a DVD for a school project. Teacher will play the DVD on a TV for whole class. My question is do I have to go through iDVD to burn a DVD that will play on a TV? Is there anyway to "Share" it straight out of iMovie since I don't need any fancy openings etc.?
To let you know what I've already tried: I "shared" the project out of iMovie as a Full Quality DV and then burned that to a DV+R disk just using the disk utility. My home DVD player said "error: incompatible disk". After reading these forums I see a DVD-R is recommended, and it's better to burn through Toast (I have v.6). If I make those two changes will I be successful?
Thanks for any help for a harried mom.
LeeAnn
G5 Mac OS X (10.3.8)

Hi LeeAnn,
welcome to the  board
as Matthew and Beverly wrote:
you need an "author" tool to create a videoDVD...
what you've done with Disk Utility is a dataDVD - which is, for sure, not readable for a DVDstandalone... (it is not a computer... just a player)
* in iDVD (which is an authoring, encoding and burning app) you can modify the themes down to the ground - in result, you are able to create a black screen with a single word "start"... not-fancy enough?
* Toast allows also authoring, but has not as many options as iDVD to create non-themes dvds.... depending on the Toast version, you can create autostart-dvds - that is without any menu... (you can accomplishh that with iDVD5/6...)
* there are some free tools on the market for creating DVDs, but this is a painstaking process... not recommended for the average user...
I would use iDVD...

How to change iMovie Project from iSight to DV-NTSC?

I noticed my iMovie project says it's an iSight project, meaning everything will be converted to motion-JPEG's on export in full quality. But my project has both DV and MJPEG clips and I prefer to export my DV clips untouched, not converted to MJPEG. If the project was in DV-NTSC mode, DV clips would be exported untouched. (The MJPEG would be converted to DV but I don't care about that.)
How do I change the project type from iSight to DV-NTSC?

Yes, there is always that option. However, I want to make sure that when I export a DV clip to a DV file, it will be exported untouched. If iMovie is in MJPEG mode, I'm afraid it might convert the DV clip to MJPEG and then back to DV.
It doesn't matter now since I've figured out how to switch between iSight and DV-NTSC modes. You can't do it in the application, but you can if you edit the iMovie project file itself. Towards the end of this file look for either ISIGHT or DV-NTSC. If it's not the one you want, replace it with ISIGHT, if DV-NTSC, or DV-NTSC, if ISIGHT.
Why is it important which project type you have? I've learned that video effects like transitions and fades are done in the default format iMovie has selected for your project. So if iMovie labeled your project as iSight (MJPEG), then all of your subsequent video effects will be rendered in MJPEG. If iMovie labeled your project as DV-NTSC, video effects are rendered in DV. This is important to know because effects rendered in a clip's original format are rendered much faster and may look better than if they weren't. So if you have a DV clip you wish to apply an effect to and the project is recognized as MJPEG, rendering the effect will likely be slow and the results may look bad.
This is just another annoying quirk that I've discovered during the course of editing a project. Seems like once I've figured out all the quirks of a particular version, another comes out with a new set of quirks.

Loss of quality from iMovie Project to Burned DVD

Hello,
I have read some strings regarding this subject but I'm still left with questions.
I have created a photo collage set to music, in iMovie. It's 12 minutes long, and when I play it in iMovie on my computer, it looks great. All the photos are crystal clear, rich with color, and vibrant in all the right places.
I played the file in Quicktime 10.0 and it looks great.
The info in the Quicktime Inspector is
Format: H.264, 1920x1080, Millions AAC, 2 Channels, 44100 Hz
FPS: 29.97
Data Rate: 20.23 Mbit/s
Current Size: 1549x871
I burned this to a DVD using Toast Titanium (because ever since my iLife '11 upgrade my iDVD hasn't worked past startup. I can't get it to do anything at all.)
Somewhere between the Quicktime movie and the Burned DVD, the movie loses a significant amount of quality. It seems all the colors are washed out. I can see my edits on some of the photos... it looks like crap. To me it looks awful, to others it may not look as bad, but I know the difference. It looks awful.
Can someone please tell me why this is happening and how I can prevent it? All while still using iMovie through this whole process, and Toast for burning?
Thank you so much
YahYah

Hi Ziatron,
The quality workaround I proposed assumes the person starts with a progressive source material. The original poster did as I don't see how you would import true progressive source media and get interlaced artifacts at the end, especially for stills! We are not in the days of the Sony Mavica you know. What you are doing is importing interlaced video and processing it in interlace with a progressive scan workflow. The combing artifacts you saw is from the consumer algorithm that is inherent in iMovie 11. I know iMovie 6HD and FCE or FCP have better de-interlacing algorithms. You can by pass iMovie 11's weakness by treating the interlaced video through a commercial/high end de-interlace software and get better results.
As long as you are working with a progressive source media, then you are not bound by de-interlacing artifacts unless your movie was shot in it. Suffice to say, best de-interlace programs cost money and a lot of computing power. That is not something the majority of computer owners use iMovie possess. I see you have a high end Mac Pro. I also have a high end Quad PC with a high end Nvidia graphics card to utilize its hundreds of CUDA cores for vReveal to eat on. But that's not what the general public of Mac or PC owners have nor what the general public buy during Black Friday or Boxing Day in Canada either. High end Macs or high end Quad PCs go with high end video editing software where the de-interlacing and the encoding and decoding algorithms are much better than the consumer versions.
This is OBVIOUS! Better algorithms will simply slow down any mid-end Macs to mid-end PCs to a low teeny 1-5 fps processing a video clip in H.264 in very very high quality and multiple passes. This is not acceptable to the general public. Which is why, you are also seeing noise artifacts in the workflow too, because you need to first de-interlace the source media and then re-encode to H.264 which obviously adds artifacts to the source before you can use it with iMovie 11, so clearly iMovie 6HD has a clear advantage. This carries over to the final workflow. But most AVCHD material out there is compressed too!
Consumers need to be aware that there is a difference between consumer grade software and commercial grade software. Also, commercial grade software require a hefty computer to do its job reasonably well! People need to understand that just because you own a nice $900 to $1000 camcorder does not mean that your mid-end Mac can deal with it.
Getting quality is so easy. Just spend lots and lots of money on hardware to shave off 15mins to a few hours of video encoding to digital video processing, but at what end because it will never end!
I've seen a few footages floating around on Youtube that looks really good made with iMovie 11. Just keep in mind that there are always tradeoffs for reasonable rendering time vs cost of your computer package.
Message was edited by: Coolmax

How can I save previews for old projects, while burning the project to DVD?

I'll admit, I haven't read the user manual cover to cover (or screen to screen for the electronic version), and haven't spent hours combing the discussions here, but I have searched for all the relevant keywords I can think of and can't find a concise answer to this question.
I get the basic idea of Vaults (I think), but haven't found much info about long term storage of projects. I'm fulltime freelance, but not super busy, and I can easily generate 100,000 images each year. I don't have the cash to be keeping all of these images in Aperture projects on external hard drives for eternity, and I'd be surprised if anyone else does. Good thing I'm not a medium format digital shooter producing 50GB each day huh?
I remember seeing a clip of a photographer 2 or 3 years ago discussing the differences between storing digital and film images. He was making the point that throwing away files you don't think you'll need again can be a mistake, citing a shot he had of Clinton and Lewinsky together, before Clinton and Lewinsky were news. "If I'd been shooting digital, that image wouldn't exist today". It was a great pic, and when that whoel scandal erupted, it made him alot of money.
So at present I'm storing every image I take in finished projects on DVD trusting that in the future I'll be looking for a shot of someone I may have shot 5, 10, 15 years ago.
I caught part of a discussion that talked about keeping the preview files for all the images (and subsequent versions) for each project. I'd love to be able to keep lo-res previews/copies of everything I've shot to date, and have them immediately accessible on my hard drive, while my full size projects are safely stored on DVD, taking up space on a bookshelf rather than on my hard drive. Loading 10 DVD's worth of projects to see what's inside them is a headache I'd like to avoid if possible, in favour of instantly checking out lo-res previews to look a shot up.
Is there an easy way to burn a completed project to DVD, but keep only the (lo res, lo size) previews on my hard drive?
20" iMac and G4 Powerbook Mac OS X (10.4.8) "A creative and dynamic professional" (I lie alot and can't sit still)

hello, kiwi
quote: "Is there an easy way to burn a completed project to DVD, but keep only the (lo res, lo size) previews on my hard drive?"
yes.
maybe,...
1. you might think of making DVD backups first prior to importing the photos into Aperture. "Store Files: In their current location" once in Aperture make low rez Previews, and export finished Project.
or,
2. bring in the photographs to hard drive first prior to importing the photos into Aperture. "Store Files: In their current location" once in Aperture make low rez Previews, and export finished Project.
the low rez Previews will stay in Aperture but the high quality Versions will be exported onto DVDs and gone from the hard drive (if you delete the originals).
another way would be to export small about 50-70 pixel wide high quality jpegs to a folder on your Desktop and import & keep these in Aperture Library as a reference. make metadata to show where the original Project DVDs are stored and DVD filing system used.
victor

Using OS X 10.8.4. Installed iLife 11 to get iDVD. iMovie ready to burn through iDVD. Attempted burn. iDVD says burn is complete. Burn lines are on DVD R. Same disk cannot be read and is considered blank by computer and DVD player. How do I burn properly?

Using OS X 10.8.4. Installed iLife 11 and got iDVD. iMovie ready in iDVD. Attempted burn. iDVD says burn is complete. Burn lines are on DVD+R. Same disk cannot be read and is considered blank by computer and DVD player. How do I burn properly?

Hello TchrDi,
I suggest this article named Archived - iDVD: Troubleshooting issues with burning discs found here http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1583.
It is pretty lengthy, but also pretty thorough.
Cheers,
Sterling

What's the max time for a project to burn in iDVD?

I have a iMovie HD priject thats almost 4 hours long, right now when I open in iDVD, it says it's too big. So my question- what size should my movie be to fit? Under 2 hours? Is that too much? IS there any easier way to tell if it will fit without always trying to export to iDVD? I have one long movie with 29 chapters in it.
I would really appreciate any suggestions anyone may have on proceeding with this.

Hi Owen,
iDVD has 2 encoding modes, "Best Performance" takes < 60 minutes, "Best Quality" takes < 120 minutes. See <a href="http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=164975">Setting the quality of a DVD. With double layer capable DVD drive, Best Quality can fit < 4 hours of video. See <a href="http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301557">iDVD 5.0.1: Burning Double-Layer DVDs.

Problems with sound clips after conv. iMovie project via mediabrow. to iDVD

I have made a 30 min long project with 80 small video clips. The project is alright when viewing it in iMovie, but after I have prepared via the mediabrowser and thenaften view the project in iDVD - every other sound clips is without sound and on some video clips it mixes some soundtracks from other tracks into it. Any ideas, I'm getting very frustrated
Thanks in advance

I'm having the same problem. Everything plays beautifully in Imovie and then when its shared with idvd or media browser it all goes weird. I get sound from footage that I either haven't used at all or audio that I have detached and deleted playing over the top of other bits, or sound going out of sync.
All my video footage was shot with 12 bit audio. For most of the footage that I've used, I've detached and deleted the original audio and put other tracks over the top, the footage that still has it's original audio, I've converted so it has 16 bit audio. I hoped that would solve the problem but my newest version of the video seems to be worse than before.
Everything plays fine in imovie and then warps when it's shared.
Any ideas would be greatly received as I am going crazy and wasting a heck of a lot of time that I don't really have!!!

More than one iMovie project into one iDVD project??

Hi,
I am editing several iMovie projects which I had intended to put on one DVD using iDVD.
Can I use iMovie to share several projects to one iDVD project or should I use iDVD to import several (completed) iMovie projects to the one iDVD project?
Can I even have more than one project on in an iDVD project?
I am currently importing a large video file to iMovie so iMovie is inaccessible.
My iMovie projects are video only (no menus, etc. until I import to iDVD).
Cheers

Well, it is recommended that you use the 'Best Performance' default setting from iDVD's Preferences for movies under 60 minutes to get the best quality.
If you want to put 60-120 minutes on one DVD, you have to select either 'High Quality' or 'Professional Quality' Both will give good results; PQ will take a bit longer to do and is supposed to be higher quality.
I usually make movies just under 2 hours, and I always use PQ. I am pleased with the quality of my movies on DVD disks. However, you should know that I am using iMovie 6 and not any hi-def videos (yet ).
David Pogue explained the process of 'Best Performance' and 'Best Quality' (what the option was before HQ and PQ) like this:
Best Performance option allots "+a fixed, predetermined amount of data to each frame of video...no matter how many minutes of video...A lot of the DVD might wind up being empty--if...the project contains less than an hour of video. But the process will go quickly, and the video will look really great+."
Best Quality option uses "+every micron of space on this blank DVD+" because it analyzes "+the amount of video...included+," and divides "+it into the amount of space available on the DVD. The amount of information used to describe an individual frame of video will vary from project to project, and it will take...a lot longer to burn the DVD because+" of "+so much analysis. But at least+" you "+will get two hours of great-looking video per disc.+"
If your videos are short, you might want to try all the encoding options and see which gives you the best quality.

Device error during burning w/iDVD

Well, I spent some time learning about codec et al and was able to get a divx file to run on QT... movie looks good on MAC when running QT. I put into idvd and it also looked good as I ran it in preview. Spent several hours in burn process and at the end the dvd was ejected with below message. The dvd physically looks properly burned but it is not accepted by my dvd player... I've made many imovie projects that burned properly in idvd.
"The recording device reported the hardware error: No write current. (0x03, 0x01.)"

Rick,
Suggest you create a disc image and then burn the DVD. File/Save As Disc Image...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=164927
This will isolate any encoding/burning issues you may encounter. Once the disc image is created, double-click the .img and burn the virtual disc that should appear on your desktop, using Toast to burn the DVD. Disk Utility to burn the .img file. Usually, you can select a burning speed in Disk Utility.
Open Disk Utility (in Utilities folder in Applications folder), click on the virtual disc (not the .img, the one below) in the left-hand window. Click the Burn icon. A new window should drop down. Select a burn speed. Your SuperDrive tray will open after clicking the Burn icon. Insert a recordable DVD. (DVD-R preferred by me.) Click the Close button. Wait. Then click the Burn button.
-->If the virtual disk selection won't allow you to click the Burn icon, use the .img file instead. This may have changed in 10.3.9 and did change in Tiger.
b Also, you can use DVD Player to play the virtual disk to check your iDVD 5 project before burning to DVD. Launch DVD Player. File/Open VIDEO_TS (Open DVD media... in Player 4.6). Find the VIDEO_TS folder and open that. (The audio folder is for DVD-Audio disks.)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93006
Use Verbatim DVD-R. Burn at 4X or slower. Office Depot and Best Buy carry them by me.

All iMovie projects opening, except for one

I am having trouble opening one particular iMovie project--while all my other projects are opening just fine.
I have the latest version of iMovie HD (6.0.3), and am working on a mirror-front G4 with plenty of Ram and working space (500gb hard drive with 270gb of usable space, 1.5gb of Ram). I have trashed the .plist in preferences and rebuilt permissions--still won't open.
Without having to start from scratch, is there a way to salvage what I have done so far?

When you say it won't open, what do you mean?
Does the program crash, or does it give you a
dialogue box with information as to why?
Also, did you move the project from another disk?
Did you check permissions on the iMovie file?
When I go to open it, I double-click on the iMovie project icon--it starts to open. Then it asks me if I want to view the trash or ignore the trash. I click on either of those options--then the "rainbow candy" cursor just sits there and spins until iMovie quits.
It just crashes or quits with no dialogue.
Did not move it from it origin.
How do you check permissions on a specific file? In the "get info" box? Have not done that.

Change iMovie project while Burning in iDVD?

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