Copying IDVD project?

I have a 12 minute IMovie that I need to burn to a DVD. It's all set to go, but I don't have a superdrive. BUT: I have two Mac-using friends who do have superdrives. So the question: how do I copy the DVD project from one computer to another? Best to copy the movie itself and then reconstruct the DVD project, or can the whole DVD project (plus the movie) be copied whole? I suspect it's not a simple drag/drop operation...but I could be wrong. Any thoughts?
Thanks...

In iDVD, there is an option to save your project as a project archive. Meaning, normally the iDVD project file is rather small because it references the files it needs elsewhere on your hard drive, like in your iMovie project. If you copy this project file to another computer, it won't work because all the other associated files needed get left behind.
So to get around that, Apple has provided the option to save as a project archive which takes all the files, music, photos, etc. required to make the DVD and puts them all into a project archive file that can now be easily transferred to other computers. Keep in mind that because it will contain everything it needs including the movie files, it can end up a very large file (e.g. 13+ gigs for a one hour movie).
Patrick

Similar Messages

Copy iDvd projects of Imovie

My question is this, I just put together my first iDvd project of my home movies, and I was wondering after you make your dvd, it there an easier way to make more than one copy to give to family after you make the first without it processing all the menu's? That part seems to take the longest, and after the first dvd, is it really necessary to go through that every-time? Thanks!

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42724
Mike

How do I burn a iDVD project on more than one computer?

I created an iDVD (7.1.2) project with three elements. Two iMovies made from iMovie '11 and a presentation made from Keynote (5.1.1).
I deleted the chapters in the slide show to help simplify matters and it did cut down on my burning/processing time.
I made this iDVD project for my son's 5th grade graduation. We would like to burn 135 copies to give each family one 'favor/dvd' for memory keepsake.
I do not want to burn 135 copies on my Superdrive (new to owning a mac) and do not want to ruin my Superdrive for a school project.
I can not take this to a commericial duplicater because of copyright issues with the music. We are not selling the copies, just giving a memory keepsake to the kids- of the year and the slide show from graduation, the other iMovie in iDVD, just contains one page of specifications; like my contact info and songs used etc..
I have parents that are willing to help me copy the movie, however I don't know how to do this?
I don't believe any of these parents have iDVD.
Someone mentioned through all my readings on apple communities and google, making an "ISO" of your project then anyone can make a copy of your movie on any platform: PC or Mac. What is an ISO? How do I make a ISO?
If I have a .img file from saving a disc image - would I burn the .img file to a dvd and give it to someone else to copy? Are there other files that need to go with my .img file?
If/When someone takes my .img file and puts it on their computer how do they copy it? Do they need burning software?
Can I just give a friend a burned DVD of my movie to burn copies on their computer?
What I tried: Bought a LaCie burner to use a external drive vs. my (Superdrive - worried about overuse). Saved project as a "Disc Image." Mounted to my Finder and then burned to external drive with disc utility. This worked successfully 4 times in a row then kept getting message "unsuccessful burn" I took the drive back to Fry's. Not sure if it was the drive?
Any advice to a newcomer would be great!
Summer has already begun and I would like to finish this project as soon as I can.
Thanks so much, Deanna

Yes, you can distribute a burned disk of the project to those who can create duplicate disks. Or create a disk image of the iDVD project using the File ➙ Save as Disk Image menu option.
Then you can distribute the disk image to those who will burn the disks. For PCs you'll have to convert the .dmg file to a .iso file so they can burn it. This website describer how: Mac Help - Convert and Burn Mac .dmg or .img to .iso Windows PC-Compatible Disk Image
Suggest to them to burn to disk with Disk Utility or Toast at the slowest speed available (2x-4x) to assure the best burn quality. Always use top quality media: Verbatim, Maxell or Taiyo Yuden DVD-R are the most recommended in these forums.
It would be prudent to rest your optical drive for about 30 minutes after burning 3 disks in a row. That will give the laser time to cool down before you start another batch.
OT

Can I use a DRM-Protected Music video in my IDVD project.

Can I download a DRM protected music video to a IDVD project and burn a DVD. The music video is not showing up in the media window in IDVD. Only ITunes Plus songs and videos, make it to the media window. I can't drag the video directly off ITunes. They say, I can burn a up to seven copy's of the DMR protected video/music, but how.. Thanks for any help.

Didn't work, Window came up saying "Could not be converted because protected files cannot be converted to other formats. I was able to burn it to a DVD, it came up as a MPEG 4 file. Then I first went to the ITunes tool bar Preference>Advanced>importing>importing using>Aiff Encoder. Then tool bar again File> import. Music video imported another copy to ITunes library. Right mouse clicked second copy> convert selection to Aiff. Then "Could not convert" window came up.

How do I delete an idvd project from my hard drive? If I do so, will it delete the raw videos/images from iphoto or imovie? Thank you

I understand that an imovie or idvd project will take up quite a bit of space on my hard drive, so after I create the movies on either program I want to delete them. I can't figure out how to delete them on idvd. Should I go to finder? I'm so confused!

iDVD only uses pointers to the media, photos and QT files, that it uses in its projects. So if you delete a movie that you used in it that movie will be lost to iDVD.
However you can use the File ➙ Archive Project... menu option and that will copy the media into the iDVD project package. Then if you delete the movie file the archived project will still have its copy of the movie to use.
You won't be able to go back and make any changes to the movie if you do this. So wait until the project is complete and burned to disk before archiving and deleting the movie files.
Personally I would get an external HD and save those movies and other files that you might want to delete from your boot drive because you never know when you might want to go back and make changes. Once they are deleted you can't go back.
Happy Holidays

How do I archive iDVD project? Best/Smallest size?

Hi,
I need to know the best method to save a movie project that was made in imovie, then burned to DVD using iDVD. I want to save a copy of the finished product for archival purposes on an external drive. I want to be able to pull up this archive and be able to burn another copy of it to DVD or just be able to view the archived movie on my powerbook (directly from the external. I want it to be saved in the smallest size. I am ruling out saving the imovie project, as that is usually up to 12 or 14gb. I tried to save the iDVD project that was burned to a disc, but I wasn't able to view that again, or burn it to another dvd disc? Would it make sense for me to edit the project like always in imovie, open iDVD, and save it as a disc image first, and then burn it to DVD-R whenever I need a copy? And if I do this, is the disc image file going to be able to be viewed on the powerbook, without using the burned DVD? Also, I read on here that the iDVD doesn't have an option to burn to disc image? I know Toast Titanium does. I have that also. But, can I edit the movie in imovie, and then just open Toast Titanium and use it to make a disc image? And then at a later date, call up the disc image with Toast and just use Toast to burn a DVD? Also, I should note that I will need to burn 2 imovie projects to the DVD (they are 1 hr long t.v. episodes each) I need to put 2 episodes on each DVD. I know how to burn them from imovie directly to iDVD, but then I am back to the whole question of archiving them in something other than imovie projects or iDVD projects?????????
Thanks to anyone who can advise
-Tom

Oh my, where to begin.
If you think you will ever want to change your saved iDVD project (change the menu, add more videos) then keep the Project file. That is what iDVD can read. After you've burned a DVD (or made a disc image) with iDVD there still is an encoded MPEG inside the Project file. So you don't need to save the iMovie, just the iDVD project file (or project folder if your version has more than just a file).
A disc image is the same thing as having the video DVD written to your hard drive. iDVD doesn't open a DVD; nor will it open a disc image. When you mount a disc image (double-click on it) there will be a new icon on your desktop. If you open DVD player, it will play the movie from the mounted disc image the same as if it was playing a DVD disc. You may need to choose Open VIDEO_TS in the DVD player File menu and select the VIDEO_TS folder in the mounted image in order to play the video. If nothing appears on the screen, press the space bar to start playback.
Disc images are burned in Toast using the Image File option in the Copy window. You can burn one disc image to one DVD.
What I recommend is that you add your multiple movies to your one iDVD project before saving a disc image or burning a DVD. iDVD 4 can handle up to 2 hours of video per DVD, although I think it is best to keep at near 90 minutes or less for best quality.
As for saving a copy for future use: you need to save the iDVD project itself if you want to re-use it in iDVD. If not, you can save a disc image which is the same as burning another DVD except it is on the hard drive. By the way, Toast can make a disc image from your burned DVD. Insert the DVD, select it in the Toast Copy window and choose "Save as Disc Image" from the Toast File menu.

How can I get my iDVD project from my iMac to my MBPro?

I created a slideshow on my iMac in iPhoto, sent it to iDVD, and then burned the slideshow to a disc from iDVD. I'd like to have the iDVD project on my MBPro, too, but everything I've tried doesn't work!
I've read the posts saying that archiving the iDVD project would work...I did that on my iMac and burned it to a disc to transfer it. Well, the archiving made an "Alias" of the iDVD file, and when I tried to open it on my MBPro I got an error message that it "couldn't be opened because the original file can not be found". Of course not! The "original" file is on my iMac!)
Any help would really be appreciated...I'm not real familiar with the whole iDisk thing, but I was wondering if that might work??

I actually did do File/Archive when I archived it; still not sure why it created an alias that I can't work with...I'm pretty sure though that the project is an ok size for a DVD; it's about 25 minutes total, WAY less than 4.7GB that the disk holds. And, I had burned a copy of the final iDvd file to a DVD-R before I decided I wanted to have the file on my MBPro.
Still hoping to find out how I can transfer this file from Mac to Mac...but, thanks for your input!

How do I move an iDVD project to external

I recently upgraded to iDVD '08 and see that now, one of the output selections is iDVD, meaning it goes straight to that. When this is selected, it automatically begins creating the file as opposed to asking where you'd like to store it. It ended up in my documents on my HD. I figured no worry, I'd just move it over to my ext HD since it was over 2GB. But when I did this and tried to open it, it said 2 files were missing. So, couple of questions. First, I remember with the last that you just output a file that you then, yourself, dragged into iDVD. This seemed very easy. But with this way, it seems to automate it. How can I output so that is does it the old way, where it generates a file that I can place in iDVD myself, and that I can store on an external. Second, if that's not possible, what files do I need to locate to move to the ext, where do they hide, and where should I store them?
Why do they make what was perfectly easy, hard?

If I understand you correctly, you are actually asking two different questions.
1. Do you mean that with iMovie 08, when you select to 'share' your movie to iDVD that iDVD opens a new project automatically?
You do not have to use the output options in iMovie. Just close your iMovie and open iDVD yourself, choose to create a new project, select a theme, then go to the Media tab, then 'Movies,' locate your iMovie and drag it onto iDVD's main screen. Be careful not to drop it into a menu Drop Zone.
2. You also would like to have your iDVD project saved to a different location than the default 'Documents' file. When you open iDVD and create a new project, you will see a dropdown box showing Documents as the save location. You can change that right from that drop box.
However, it is recommended that you save your project on your computer's drive, not an external drive. The iDVD application itself must run from your computer. Some users have successfully created and burned projects located on other drives, but many have run into problems.
You can certainly save your completed iDVD projects to an external drive by doing a 'save as disk image' from within the iDVD project. This will look like the burn process, and take just as long for the encoding, but the end result is a disk image file, not a burned DVD disk. The disk image file is a self-contained file that is an exact replica of your iDVD project. It can be moved without losing the ability to burn DVD disks from it in the future.
Remember that an iDVD project itself should be thought of as a container that has references to media files used in it, but it does not actually CONTAIN the media files. When a DVD is burned from an iDVD project, iDVD locates the needed media and copies it for the burn, doing this for each disk burned. Sometimes there are burn 'glitches' where the first DVD disk burns fine, but others may not. Also with an iDVD project, if you rename, move, change or delete any of the files used in the project, iDVD will be unable to locate them and will not be able to open properly. With a saved disk image file, you can safely delete the original iDVD project and the original iMovie, thus saving drive space.
Burning DVD disks form a disk image file using Disk Utility or Toast is a better way to burn DVD disks since the files are all encoded in the disk image file and do not have to be copied in each time.
Please post back if any of this is not clear, or does not answer what you need to know.

Why can't I use the iLife music with my iDVD project?

I thought I had been able to use some of the standard music that comes with iLife in my iDVD project, but now I can't figure out how to do that. Did an update make this not possible, or am I just going about it wrong? (For example, I'd like to use the "Lazy Day" sound clip as a background sound for one of the menus.)

My error.:( The sample music folder was in iPhoto. If you look inside the iPhoto and iMovie applications in the Resource folder you'll find a Music folder (iPhoto) and a iMovie Sound Effects folder that contain the various sample audio tracks. You can COPY them to a folder on the desktop and import into iTunes, put them in an playlist and access them that way. I'm sure Garageband will have a number of loops or sample tracks that you can copy also.
If you're looking for some audio to use try http://www.freeplaymusic.com/. They have tons of free audio tracks, jazz, country, alternative, blues, business & finance, children's, hard rock, instrumental, etc. They come in 30 sec., 60 sec. and full length for each song.

What's actually IN a saved iDVD project?

After upgrading to iLife '06, I wanted to burn a new copy of an iMovie project I first put on iDVD a few weeks ago. I've never done this before; always burned all copies at once.
When I open the named/saved iDVD project (both from within Documents and via Open Recent), it shows me empty Drop Zones and a blank menu. Where's the theme/audio etc. I put together when I first created the project?
Thanks.

It is easiest to duplicate a video-DVD with Toast (i.e. a 3rd party app).
With the Disk Utility it is very easy to accidentally burn a data-DVD (instead of a video-DVD), so follow these instructions strictly:
- Using Disk Utility (Mac OS X 10.3 and higher):
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42724
1. Insert the DVD-R video disc that you created with iDVD into the SuperDrive.
2. Open the Disk Utility application (/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility).
3. Select the disc (not just the disc session) you want to copy from the listing.
4. From the Images menu, choose New and the choose Image from "your disk name".
5. Type a file name and choose "DVD/CD Master" from the Image Format pop-up menu.
6. Click the Create button. After the image has been created you should see it in the disk listing in the Disk Utility window.
7. Eject the DVD-R video disc.
8. Select the disk image you created from the listing (that *.img is also mounted on the Desktop).
9. Click the Burn icon in the toolbar.
10. When prompted, insert a blank DVD-R disc.
11. Click the Burn button.

Best way to divide iDVD project onto 2 DVDs?

I have an iDVD project that I've spent sooooooo much time on, and after burning to DVD, the quality was awful (zigzaginess with movement in the shadow areas, etc etc).
The project duration is 80:44 minutes. DVD capacity says 4.4GB of 4.2 GB.
So would the best thing be to divide it into two DVDs? Part 1 and Part 2? Do I just make a copy of the file, and delete chapters 1-25 on one and chapters 26-51 on the other? Is it that simple?

No, a standard DVD-R disk can hold 120 minutes, so you are well within the disk capacity. The file size has nothing to do with it. It is running time that counts. Also, 4.2 GB = 4.7 GB. It is just being expressed differently. But none of this has any bearing on the quality of your final DVD. You are well within capacity. It is not necessary, nor would it be helpful, to divide your project into two DVDs.
If your still images look jaggy, it probably was because you used the Share menu function to share your iMovie project to iDVD and when the prompt came up to render or proceed anyway, you selected render. Don't do that. Always select Proceed Anyway. That way iDVD will do the rendering and it does a much better job than iMovie. iMovie's rendering, in fact, is destructive and can ruin the appearance of your still images on the final DVD.
Instead of using the Share function, I find it best to drag the iMovie project icon (the one with the star on it) into the edge of your iDVD main menu window, being careful not to put it in a drop zone. Your movie will then import into iDVD and iDVD will handle all of the rendering. Your results will be much better.
Then save your iDVD project as a disk image (an option on the file menu) and burn your DVD from the Disk Image using the Disk Utility app on your Mac. That usually yields the best results.
Also, for projects between 60 minutes and 120 minutes duration, you should burn using the Best Quality setting rather than best performance.
If your moving video clips look like they have moving combed lines through them when the clip depicts hard edged images or parallel lines, that is due to interlacing. iDVD is designed to produce projects that play on an interlaced TV. If you play it on a progressive screen TV, or on your progressive computer screen, you may get the wavy lines that come from playing interlaced material on a progressive screen. Splitting your project into two projects will not help that.

Using iDVD project file after deleting original iMovieHD

I've been using iMovieHD and iDVD to convert my home movies from miniDV tapes to DVDs. I've been putting two one-hour tapes together into one iMovie and then creating an iDVD project with themes, chapters, etc.
Each two-hour iMovie file takes up >20 GB. Before I burned my DVD, the iDVD project file took up only a few MB. After I burned the DVD, the file size grew to >4 GB, so I figured (erroneously, it seems) that this new file package contained all of the information needed to keep burning DVDs. Threfore, I deleted the original massive iMovie file and kept only the iDVD project file.
Now every time I try to load the iDVD file, the program lists all the missing files and, other than my themes and chapter titles, there is nothing left of the original project.
Am I missing something here? What's taking up all that space (4 GB)? Am I completely screwed? Is the only way to make new copies of my project to copy the DVD that I made?
Any help would be appreciated.

Hi Jay,
As John has said, you should have created a Disc Image of your DVD project before deleting the iMovie file. When working in iMovie/iDVD you must not delete ANYTHING that is in the project, not even the iMovie trash can, which often mysteriously fills up with "stuff", until you are sure you are finished editing and then have saved a Disc Image to burn further DVD's from. The files you deleted from iMovie were the reference for the file you were using in iDVD. Without that iMovie file, your iDVD project will only show what was created there, like your theme page.
Sorry that's bad news. Your options now are re-create your iMovies from your tapes, OR, rip the DVD you have back to your Mac to burn more DVD's.
Forest
iMac G5 20" 1.8 GHz - 400GB HD - 2GB RAM Mac OS X (10.4.8) 300 GB & 160GB Ext drives, QT 7.1.5 Pro, Panasonic GS-500 3CCD miniDV cam

Want the best quality imovie/idvd project

Hi all
Just imported a video from my Sony digital8 cam using imovie. I'm having a little troubele deciding from idvd or imovie, which is the right direction? Can someone share a good home video back up system? I'm trying to import my home videos from my Sony digital8 camcorder

+I'm having a little troubele deciding from idvd or imovie, which is the right direction?+
It depends on what you want as an end result.
iMovie is an editing program so that you can crop your movies, add titles, effects, transitions, add still photos and audio files.
iDVD is an authoring program so that you can create a burned DVD disk of your videos, photos, etc. You create your movies in iMovie and then drop the finished movie into an iDVD project to burn it to a DVD disk so that you/others can view it on a TV from a set-top DVD player. iDVD has to compress data when it is burned, so you don't want to be burning DVDs to preserve your home videos if you want to edit them later in iMovie.
If you just want to burn them to back them up and you don't want/need to do any editing, you might want to look into just using a stand-alone DVD recorder. You could connect your dig8 camcorder and record to DVD disk directly.
You can also use iDVD to create slideshows and burn them.
You should go to Apple's support site for iLife and watch the tutorial videos for both iDVD and iMovie 6:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#idvd
http://www.apple.com/support/ilife/tutorials/idvd/index.html
http://www.apple.com/support/ilife/tutorials/imovie/
+Can someone share a good home video back up system?+
Again, it depends on what end result you want. Some people think that they want to import all their video footage into iMovies, and save all of it on their computers. However, that requires HUGE amounts of drive space. Each of my iMovies runs from 25-60 GB. It is better to import the footage for each movie at a time, as you work on your iMovie.
A large external drive just for doing movies is a great idea. Get as large a drive as you can afford! Be sure to format it for macs first before importing anything. Keep the iMovie and iDVD apps on your main drive.
I. Save your original raw digital 8 tapes. Data is already in digital format. Be sure to keep your camcorder so you can reimport if you want. If you really want a back up for these original tapes, you can connect your dig 8 camcorder to a miniDV camcorder and record to miniDV tapes. I did this for my VHS tapes as they were getting too old and I was concerned about further degradation. I like having a digital format of my original video VHS and Hi 8 tapes. This may not be necessary for you since all your tapes are already digital.
2. Import videos into iMovie, doing just one movie at a time to save drive space, edit, then export the movie to miniDV tapes with a miniDV camcorder. This process gives you tape(s) of your EDITED iMovie. I use these tapes as a backup for my iMovies, since I delete my iMovies after exporting them and after I have burned my DVD of that movie. (See next).
3. Create iDVD projects from edited iMovies, do 'save as disk image' for each one so that you have an image file of all your projects. Since disk images are self-contained, you can safely delete the original iMovie and iDVD projects without losing the ability to burn DVDs in the future. It also saves drive space. Use the disk image file for the actual burning of the DVD disk, using Disk Utility.
Now you have a set of raw original tapes, a set of edited mini DV tapes, a burned DVD and the disk image file of each project. You should copy all the disk images to another external drive as a backup.
I don't worry about backing up the DV tapes, as I can always reimport them. The tapes are small and store easily. It is recommended for longer life of the tapes that you get them out once a year and rewind them, but I have not been doing that.
Yes, you can take one of your burned DVD disks and create a disk image from it, and use it to burn more disks, but that means that your future burns depend on that disk staying in good shape until you want it. DVD disks can crack, break, melt, etc depending on who uses them. I prefer to know that my disk images are saved and backed up for when I need them.

If I delete iMovie events, will completed iDVD projects be affected?

Three questions:
1.) If I delete footage from iMovie, will iDVD projects that use the same footage be affected? I have burned some home videos to DVD's recently (footage went from camera to iMovie to iDVD to burned DVD... never knew this process took so many steps) and I would like to clear up some hard drive space but it would be nice to be able to go back and burn replacement copies of these DVD's in the future.
2.) Why is the footage in iMovie MUCH larger than the exact same footage in an iDVD project?
3.) If I delete footage from iMovie events, will iMovie projects that use that footage be affected?

What I have is completed iDVD '08 projects. What I need to know is this: if I deleted the event and project files from iM08, would I still be able to go back to the iDVD projects and burn additional copies of the DVD in the future?
As others have tried to say, it all depends on what you mean by "completed."
1) If you, for instance, shared your project the the Media Browser, then imported and burned a DVD (which you no longer have), and subsequently modify the iMovie project or delete it, then the "source" file for your iDVD project will be gone.
2) If, on the other hand, a physical file not stored in your "project" package was saved to you hard drive and used as a source for your iDVD project, then it remains available for iDVD and can be used as a basis for additional burns as long as you don't delete it or the iDVD project. In this case, deleting the iMovie '08 project and event files has no effect on future burns.
3) A better option is to simply save the encoded iDVD output as an "image" file. Then you can get rid of the iDVD project file as well and any time you want to burn additional DVD copies, simply burn the image to as many times as needed. Of course, this means you cannot alter the iDVD project so you have to make sure you are really happy with the output before deleting it.
4) Also be advised, that depending on the software available, you can either "copy" or "image" burn your finished DVD as often as you desire. The advantage here is that you don't have to keep any files on your hard drive for future "cloning" of your DVDs. On the other hand, this process takes a bit longer than simply burning a DVD image already stored on your hard drive.
Basically, you have many options here. Evaluate them and decided what is best for your particular work flow.

Burning iDVD project files

I'm trying to free up hard disk space by bruning iDVD project files (.dvdproj) to a DVD-R.
When I tried doing this the files would not open. There was an error message that said - not writable.
I tried to first archive the files as Archived.dvdproj and I checked read/write permissions, but I still get the same error message.
Is there a way to burn these files to DVD-R and have them available to open in the iDVD edit window the same as they were on my hard drive.
Photoscene

I'll try to be more specific. This was an iPhoto slideshow that was exported to iDVD.
I was able to delete the 10 megapixel .jpeg files from the Finder, the images from iPhoto, the QuickTime file, the iDVD.img file, and the Audio.Sd2f file (Roxio).
The Roxio audio file was needed to combine three music tracks into one file so that iPhoto could export them to iDVD.
Deleting the project saved 3GB of hard disk space.
The only files left were the four .aiff files in iTunes.
After this the Archived.dvdpoj file still opened in the iDVD edit window and played all the way through. From there it was burned to a CD-R, saving 400 MB of space.
I double checked the CD-R by copying the Archived.dvdproj file on to the desktop a second time and it works as it should.
Photoscene
PowerBook G4 17 inch, PowerBook G4 12 inch Mac OS X (10.4.6) Tiger/Panther

Copying IDVD project?

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