Export/Encoding/Compression Error

Question

I have been trying to burn a DVD for the last week without any success using iMovie and iDVD.
When trying to burn the DVD on iDVD, the program would "Unexpectedly Quit" while it is encoding the movie. It would encode the first 2-3 minutes of the movie before the program quits. Furthermore, when I try to save the project to a Disk Image, the program unexpectedly quits too.
Since I noticed that the program was quitting during the encoding process of the first movie, I tried exporting the first movie into another format such as QuickTime and MPEG-4 using iMovie. QuickTime immediately prompts the message:
"A file compression error occurred. The movie could not be properly compressed. THe movie may contain some data that is invalid for the type of compression selected."
The project consists of JPEG's, Quicktime MOV's with sound(from a Kodak Digital Camera), and M4p's (purchased through iTunes). I would believe all these formats are compatible with iMovie since they are all imported successfully. When trying to export to MPEG-4 with Audio (AAC-LC), the encoding processes half way, then quits unexpectedly.
On an interesting note, when I encode the same movie using MPEG-4 with NO AUDIO, the encoding process completes successfully. I am suspecting that the issue may have to involve the Audio.
Out of the 9 iMovie Projects I included in my DVD, 5 of them could be exported into Quicktime MOV's correctly, while the other 4 would cause the program to quit. I noticed that the 5 that do work are all under 5 minutes of video and audio. The other 4 that say "A compression error occurred". I do not know if this somehow attributes to the problems.
Is there anything I can do to encode these 4 movies correctly?
If it is an issue with the audio compression, is there a work around for it?
If I am able to encode these movies correctly on iMovie, should the encoding process for iDVD work correctly also?
Any help anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Mac Mini 1.42GB   Mac OS X (10.4.3)   1 GB Ram

Answer 1

Hi ebm - not sure that I can help much, but a few observations:
iMovie converts M4P files to AIFF, so that shouldn't cause a problem.
The .MOV files from the Kodak still camera may be more problematic - are you sure that the audio on them plays in iMovie? What format are those files - perhaps they're mpeg4?
I cannot see why you would want to convert the movie to MPEG4.
What about creating a QT (Full Quality) file of each movie, then open iDVD and drag them into the iDVD window. If their combined length is less than 60 minutes, you could use the Best Performance setting with background encoding ticked (in iDVD Preferences) - you can then watch them as they encode.
Of course, Best Quality may produce a slightly better result, but the encoding occurs after you click Burn.
Good luck!