IDVD Burn Time = 32 hours?!

Hi all,
I've done a search on this but haven't really found any suggestions. Apologies if I've missed a thread containing this info.
I've set iDVD to burn a little over 2 hours of video from .MOV format (originally in MKV but converted via Quicktime Pro).
Should it really be 32 hours to do this? I've set the menus to no loop/sound, but had to put it in Best Quality to squeeze all the video on the disc.
I'm using a MacBook C2D which I recently upgraded to 4GB RAM and a faster 7200rpm 200GB hard drive.
I've been through Activity Monitor and quit all running applications. I've also covered the progress bar as I've read that can make a difference.
Is there anything else I can do apart from be incredibly patient?

Thanks Siberian,
I used iDVD as there are three TV episodes on the disc which are approx. 42 mins each. I assumed as that would necessitate using a menu I should use iDVD. Is this not the case?

Similar Messages

Idvd burn time

I have created a slide show in Iphoto and exported it to idvd. I am now burning the dvd, and 3 hours later it is still at stage 4: multiplexing and burning. The photo show has 39 photos and 1 audio track. How long does it usually take to burn a dvd and how can the process get sped up.

With iDVD 5, I recommend you do your initial burn to a disk image file, verify the image file plays correctly in Apple's DVD Player application, and then use Apple's Disk Utility to burn the disk image to actual DVD writable media.

Burn time = 42 HOURS !!!!

iDVD 7.01 is still burning a 1 GB (90 minute) MP4 (@ high quality setting).
How come so long?!
Activity Monitor shows 110.6 pct CPU / 22 threads 122 MB real memory & 577 virtual memory.
What's wrong with this movie?!

Encoding is taking all the time. I think format conversion is responsible.

IDVD Burn Compression times?

I am new to iDVD and burning DVD's.
Using iMovie 5 (DV-NTSC fromat preference)
Does anyone know what the general rule is for compressiing a project in iDVD?
I have read that you should not try to fit more then an hour onto the DVD.
Does that mean if I have 2 hours (Per the iMovie project counter) that is will compress in iDVD down to an hour?
Or does that mean if iMovie shows an hour , by the counter, that is what you should do? I think my iMovie project is 30GB so I need to split it up I assume.
If a DVD will hold 4.7 GB does that mean my project cannot be more then 8GB for instance? Just as an example.
I have done much reading on this but it isn't clear to me. I could experiment and just start burning discs and see what really will fit.
I know different formats compress differently but I want to get an idea because my project currently is 2 hours 17 minutes.
From what I have read is seems that Toast may do a better job of burning to a DVD also (Better compression).
I do have a R-DL capability on my iMac so does that mean I can get two hours on Double Layer DVD?
Please excuse my ignorance on this subject.
I hope I don't sound too stupid.
LargeAl

I hope I don't sound too stupid.
no, you don't.
compression is some kind of "magic", codecs, bitrates, whatever...
so, for convenience&simplicity, Apple says:
iDVD can process files up to 120minutes
ok, a little less, depending on how excessive you make use of menus, buttons, music in the dvd's menu....
in case you're interested:
iMovie uses, as your camcorder, a video compressor called "dv", that is ~13GB per hour, a videoDVD has a different compressor, called "mpeg2" making 2h fit on a 4.4GB disk... what iDVD does, it converts your video... automatically...
the quality differs just of [u[length[> of the project! you get the best results with projects <60 minutes, but 120min looks good too...
for experimenting, I recommend usage of dvd-rw media... reusable

IDVD Burning Freezes When Adding Long Music To Menus?

Hi, I am having problems burning a DVD - iDVD freezes a few hours into the encoding process and then I have to Force Quit and start again.
I have previously burned a DVD of my movie successfully, but I then made some changes to the DVD menus etc and tried to reburn without success.
The only thing I can think of which might have caused an error is changing the Music associated with the menus.
I now have 2 or 3 minute pieces of music associated with my menus, and the loop times available seem to have been increased to match the length of the music. iDVD seems to accept this on the preview etc.
Does anyone knnow if there are any issues with this, or any thoughts on what could be causing my problem?
As I say, I don't get any error messages or anything, the app just seems to freeze (spinning disc stops spinning) and then I have to quit out!
It's SO frustrating to have to wait around 4 hours each time to get the same issue!
Thanks
David

Hi again guys,
Still no good news unfortunately, although I ruled out a couple of things.
It WAS to the disk space on the DVD and not the hard drive the error msg was referring to.
After messing around with the menu soundtrack with no luck, I finally deleted one of my photo slideshows, and afte that the Burn command ran again.
It would seem that iDVD in this case has not represented the free DVD space correctly, as although it said 2.6/4.2 GB was taken, it still would throw up the error. Reducing the project size ion my case to about 1.6GB then worked.
However, the DVD STILL did not burn successfully. I got the dreaded 'freeze' again when encoding the soundtrack. SO it would appear that converting the files to .aiff did not work this time.
Could it be to do with the length of the music I wanted to include? Does anyone know if there is a limit to how long you should have your menu music playing. Why do commercial DVDs all have short loop music? Is it just because they want to maximise the space for the movie, or is it some kind of physical contrainst that you shouldn't have long loop times for menus?
And finally, is there any easy way to split my .aiff music files to say just take the first 30 seconds of the track for my DVD? I really don't have any other music suitable for my menus and what comes with iDVD is well, just, awful! Apart from my iTunes collection I have the 5 demo Garageband songs or the default music which comes with the Travel theme (that awful clarinette stuff, I;m sure you know what I mean!).
Thanks for all the help so far, I am determined to burn my DVD with music other than the awful default stuff!!
david

Why doesn't iDVD burn changes made within iMovie?

I have iMovie 6.0.3 and iDVD 6.0.3 and have made several movies and DVDs over the past few years. But now have hit something very frustrating....
1) I've just completed a movie in iMovie. Took it to iDVD, created menus etc. then burned it to a DVD-RW. Noticed a couple of changes I wanted to make, namely a soundtrack volume adjustment, and a subtitle change (within iMovie). Made the changes in iMovie.
2) When I opened iDVD again, it said it noticed some changes in the iMovie project and would I accept them. Answered yes. When I reviewed these changes in iDVD preview, all was well. It showed the new subtitle.
3) Did another burn (3-4 hour process, mostly encoding) to disk image. Lo and behold, this new movie still showed the OLD subtitle!!
4) Deleted this disk image file. Checked the iDVD preview again, and it showed the corrected subtitle. Created a NEW disk image (for the THIRD time!) and four hours later discover that the OLD subtitle is still there!!!
What the heck is going on?? iMovie file was modified, resulting iDVD project file reflected the change, but the "burn" result does NOT reflect the change!!!! Why is iDVD Burn sill picking up the old version of my movie?____
Thanks-

You're right. Only selecting Advanced>Delete Encoded Assets did the trick. Otherwise, even though iDVD recognizes that the iMovie file had changed, it doesn't necessarily "pick up" all the changes ....unless you Delete Encoded Assets.
I don't know which changes iDVD does or doesn't pick up, but in future I will always Delete Assets to be sure. Saves lots of time in the long run.
THANKS for your help!!
P.S. I did not have background encoding enabled. Never do.

Approximate Burn Times by Length of Project

I'm new to iDVD and just yesterday burned my first project, 10 minutes worth of footage and it took about 30 minutes to burn. Is this typical?
Can people who have more experience w/ iDVD assign some typical burn times to the following projects?
10 minutes of video:
30 minutes of video:
1 hour of video:
2 hours of video:
Also, I used a 4X DVD-R disc. Would it be faster w/ an 8X DVD-R disc? Is so, would it burn twice as fast as a 4X DVD-R?
Thanks for your thoughts.

In my short bit of experience, I have found that you can expect about one minute of processing time for the video section for each minute of video. Then, at the beginning, the processing of the write in and menu could take a while (anywhere from a few minutes to 15 or so depending on what you put into the drop zones, etc. The biggest hangup seems to be in the processing of the audio portion which comes after the video. The shorter your project the shorter the audion processing time but typically what I have been getting is about 20 minutes for audio processing after processing a video of a 30-40 minute project. And some people have had the experience (I did too) of having the audio processing take literally hours. There seems to be a bug in the program. You can check some of the other threads on this.
And, BTW, 30 minutes to burn a 10 minute project is not unusual. My general expectation is 1 minute of processing time for each minute of video plus 20 - 30 minutes for the audio when things are working right.
I have an older G5 (Dual 1.8 GHz late 2004 machine) so that may be a factor as well.
Don't know about the speed of 8x vs 4x as I burn my projects to a disc image and then use Toast Titanium to burn the actual DVD at "Best Speed"
Hope this helps.

I need to burn many 2 hour dvds

iDvd gives me an error message after about an hour. It says it will take almost 6 hours to burn the two hours of footage. Can this be right? I need to put about 77 hours of film onto DVDd that can be watched on a TV. Should I get an external DVD burner for this project?
Thank you!

You can use your internal Superdrive for this purpose but it may tend to overheat after too many repeated burns. Allow it to cool for about ten minutes after 3-4 burns.
Burn at a slow rate of 2x or 4x.
Also, remember to set the correct encoding setting:
iDVD encoding settings:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1502?viewlocale=en_US
Short version:
Best Performance is for videos of up to 60 minutes
Best Quality is for videos of up to 120 minutes
Professional Quality is also for up to 120 minutes but even higher quality (and takes much longer)
That was for single-layer DVDs. Double these numbers for dual-layer DVDs.
Professional Quality: The Professional Quality option uses advanced two-pass technology to encode your video (The first pass determines which parts of the movie can be given greater compresson without quality loss and which parts can’t. The second pass then encodes those different parts accordingly) , resulting in the best quality of video possible on your burned DVD. You can select this option regardless of your project’s duration (up to 2 hours of video for a single-layer disc and 4 hours for a double-layer disc). Because Professional Quality encoding is time-consuming (requiring about twice as much time to encode a project as the High Quality option, for example) choose it only if you are not concerned about the time taken.
In both cases the maximum length includes titles, transitions and effects etc. Allow about 15 minutes for these.
You can use the amount of video in your project as a rough determination of which method to choose. If your project has an hour or less of video (for a single-layer disc), choose Best Performance. If it has between 1 and 2 hours of video (for a single-layer disc), choose High Quality. If you want the best possible encoding quality for projects that are up to 2 hours (for a single-layer disc), choose Professional Quality. This option takes about twice as long as the High Quality option, so select it only if time is not an issue for you.
Use the Capacity meter in the Project Info window (choose Project > Project Info) to determine how many minutes of video your project contains.
NOTE: With the Best Performance setting, you can turn background encoding off by choosing Advanced > “Encode in Background.” The checkmark is removed to show it’s no longer selected. Turning off background encoding can help performance if your system seems sluggish.
And whilst checking these settings in iDVD Preferences, make sure that the settings for NTSC/PAL and DV/DV Widescreen are also what you want.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1502?viewlocale=en_US

Burn Time

I'm new to burning DVD's with iDVD and iMovie. My project is 12 GB and is taking over 5 hours to burn. Is this normal, and is there a faster way to burn DVDs on my Mac?

I have both a G4 with 867 MHz and a G5 with dual processor 2 GHz. a one hour project (about 13 GB) would take about 4 hours on my G4 with relatively simple menus and audio. it would take about 1.5 hours on my G5. Five hours for your project might be reasonable if you have somewhat fancy audio and DVD chapter menus.
You should be sure and limit the length of the audio on each set of DVD chapters to no more than90 seconds. More time is not necessary and longer times extend the burn time. Previous versions of iDVD actually limited this to 30 seconds.

IDVD burning one project on multiple macs? where are project contents?

How do I burn one project on multiple macs? I have a idvd project I created in keynote, added music to it in Garageband, exported to quicktime, and now is in iDVD burning just fine. However I have tons of these dvd's to make, I would like to put all my mac's to work.
last night i tried to share the file, and it is just an alias when i drag it over from the macbook it was created on to my imac. the file says it is in use and locked, since the macbook that created it is burning it. If I wanted to brun on the imac, I had to wait until the macbook was done.
is there a way around this? What if I copied all files I used to make the idvd project to my imac or any computer i wanted to burn on? woudl it hen allow two macs to be burning the same project?
I figured I could do this just like on my PC, drag the file over and voila...no such luck, its like if i had dragged a shortcut over to another pc...if the first one is using the file, its locked. Basically how do i get to the actual contents of the project, so I can also bring them over and hopefully it will allow me to burn on multiple macs at the same time?
my next solution if that didn't work was to start copying dvd's using popcorn on the other macs while the macbook continues burning through idvd.
Any opinions on how i can duplicate a dvd fast...need alot of copies!

Also as to where the files are.
I-DVD project bundle: This is the file created when you save the project.
• [user]/Library/iDVD/Favorites: This folder is located in your home folder.
• [root]/Library/iDVD/Favorites: This folder is located at the root of your disk.
• /Network/Library/iDVD/Favorites: This folder is on a network system specifically
configured by your system administrator for this purpose. (This is not the same as
having a server networked into your computer.)

Encoding / Burning Time On Different Computers

We just purchased a few new Mac's.... an iMac 27"w/ Intel i5 2.8 and a MacPro w/ 2x 2.4 Xeon Quad-Core processor.
We bought the iMac's for simple photo editing and printing and the MacPro's for encoding and burning DVD's ... and now I am finding both encoding and burning the same, not good!
The encoding and burning time is almost the same on both computers... Actually the iMac is a little quicker (more then 5 minutes) then the Mac Pro
Why is the encoding time on both Macs basically the same?
My source files are MP4 H.264 10.05Mbit to be burns on a SD DVD (NTSC). We are putting about 25mins of footage on the DVD's.
Am I missing something? Should the Mac Pro with double ram and double processor be faster? Maybe a setting to speed up the encoding time on the Mac Pro?
Thank you for any help!

Hi William Q
Welcome to Apple discussions. Great question! Most Mac applications (iDvd included) are multi-threaded, at least to some degree. Multiple processors often boost performance in most multi-threaded applications as well as when one is multitasking; or having multiple applications running all at the same time.
The way to tell this is to run /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app, then right-click (or control-click) on the columns header line and ensure that the "# Threads" column is checked.
Now run your application(s) (as shown below) and you will see the number of threads they are executing. Note that this number varies according to what exactly the app is currently doing, as temporary task-specific threads may be created only when needed.
click here
Watch what happens when I launch iDvd as well as multiple apps, including FCP.
click here
Message was edited by: SDMacuser

IDVD burned disk does not start at main menu

The IDVD burned disk starts randomly in the middle of the disk. Cannot access the main menu. I started with an IMovie with chapter headings, videos and pictures. Then shared it with IDVD, created themes, music, changed the headers, etc. Burned the disk using the File Burn DVD command. The disk takes over 1 1/2 hours (IMovie orginal is 15 minutes) to burn.

Hello to all of you first-timers here!
Welcome to the discussions.
First, are you using iMovie 9?
Did you set chapter markers in iMovie? Did you follow the Chaper Marker Rules?
RULES: No marker at the beginning of your movie, no markers within 2 seconds of the beginning or end of the movie, and no markers on or within 2 seconds of your movie.
Next, did you put your movie in iDVD and then go make any changes to it? Sometimes that causes the chapters to default to the same spot in the movie. The only solution is to recreate the iDVD project.
You should first try deleting iDVD's preference file. You can find this by closing iDVD, going to your Home file (YourUserName)/Library/Preferences/com.apple.idvd.plist
Drag this plist file to the trash. iDVD will create a new one when you relaunch it.
Reopen iDVD.
Try creating the disk image file again or burning a disk again.
If that results in the same problem, create a new iDVD project. Then, drag in the iMovie project from the Media/Movies pane in iDVD instead of sharing it from iDVD.
Post back if that does not resolve the issue.

Is An External DVD Burner Needed To Reduce Burn Time?

I burned a DVD consisting of 400 photos with added music from iTunes but took nearly 2 hours.
In the book "iLife '06" Michael Rubin suggests an Apple SuperDrive or compatible third-party DVD burner for burning DVD's as the minimum system requirements for the ilife suite.
Is the 2-hour burn time typical thus the reason for using a DVD burner? I will buy the burner if it significantly reduces the burn time.
Thanks,
Carlos Marques

To add to what Michael said, you actually would benefit from a slower burn time ... like making your project into a Disc Image then using Disc Utility to burn at the slowest rate possible, thereby eliminating some potential problems
As stated, you are stuck with the actual encoding rate unless you speed up your puter

Why is iDVD burning incomplete?

I imported and edited my video in iMovie HD. I shared the video to iDVD and when I set everything up in the menus and all that, I burned my video and it ejects the blank DVD before it even starts burning. It ejects the disc at the "Multiplexing and burning..." stage, with a "Time remaining: about one minute". It says it's already done burning, but there is no burn mark on the DVD itself—it is still a blank DVD. I tried everything, I've gotten a few DVD's to burn, but some just won't burn.
How can I fix this issue?

Hi I managed to finally solve the problem and it was a simple DVD disc changing. SDMacuser reminded me of the speed of the DVD disc they have. The one I have is a 4X. I used a Fujifilm DVD+RW (no speed written on the disc).
What I did was a mix method as suggested on different postings:
1) Exported to idvd from imovie, with chapters. Change the navigation text. From +Why is iDVD burning incomplete?+ (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1991062&tstart=15)
2) I burn a disk image as J Keller suggested, and used Disk Utility to burn onto the DVD disc. From +Idvd ejecting while in the burn stage+ (http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10293881#10293881)
I also burn successfully directly from iDVD using the faster speed DVD disc. So i would encourage everyone to check the burning speed of their DVD discs. It is usually written in big letters on the DVD disc surface: a number with a capital letter "X" as a metric. Eg. "2X", "16X". This might be the key to the incomplete burning problem.
I wasn't able to burn from iDVD to my DVD disc (with speed 4x), even after i have changed the burn speed settings of iDVD to 4x and 2x. Therefore i concluded that the problem is my disc.
How to change burn speed settings on iDVD:
-iDVD>Preferences>Advanced>Preferred DVD Burning Speed.
Lastly, the resources here really helped. Would encourage everyone to read thru the posts patiently. Most sincere thanks to everyone who contributed.

Many File Types dragged to iDVD, burned to DVD, won't play on DVD player

I have made a recording on Camtasia (video, pictures and audio). My goal is to make it into a DVD that plays on standard players. Any format I have saved the file to is not working.
Here's what I have done so far:
From Camtasia I have selected Advanced Export and saved it as a MPEG4. Then learned that MPEG are not recognized by many DVD players.
Then I did an Advanced Export and saved the file as Quick Time. Moved it into iDVD, burned the disk and again the disk won't play on either of my DVD players.
I have done another Advance Export and saved the file as an AVI but now only the first 3 minutes of a 30 minute video are being captured.
I know everyone can appreciate that each of these burn processes take a lot of time. I am doing them only to be disappointed (aggravated) that they won't playing on my DVD players (I have tried two). I am using Verbatim DVD +R.
If someone uses Camtasia and iDVD that would be ideal. But at this point, I'd also be willing to try another program just to get the job done.

Hi Vicadea
Welcome to apple discussions. I've never tried Camtasia for Mac. Apparently it's not working very well for you even when you export as a QuickTime movie. I don't know what to say other than it seems like fairly pricey screen capture software ($299) just to have it not work as you expected on multiple attempts.
For much less money and much more reliable results I'd recommend the following for screen capture instead:
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/
Hope this helps but if not just come on back. Good luck.
Disclaimer: Apple does not necessarily endorse any suggestions, solutions, or third-party software / products that may be mentioned in this topic. Apple encourages you to first seek a solution at Apple Support. The following links are provided as is, with no guarantee of the effectiveness or reliability of the information. Apple does not guarantee that these links will be maintained or functional at any given time. Use the information above at your own discretion.
Message was edited by: SDMacuser

IDVD Burn Time = 32 hours?!

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