IDVD doesn't burn and goes into infinit loop after ejecting disc

Question

I tried to use iDVD last night for the first time.
I created a small project with two .mov files.
Preview worked OK.
I clicked on the Burn button. I asked a blank DVD-R disc when asked.
iDVD took long time doing encoding and stuff, but shortly after it started burning, it ejected the disc.
But the progress window won't go away. It just shows
"Current operation: done" and sits there. I clicked on Cancel then it showed "Cleaning up" (or something like that), and it sits there.
The Quit button doesn't do anything. Force-quit menu item doesn't show up, so iDVD must be responding to GUI somehow. I had to go to Activity Monitor to kill it.
The disc it ejected contains zero bytes. It couldn't be read. But it is no longer a blank disk that can be written.
I tried DiskUtility and it also behaved funny. It behaved as though it made a disc with verification on. But the resulting disc is a blank disc, not in the sense of the disc that can be written, but in the sense it contains zero bytes.
What gives? A hardware problem? Can a cheap disc cause the symptom like this? (I'm using the $7 10-disc pack sold at Walgreen.)
Message was edited by: coffeeloverwhocannottakecoffee

Answer 1

Can a cheap disc cause the symptom like this?
Yes it can, although 'cheap' does not enter the equation, just the brand and the quality of the coating!
Most of us here recommend Verbatim and Fuji DVD-R, a few others also use Maxell.
Try saving the iDVD project as a Disk Image, then playing that in DVD Player to check that all is well - saves building up a collection of coasters!
Burning the DVD from a disk image also allows you to select a slower burn speed like 2x or 4x, which usually gives a better burn quality.
Something here might also help you:
Apple Knowledge Base article about disk burning:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1152