IDVD project menu question

HI gang,
Hope you can help me out with this. Hypothetically, say I'm making a dvd about paper airplanes. I want to have three menu items on the main screen. One would be 'Play Movie', to just play the whole thing. Another would be 'Flying' which, when clicked, would take them to a list of all the planes they can individually click on to see that plane in action. Finally, I would want a third menu button that says 'Folding' that would take the user to another list of the same planes, but when clicked on, takes the user to that plane's folding technique.
Is this done with folders? I know I wouldn't use folders for the individual planes, since folders take you to another level, so how do you import those? Also, for the 'Play Movie' menu button, I don't want that one to go to a sub-menu, but just start playing when clicked. Thanks so much for all of your help in this!
Chad

Hi Chad,
For using iDVD, there are 2 approaches I can suggest:
chapter markers
In the "whole movie", you put in chapters markers for each of the "flying" and "folding" clip starting point. When you import this into iDVD, iDVD assigns buttons to these markers. You can re-distribute them to different sub-menus (folders as you call it). The advantage of this method is you only have one movie to import. The disadvantage is that when a chapter plays, it does not stop at the end of the chapter, it continues to the next chapter.
multiple movies
You make one continuous movie for the "Play Movie", and separate mini movies for each of "flying" and "folding" movies. When you import them, each has its own button. You distribute them in sub-menus as you described. The advantage is that each movie plays only its portion and returns to the menu after finished. The disadvantage is that you add duplicate movies into the DVD and waste precious DVD space.

Similar Messages

When I reopen iDVD project menu videos are lost...

If I try to retrieve the lost videos I cannot select them. If I open iMOVIE and "share" to iDVD the menus work. Anyone know what is going on here? I am assuming it has something to do with the fact that I need a graphics card but I'm looking for suggestions.
g4 tower Mac OS X (10.3.9)

No resolution for this issue

Music dies out on burned idvd project

I am creating a simple slide show with music using idvd and it plays perfectly on the computer but when i burn it and play it on the tv it has a few spots where the music dies out for a few seconds. any ideas?

Hi baldguy
Welcome to apple discussions. May be a media issue. May not. The way to find out though is to burn a disc image to the desktop of your mac of the iDvd project in question. This will help us narrow things down to either the media or your computer. Use apple's dvd player app to open the video_TS folder of the image you created on the desktop to see if it plays as expected. If it does, then this will tend to point toward media selection or the rate at which it was burned dvd-r.
Also, what brand of dvd's did you use? I recommend Verbatim (at least while troubleshooting this issue). Did the burn exceed 4x? if so, this tends to increase the number of read or write errors to dvd-r. Lowering the burn speed to 4x may help in such situation.
Hope this info helps but if you need further clarification, just come on back and we'll walk you through step by step.
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

Why can't I open items in iDVD sub menu & Open Existing project lists?

Recently I installed *Jam Pack-Music of the World*. Since then, my iMac experienced one Kernal Panic while I was using iMovie. Later I tried to burn the movie I had been working on, iDVD got stuck at audio encoding and then quit unexpectedly a while later. When I tried to +'Open Existing project'+ in iDVD, I noticed the list of files in the *Movie folder* of the iDVD dialogue window are shaded grey and could not be opened. (They could however be opened from the *Documents foder* where they are shown as .dvdproject files.) Additionally it became clear that about 40-50 GB of storage space on the hard drive had been lost. I have also noticed that the items listed in the *iDVD sub menu* (tool bar) are also grey and cannot be opened - although if I first open a project from the documents folder these items then show black and can be opened. I've had my iMac for 18 months and had no real problems till now. I'm new to computing and at a loss as to what's happened and how to rectify it.

I don't purport to be an expert, but since you have not gotten a response as yet, I'll give you my comment.
If you got a Kernal Panic, your computer is in need of some maintenance. The following recipe is from one of the gurus on the iMovie formum in a different context. " Restart from your install disk (by holding down the C key as you restart), and go to Disk Utility, then repair the hard disk. Restart as normal and then repair permissions from the same utility."
Make sure that you have enough free space on your hard drive for these programs to work -- at least 15GB and better 25GB.
You could also try uninstalling Jam Pack-Music of the World, and see if that clears up the problem.
Good luck.

IDVD project without menu

I am trying to burn my quicktime file with IDVD but I DO NOT want a menu. I want the DVD just to play when it is put into a player.
Any suggestions???

In an iDVD project you can define a movie file that will start at insertion of the DVD in the player.
Select from the menu: View -> Show Map.
In the first placeholder you can drop a movie (DV) file. That's all.
G4, G5 and Intel Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Why does my iDVD project skip the main menu screen when starting?

I just finished a movie in iMovie 09, chose iDVD from the iMovie menu, chose a theme, etc., all was fine, burned the DVD and it works great except it starts the movie instantly rather than showing the opening screen with the main menu.

When you export to iDVD from iMovie 09, iMovie usually creates an iDVD project in which your movie plays automatically before the main menu is shown. As SDUser has said, you can get rid of that behaviour by going into the DVD map and dragging out the very first item.
A hint: if you have chapter markers in your movie, and you are using a theme that has motion menus, open up the Inspector (the little i button bottom left in iDVD) and while you are in the Map view click on each menu. Take a look at the length of the menu loop. There is a bug in iDVD that often causes it to make ridiculously long menu loops (in one case 3 hours, even though the menu music clip was 30 seconds and the whole movie was under an hour). That will cause iDVD to take forever rendering your project, and will waste a lot of DVD space that you are need for your main movie. Just drag the slider back to a sensible menu loop length. But go back and check before you burn; as soon as you edit anything else in the menu (for example change the music background) the loop length will have to be fixed again.

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 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.

IPhoto slideshow in iDVD project

I have some questions on problems creating a iDVD project of an iPhoto slideshow:
1. Is it possible (how ?) to create buttons for scene selections, as in iMovie ?
My project contains one continuous slideshow (942 still pictures) which I want to divide in
chapters relating to the varuous trips I made during one travel.
If not in iDVD: has this breaking up of a single iPhoto slideshow be done in iMovie or iPhoto itself,
or by way of creating a 'Magic iDVD' ?
2. Can audio be imported with different sound clips ?
As for now my audio clip (3 min) repeats itself endlessly till the end of the project (48 min), and I
want to use various songs out of my iTunes library.
3. For a slideshow with its speed matched to the lenght of an audio clip, 10 seconds seems to be
the longest duration for one single picture. Can this be lengthened ?.
In my actual project, 10 seconds for each picture in combination with a cross dissolve seems
to work too fast in my slideshow.
I expected this transition to be added to their duration; instead it seems to take seconds away
from the linked stills.
If all these problems can't be adressed in iDVD 6: is iDVD 8 the better option ?

To get the versatility that you want, and because this is a complex project for iPhoto, I suggest that you bring iMovie into the work flow.
I would create a separate iPhoto slideshow for each segment of your trip (eg. Italy, France, etc.)
Then export each slideshow to your desktop as a High Quality Quicktime movie. There will be no loss of quality. Then create an iMovie project, and drag each Quicktime movie into the project. You can add your audio in iMovie, as well as chapter markers. Then save and close, and drag the iMovie icon (the one with the star on it) into an iDVD project. Just drag it to the edge of the iDVD display menu so it doesn't fall into a drop zone. Then save your iDVD project as a Disk Image (an option from the File menu). This will take awhile because all the encoding will be done as if you were burning a disk. To play the disk image, double click on its icon, and then open the DVD Player app on your Mac. Make sure it plays O.K. Then close it, and open the Utilities/Disk Utility app on your Mac. If it's not already in there, drag your disk image icon into the left side display panel in the Disk Utility Window. Then insert a DVD-R disk into your drive and hit Burn. The burning process will be fairly quick because all the encoding already was done when you created the disk image.
As far as I am aware, you cannot extend the length of a photo in an iPhoto slideshow beyond what the settings will allow you to do. If you want to go beyond that, I would suggest creating your slideshow in iMovie where you can display the photos for as long a duration as you want. In my opinion, 10 seconds duration for a photo is way too long, particularly when you have 942 still pictures. Whew! I would keep it to 5 seconds at most. You can always use the remote pause button of your DVD player if you want to display to your viewers a particular photo for a longer time.
In an iPhoto slide show you can import different audio with different sound clips. Go to iTunes and make up an album of the songs that you want to play in your slide show. Then, when you select your music from the media pane in your iPhoto slide show, select the album that you created, and the slide show will play those songs in succession as your slide show runs.
The cross dissolve transition will shorten the display duration of the photo on each side of it, and thus shorten the overall display time of the slideshow. The overlap transition will not shorten the overall time display.
I hope this helps. Good luck with your project/.

Large iDVD Project (help with iMovie formats, time totals, quality)

Hi,
I am in the process of finishing up a large DVD project. I went on a six month backpacking trip, and have lots of photos/small clips to make a DVD from. I will have a main menu in iDVD with submenus for each country (Mexico, Cook Islands, NZ, Australia, Vietnam, Thailand, India)
On each submenu will be around 4-5 movies of around 2-5 minutes each.
I created movies using iMovie (imported sound-less iPhoto slideshows 640x480 expored as MOV file) and added captions, music etc in iMovie. Each 'movie' is about 1-5 minutes long.
First question:
What is the best format to export these movies in? I will be adding them to iDVD. But when I export them, they are around 100-700Mb each depending on time of the movie. I used the expert settings (to Quicktime Mov) using the following settings:
Video:
Compression: Mpeg-4 Video
Quality: Best
Frame Rate: 60
key frame rate: 24
Dimensions: 720x526 4:3
audio:
format: AAC
Sample rate: 48.000Khz
Bit Rate 128
Stereo
In my iDVD project - the menu loops are maximum 30 seconds each, with the audio cut to the same length (ie. not trimmed in the menu - the actual mp3 added is 30seconds etc)
Now, big question is:
Do I have a total of 2 hours for everything? All menus,and all movies ? Is there ANY way of calculating this in iDVD or do I have to do it manually (estimate) ???
I notice with iDVD 8.0 it has a indicator of the space available etc. I have iDVD 6.0 so that doesn't help me now I guess?
What I need to ask is that - maybe using expert settings to mov files is unnecessary? What would you recommend as the export settings?
I have been working on the iMovie projects for months and can re-export them all in different format if need be, and can simply re-add the movies to iDVD. I have set up the shell of the DVD in iDVD but not added the movies yet (I have the placeholders there for them).
Anyway - hopefully I haven't blabbed on too much that someone out there can offer some advice?
Cheers and THANK YOU!
Alessandro

Best Performance: For projects up to one hour
Best Quality: For projects up to two hours
If your project is longer than one hour, you have to use Best Quality. Generally, the quality will be fine but the closer your get to that two hour limit, the more possibility you have of seeing some quality hits.
I deal with lots of long projects and generally if a project is longer than 90 minutes (specially since my projects have lots of fast motion, low light, etc) I split them up over two DVDs, keeping each under the one hour limit. That does give you your best quality option

Why is Font not showing up in idvd font menu?

hi everyone, I'm new, not really, but sorta. anyway, I'm using idvd 08 to create a dvd, I started with a magicidvd and then clicked create project and have done a lot of changes, some submenus, etc. The bggest issue I have now is that I really want to use a certain font, it is a truetype font, it is activated via Suitcase Fusion, but it does not appear in iDVD's font menu, it does however appear in the font menus of other apps. I have restarted and even created a whole new project to no avail. any ideas are appreciated.
A second less important question is this, how do I make it so that my "play" button on the main menu plays the movie instead of it going to the submenu containing "play" and "scene selection" ?
Ok, figured that menu question out. Thanks.
Sorry guys, new question, how do I get the bullet next to a button center with the text?
Hard to believe I help so many mac users, huh?
Message was edited by: vtavera

vtavera wrote:
mine seems to be reversed, selecting right from that label menu puts the bullet on the left side of the text
That is working correctly, then. You are telling it where to put the LABEL. Not the button. (So selecting "right" puts the label to the right of the button.)
vtavera wrote:
still not centered though, it's that bullet that looks like a paint splat, I think that may be how it is supposed to be, though no other bullets center either, maybe its the font? futura medium, there's a lot of space under the type, like it's away from the baseline.
Most likely it is the font. Some fonts have their baseline set VERY low, so something that is "Centered" horizontally actually looks way off to our eye.
vtavera wrote:
I have one more question now, I attempted to burn the dvd last night, but get an error that says "Project Error - There were errors during the project validation that have to be fixed before burning the project." I get an ok button, and sometimes I get an "Open DVD Map button, which takes me to the map view, but I see no problems.
I have not personally encountered any errors yet, so I do not have personal experience with the error-reporting mechanism.
However, my understanding is that viewing your project in DVD Map view, will display error messages next to where the error occurs in the project.
So turn on the DVD Map, and take a look at every single menu closely. I expect you will see the error in there somewhere.

Theme/menu question?

Greetings.
When I create a new project (revolution theme), and I go to "Add Movie", it adds the movie box and I then drag and drop my movie on that. all is fine.
However, when I click on play (preview) I get my main screen, the click-able movie text and I am able to click on that, but it brings up another window that has "Play Movie" and "View Chapters"
My question is, how do I just get the "play Movie" and "Chapters" as the first window to appear when inserting a DVD to play, instead of having to go through a secondary window? Does this make sense?
Thanks for your help.
Jonathan

Try copying and pasting of the play movie link and the chapter links from their original menu to the main menu. Then delete them and the menu they were in originally. Make a backup copy of the iDVD project beforehand. I've done essentially the same thing in projects.
OT

Exporting iMovie/iDVD project for PC friend to edit

I recently posted a question about how to take an iMovie/iDVD project and export the files so that a PC user could take the project and edit on his PC using a video editor. It was suggested that I share the iMovie project to QuickTime and then burn on to a CD. This sounded good at first but then I did some research and saw that sharing to QuickTime means that the quality will be lost (saving to CD setting) and will only be something like 320 x 240. Plus, it takes forever. Even longer if I set it to full quality but by that point, the file wouldn't fit on a CD anyway.
I did see that I could save the movie back to a mini DV tape and then give that to the PC person so that they could just bring it into their computer via their camcorder. But what if that person doesn't have a digital camcorder?
For the project in question, I've been asked to take some VHS tapes and convert them to digital. I've done so using a digital converter. They want a DVD of what was on the tapes, which I've done, but they also want the files so that they can later edit to their tastes on their own time on their PC and then later create a DVD. Given the above, what would be the best way to do this? Isn't there something in the movie project files that I can dump to disk?

a) consider the usage of an ext. harddrive...
b) in iM's "share" dialog, you find the option "selected clips only"; so, select a few clips you like to export, check that box, done... you can "split" your clips at any point to create segments of approbiate size by hitting apple-t at any position in timeline..
c) share/Quicktime/expert options/click "share"/ offers you a dropdown menu, where you can choose the "avi" container...
(your User Interface is for sure english!)
you can click options, and choose the dv codec (which is your project's native video codec)... no loss of quality, and probably compatible for your friend..
d) a dataDVD-r fits ~20min of dv video... 4 disks?
e) using Disk Utility, make sure, you use a PC-compatible disk format....
f) Plan B) export your project back to tape, give your friend the miniDV...

Error Message when trying to complete my IDVD Project?

I'm getting an error when I try to either burn or ave my project to a disk imahe or TS_Video folder. The error message says:
++There were errors during the project validation that have to be fixed before burning the project.++
How do I go about debugging the problem. I have created many IDVD projects but have never had this issue.
I'm using IDVD 08 and using an 08 template.
Thanks for any help,
Steve.

+I am wondering why you have stuck with a G4 and OSX 10.4.11?+
I can answer both questions in one answer: Flawless performance and compatibility with my applications. I didn't see much value in Leopard for my computer (G4). Mac Pros get faster and cheaper every year.
+Is there a way to make the submenus different from the first menu?+
Maybe in the themes with little triangles that expose other menus? Or maybe when you're on the submenu, just switch to another menu. I've never done that since I like to carry the theme throughout.
I'm not sure about the motion menu issue... I had that in Pass Through one time and had to stop all motion and remove music. It was a pretty complex project. Here are my notes on that project:
*Ireland 2006*
iDVD 6 Pass Through widescreen theme
696 images that are 2816x1584 pixels shot with Canon SD700 IS
15 640x480 movies from same digital camera transcoded to H.264 with QuickTime Pro.
Part 1 and Part 2 submenu buttons on main menu. All submenus are the Chapters option for this theme.
Part 1 leads to a submenu. That submenu has additional submenus and sub-submenus. Part 1 leads to 12 total submenus. These menus contain images and movies.
Part 2 leads to a submenu. That submenu has 5 submenus with only images.
I had to "remove" animation on all the sub-submenus and not include any music to get everything on a single-layer DVD-R. The Menu info was WAY over the 7:30; something like 14:00 after these adjustments. About 20 slideshows with music. Additional short slideshows with no music.

I am trying to create a idvd project but the it does not while encoding the films, Why ?

I am trying to create an iDVD project. I create to sub menus and put small films in each sub menu. When it starts to create the project, while encoding the films, at one point to time it just stops abruptly. Why. I fail to understand. I I tried twice, and it happened the same. I have created the projects in the past, but it has worked just fine. This time it is behaving rather weird.
I went on to see the report and I feels it stops with a 32 bit film. I may be wrong, but could you please help ?

See Bengt Wärleby's post in this topic for questions relating to encoding problems: Stage 4 Multiplexing - Media error in...: Apple Support Communities. He's the most knowledgeable if that area.
OT

IDVD project menu question

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