IDVD questions/FCE

I completed project using Final Cut Express. I have three iDVD questions:
1) How do you choose a higher quality burn?
2) When you drag your project onto a theme, the first few seconds show up on the theme page. Is it possible to drag video that will only show up on the theme page? I"m asking because my titles are all that's seen on the theme page.
3) I set the project to burn in widescreen but it's burning in 4:3. Any suggestions?

1. If I import into iMovie 08 and do a rough edit, then move the project to FCE, is there any downside to this?
You can do it and sometimes it arrives intact but don't count on it.
The downside is that audio will have to be rendered as iMovie works in a multiplexed format.
I'd suggest capturing and editing in FCE every time if there is an option.
2. Is the audio editing in FCE pretty good, and is it possible to export audio at some point to Logic? (I'm an audio guy mainly, so audio cleanup will be a sticking point for me
FCE has a few filters. Use the Open in Editor feature.
3. Lastly, once the editing is done, I want to export to iDVD and make some menus and such. If I want to make a few custom video loops for menu screens, what is the best way to do that? Start a new project, edit clips together, and export it as a new movie?
You don't need to create a new Project just make a new short Sequence in the existing Project. You can have more than one Sequence.
You can also mark in/out points in the Timeline and only the selected section will export.
Al

Similar Messages

IDVD questions

I have two iDVD questions:
1) How do you choose a higher quality burn?
2) When you drag your project onto a theme, the first few seconds show up on the theme page. Is it possible to drag video that will only show up on the theme page? I"m asking because my titles are all that's seen on the theme page.

These questions should all be posted on the iDVD forum.

FCE and iDVD questions

I am considering buying FCE, as iMovie is driving me nuts with its limitations. What I am mainly interested in is converting old VHS tapes to DVD.
I have a few questions for the FCE gurus:
1. If I import into iMovie 08 and do a rough edit, then move the project to FCE, is there any downside to this?
2. Is the audio editing in FCE pretty good, and is it possible to export audio at some point to Logic? (I'm an audio guy mainly, so audio cleanup will be a sticking point for me)
3. Lastly, once the editing is done, I want to export to iDVD and make some menus and such. If I want to make a few custom video loops for menu screens, what is the best way to do that? Start a new project, edit clips together, and export it as a new movie?
Thanks in advance for any and all help.

1. If I import into iMovie 08 and do a rough edit, then move the project to FCE, is there any downside to this?
You can do it and sometimes it arrives intact but don't count on it.
The downside is that audio will have to be rendered as iMovie works in a multiplexed format.
I'd suggest capturing and editing in FCE every time if there is an option.
2. Is the audio editing in FCE pretty good, and is it possible to export audio at some point to Logic? (I'm an audio guy mainly, so audio cleanup will be a sticking point for me
FCE has a few filters. Use the Open in Editor feature.
3. Lastly, once the editing is done, I want to export to iDVD and make some menus and such. If I want to make a few custom video loops for menu screens, what is the best way to do that? Start a new project, edit clips together, and export it as a new movie?
You don't need to create a new Project just make a new short Sequence in the existing Project. You can have more than one Sequence.
You can also mark in/out points in the Timeline and only the selected section will export.
Al

16:9 footage in iDVD from FCE?!

I have recently just bought FCEHD and have created a 5 minute movie. I used to use iMovie and think that it was definitely worth upgrading other than the steep learning curve.
When I imported footage into iMovie it would recognise that my footage was in 16:9 format, however, it would seem that FCE does not. I changed the settings in FCE to PAL Anarmorphic and now the canvas shows as 16:9...all good so far!
Now, when I view my lovely edited video in FCE, all is fine and dandy, it shows in 16:9. So now it's time for me to export to Quicktime so I am able to drag the file into iDVD to create my DVD. It exports my movie, and as soon as I drag it into iDVD...there it is but in 4:3 format....please can someone help me as I think I'm going around the bend!
Thank in advance.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.
I love you John, if I had the money I'd fly to the USA now and give you a big kiss!!!
This problem has been causing me such a headache, I'm usually very good at resolving problems but I don't think I would have figured it out had you not posted a reply.
There's no question of it, Apple produce the most amazing Hardware and Software but why on earth did they not think of this problem on semi pro/pro applications?!
As a matter of interest, do you know if this problem still occurs if you use DVD Studio Pro?
Again, thank you so much for your help.
Chris

IDVD question

I've got a DVD I'm hoping to send to people on both PAL and NTSC versions.
My question is, how do I find out what region setting hte DVD is going to be set to.
I'm a recent switcher from PC, and in the PC program I used, it let me select the region.
Any ideas?

Hi Michael,
Welcome to the Discussion.
To set your new iDVD project format: see Setting the video format for a new project. Please note that your movie assets that you import into iDVD must also match the iDVD format, i.e. NTSC is 720x480 29.97fps, PAL is 720x576 25fps.

MPEG to MOV question FCE

First, let me thank the forum members who have offered their help and expertise during the learning curve time for me.
The task: I am taking bits of footage from DVDs that I own and converting them to MPEG. The footage will be used in FCE as part of a family DVD I am putting together.
The questions:
Will FCE allow me to import MPEG?
If not, will I have to convert to MOV, and what program should I use for this conversion?
The quality looks great when I play the MPEG clips in WMP, but will I lose quality during a conversion?
Thank you
-Mike

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/
In the Buy Now area select your country.
That directs you to your Apple Store.
Select Mac Software.
Select Web and Video.
Select the Mpeg 2 component, buy and download.
It says Quicktime 6 but also handles 7.
Be aware that there is also a Windows version as well. That's why there are two in the list.
Double check you purchase the correct one.
Al

Burning a project in idvd Question.

Hi, I have a project that claims its 5.7gb. I changed the burning disk to a 8gb so i would have plenty of room for the project. The movie is in large format and is only 1hr 17 min. When I burned the project it took about 3 hrs then it ejected with 5min left during the burn stage. It didnt burn any of the idvd project. I cant figure out what happened. Any help would be great!
Thank you,
chad

Hi
iDVD doesn't care about Gs at all. I have 50Gbs movies that burn OK and 1Gbs that don't.
iDVD only cares about TIME (including DVD-menu - elaborate = less movie).
60 minute limit to Best Performance Quality - and -
120 minutes for - Pro Quality and High Quality
on Single Layer DVDs (about double ob DL-disks)
*I made a list on thoughts about DVD-Quality - se belove*
1. iDVD 08 & 09 has three levels of qualities.
iDVD 6 has the two last ones
• Professional Quality (movies up to 120 min.) - BEST
• Best Performances (movies less than 60 min.) - High quality on final DVD
• High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6) (movies up to 120 min.) - slightly lower quality than above
2. From
• FCE/P - Export out as full quality QuickTime.mov (not selfcontaining, no conversion)
• iMovie x-6 - Don't use ”Share/Export to iDVD” = destructive even to movie project and especially so
when the movie includes photos. Instead just drop or import the iMovie movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window.
• iMovie’08 not meant to go to iDVD. Go via Media Browser or rather use iMovie HD 6 from start.
3. I use Roxio Toast™ to make an as slow burn as possibly eg x1 (in iDVD’08 or 09 this can also be set)
This can also be done with (Apple) Disk Util tool.
4. There has to be about or more than 25Gb free space on internal (start-up) hard disk. iDVD can't
use an external one as scratch disk (if it is not start-up disc).
5. Verbatim ( also recommended by many - Taiyo Yuden DVDs - I can’t get hold of it to test )
6. DVD-R (no +R or +/-RW)
7. Keep NTSC to NTSC - or - PAL to PAL when going from iMovie to iDVD
8. Don’t burn more than three DVD at a time - but let the laser cool off for a while befor next batch.
iDVD quality also depends on.
*• HOW much free space is there on Your internal (start-up) hard disk. Go for approx 25Gb.*
*less than 5Gb and Your result will most probably not play.*
• What kind of movie project You drop into it. MPEG4 seems to be a bad choice.
other strange formats are .avi, .wmv, .flash etc. Convert to streamingDV first
Also audio formats matters. I use only .aiff or from miniDV tape Camera 16-bit
strange formats often problematic are .avi, .wmv, audio from iTunes, .mp3 etc
Convert to .aiff first and use this in movie project
• What kind of standard - NTSC movie and NTSC DVD or PAL to PAL - no mix.
(If You need to change to do a NTSC DVD from PAL material let JESDeinterlacer3.2.2 do the conversion)
(Dropping a PAL movie into a NTSC iDVD project
(US) NTSC DVDs most often are playable in EU
(EU) PAL DVDs most often needs to be converted to play in US
UNLESS. They are plabacked by a Mac - then You need not to care
• What kind of DVDs You are using. I use Verbatim DVD-R (this brand AND no +R or +/-RW)
• How You encode and burn it. Two settings prior iDVD’08 or 09
Pro Quality (only in iDVD 08 & 09)
Best / High Quality (not always - most often not)
Best / High Performances (most often my choise before Pro Quality)
1. go to iDVD pref. menu and select tab far right and set burn speed to x1 (less errors = plays better) - only in iDVD 08 & 09
(x4 by some and may be even better)
2. Project info. Select Professional Encoding - only in iDVD 08 & 09.
Region codes.
iDVD - only burn Region = 0 - meaning - DVDs are playable everywhere
DVD Studio pro can set Region codes.
1 = US
2 = EU
Yours Bengt W

IMovie 06 - iDVD question

so i imported some family vhs tapes to imovie 06.
i go share->idvd and idvd opens and when i open project -> project info, i see that idvd is encoding the movie. btw, unless i open the info window, i would not have known.
the question is, can i start burning the dvd before the encoding stops? so that both would be working rather than waiting for one to finish before the other.
gotta make that encoding faster
thanks for any info

Background encoding (like you are seeing) ONLY happens if you have selected 'Best Performance' encoding (which means you have 60 minutes of less to be put on a SL disc) AND you have enabled 'Background Encoding' in the preferences.
can i start burning the dvd before the encoding stops?
Yes, however
so that both would be working rather than waiting for one to finish before the other.
isn't true. iDVD willl simply have to wait for the encoding to finish before it can actually write anything to your media.
gotta make that encoding faster
You gotta buy a faster machine! MPG-2 encoding takes a LOT of computer 'horsepower'.

Importing a movie into iDVD from FCE

I am perplexed. In the iDVD - Movies display, there are shown half a dozen movies. The other couple of dozen movie files which do appear in Finder - Movies are not listed in iDVD. Nor will the movies in Finder-Movies drag over to iDVD. I clicked on the yellow triangle which appears in the "insert movie" box in the theme, clicked 'import' and it told me iDVD does not support that action. So how do I get a movie from Finder-Movies into iDVD? I did not have this trouble with iMovie.
This is my first completed FCE movie. And things were going so well.

To import movies into iDVD you may use the File/Import/Video... command, after selecting the theme you want to use for the DVD menu.
If a movie in the Import dialog window cannot be imported, probably it has a non standard format, and for sure it was not exported from FCE. Any movie exported from FCE with Export/Quicktime Movie (the only correct method to get a movie from FCE to iDVD) may be imported into iDVD.
So I suggest you review the procedure you used to export from FCE and try again.
Piero

Keyboard question fce vs fcp

Hello:
Presently, I'm using FCE. I intend to update to FCP for my next project. My question: Are the keyboard functions the same for FCP as FCE? (my understanding is one can program FCP keyboard functions) Or should I invest in another K&B cover for both my IMac G5 and Macbook Pro?? Thanks in advance,
Russ

Check out the two links on this thread to see the FCP6 and FCE shortcuts:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1973457&tstart=0
Pretty much all of the FCE shortcuts are applicable to FCP, but there are other ones in FCP that don't appear in FCE.

Idvd pro v. idvd question

I have an interest in both iDVD Pro and Final Cut Pro, and am getting closer to investing. So far I've been using the iMovie HD 6, but now I've come up against some problems and wonder if they could be solved more easily in either idvdP or fcp. I'll just mention one of the snags here: I want to be able to add several (6 total) imovie projects into idvd but the app seems to have some sort of limit or something--it's not accepting to add more than a couple of movies. Total desired videos combined, 37 minutes (210 GB).
My question here is whether investing in idvd pro will more assuredly allow me to do this. I've posted the problem in the regular idvd forum but so far no one has offered an answer.
thanks for any thoughts on this,
B

I've never used iDVD but there should be no feasible limit on how many tracks you can place on a DVD. You just need to room for the MPEG2 compression and the ability to build the menus. Menus and compression are not addressed separately in DVDSP. That is, there's no reason to invest $1200 unless you know Final Cut Studio 2 provides other tools you must have. From your post, you just need top study the online help system for iDVD more closely, maybe purchase one of the third party books for the i-apps.
I cannot imagine you are shooting 37 minutes of video in any readily available format that requires 210 gigs. You have a problem there.
bogiesan

Another Aperture slideshow and iDVD question

When ultimately making a DVD, why do some people export their Aperture slideshow to iMovie and then iDVD, while others export the slideshow to the desktop and then import directly to iDVD (skipping iMovie)? I suppose another question is: is there somewhere an idiot's guide to all the various output and resolution options? I'm reading that if you export at too high a resolution, iDVD will jack that back down and then you get "artifacts." Are there optimal export resolutions for, say, Standard TVs and HDTVs when exporting from Aperture to iDVD? Thank you!!

MarkPek,
To add to what leonieDF has said.
I don't use Aperture for slide shows very often, but I make hundres of DVD's with iDVD and Toast.
All DVD's are standard definition, unless you use aa application like Toast and create a AVCHD Bluray disk. It doesn't mater what type of TV you play it on, it's SD. Some TV's do a good job of upscaling and the SD looks very good on them.
If you were to send a folder of full resolution 20 MP ( or whatever your camera is) images to iDVD there may be problems. I don't think iDVD is a very good at rescaling images. Sending 1920 x 1080 images or movies to iDVD has worked very well for me. I expect 720p would do well also.
I would recomend you do a test of a slide show of 1 min or less and trry a few different settings. I would try to export with a preset of Apple TV,iPad for a starter. Note that using Apple TV iPad 720p will give you a frame rate of 24, where as the other Apple TV is 30 fps. I have never tried feeding iDVD a movie that was 24fps, I not sure how that would go. I may give that a try and see what happens.
I use FCPX not iMovie, but I think that iMove works the same way. In the moive editing software you can just drag your Aperture stills into the timeline from the photo browser to creat your slide show/movie. But realize that the movie editing sofatware will actually use your Aperture previews for this. So your preview preference will determine the resolution of the images going into your movie. If your previews are set real low the results may not be very good. A setting that is closer to your monitor resoulton would work very well.
Do a test and let us know hoiw you make out. If I get a chance tomorrow I'll drop a quick slide show into iDVD. I'll export the same slide show with a few differnt settings and then put them all on one DVD to play back.

A few basic iDVD questions...

First, when I create a dvd - and burn it - does it leave video_ts folders anywhere? Or is that only when I create it as a "disc image"? The last burning software I had did both...so I want to make sure this isn't going on my hard drive somewhere where i'll never find it and will take up room...
Second, For the first few times I tried burning with a DVD-RW I would get errors after the burn saying that some errors occured - so I would play the dvd anyway and a little bit of the last movie that was on it still remains - yet if I use a regular DVD-R, it's fine - no problem. Is this a common problem with iDVD? I'm trying it again now - I erased the DVD-RW with Disc Utility so hopefully that was more effective than iDVD's erasing process...it was a Memorex DVD-RW just incase that matters - I know they aren't the best quality.
Third - if after the burn process I want to make another copy - does it have to go through the whole encoding process again? I know it doesn't if I hit "burn" again right afterwards, but I mean if I close out the program completely, and go back in - it's not saved anywhere? Like a video-ts folder where I can get it from and burn it from that?
Thanks!

The encoded media is saved temporarily and then discarded as it can be 4+ GB for one DVD. If you make a disk image there is on the image ( as for a DVD proper) a VIDEO_TS folder.
If you make multiple DVD's at one session it uses the already encoded media for each copy, so no it does not re-encode for 5-8 hours each time.
However since iDVD can be fussy at times, always do the disk image thing first - then burn one or more copies from it -sometimes (often) separating the encode task form the burn task makes the bits and bytes happier.
If you do one right to DVD, you do know that you can just copy it anyway to make more, either directly or by making an image of the DVD and then burning from that image, right?
Up to you.
As for RW they can work if the burner works, but do it from an image file first. Also some home DVD players, older ones are not thrilled with RW media due to different reflectivity and it might not play. With -/+R about 20 cents each lately why bother? Spend an extra few pennies and use Verbatim NOT Memorex. Never.

IDVD question from a total newcomer

Hi folks,
I have a Mac G4 that I bought second hand. It does NOT have iDVD on it, and I want to buy it.
Does iLife 06 provide the software or is it just an upgrade? I ask this because on the description it reads...
"iLife '06, the must-have update to Apple's award-winning suite of digital lifestyle applications, delivers major upgrades to iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD and GarageBand, plus an innovative new application called iWeb for creating stunning web pages, blogs and podcasts."
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Gene

Hi Karsten,
You wrote: iLife6 makes excessive use of the grafic cards abilities, which supports socalled "Quartz".. your "old" Mac doesn't have such a card... so, you miss a lot of "blinkblink" in iM when buying iLife6...
Sorry to be such a dummy but I'm not sure what this means. what is "blink blink? and "iM?" If it's iMovie I have that but don't really use it because I'm running Final Cut Pro 4.5.
I'm VERY interested in what you said about the $50 internal burner. I looked around on ebay and found this...
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-APPLE-MAC-16X-WHITE-SUPERDRIVE-PIONEER-REV-2-DLAYER_W0QQ itemZ130077362165QQihZ003QQcategoryZ51039QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Is this what I should get? Do you think it will come with instructions on how to put it in?
Again, many thanks to all of you for your input.
Gene
G4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

AVI Files for iDVD ((QUESTION))

Hello,
I took some digital video on my new digial camera.
The video files are AVI. I am able to play them via quicktime on my mac mini with no problem.
The issue I am having is when I want to burn the files into iDVD.. I get error messages. I can import the files fine.. Its just wen I get to the rendering phase I get an error.
Do I need to convert the AVI files to .MOV? What must I do?
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
D.

Not all .AVI files us the same CODECs (AVI is really just a file 'wrapper') and I've have very mixed results using AVI files directly.
I use ffmpegX at http://homepage.mac.com/major4/ to convert my AVI files to DV Stream for use in iMovie/iDVD.

IDVD questions/FCE

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