Menues affecting size of an idvd project

I created a slide show in iphoto, exported it to imovie then added songs from I tunes, and exported it ti Idvd, Ichanged the in project info from best performance to best quality to save space and such...while creating a disc image it takes too long to encode menues. but since it is a movie originally created in iphoto slide show I did not inckudes any menues from it nor from imovie or from idvd.
Does Idvd create any menues from each slide and therefore it takes too long to decode, is there any way to prevent it?... Best regards

Welcome to iDVD Discussions.
while creating a disc image it takes too long to encode menues.
What is "too long"? This process can take hours. It depends...
iDVD 6 Getting Started PDF download
Apple's iMovie Learning Site
Apple's iDVD Learning Site
iLife ’06 Multimedia Tutorials
General Learning Center
Ken Stone: Authoring in iDVD 6
My favorite, by far:
iMovie HD & iDVD 6: The Missing Manual
You can download Chapter four: Camcorder Meets Mac.
iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual

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Burning multiple iDVD projects to one DVD

I have iDVD 6 and I've made 3 family iDVD projects over the last few years. Is there a way I can burn all 3 projects onto one DVD? Maybe a new theme with each project as it's own chapter w/subchapters?
I've tried a few things, but not successfully. If it's not doable w/iDVD6, how about newer versions?
thx - j

One way is to drag the underlying iMovie projects into the corner of the main menu window of a new iDVD project. They will import as three separate movies and become part of that project. Depends, of course, on how much running time your movies have. Running time for a standard DVD is 2 hours total. Double layer disks are 4 hours.
Another way would be to merge the three iMovie projects into one long project, and import that into iDVD as one long movie.

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.

IDVD Project Size Stuck @ 4.54 GB

I created an iDVD project using Magic iDVD and the Pass Through theme (6.0 theme). These are the contents:
(1) a main menu movie of 6 MB and a 30-second soundtrack (not the same soundtrack as the movie)
(2) 3 submenus with still photos and a 30-second soundtrack for each
(3) 2 movies, one 840 MB and the other 870 MB (made with iMovie)
(4) 3 slideshows of only 10 seconds each. The slideshows each have only 2 pictures.
The project size, using professional quality encoding, ended up at 4.54 GB. This seemed strange to me because I had previously created an iDVD project with 5 submenus, five 10-second slideshows, a 2.88 GB movie (made with iMovie), and using professional quality encoding...and it was still able to fit in one DVD!
Here's the other strange thing: When I replaced one of the movies with a 1.99 GB movie (also made with iMovie), the project size still showed up as 4.54 GB! So I think there's definitely some program glitch here somewhere, either in iDVD or iMovie.

So to clarify: iDVD doesn't care abt the size of the movies but abt the total running time of the movies...is this correct?
That is correct. With the exception of adding content to the dvd-rom section, iDvd only looks at run time or total QT playback (not to exceed 2 hrs. per SL Dvd-R). If you do add content to the dvd-rom section it then reduces available QT Playback. Same holds true when you add audio files, motion menus, photos, titles, etc. The available playback is shortened / reduced each time these additional /extra features are added to your dvd. That's why it's always a good idea to keep a close eye on the Capacity Meter within Project Info. It'll tell you how much space is remaining as well as how much is currently used by all of the content on your dvd.
Another item you need to watch very carefully is iDvd's Map View. If after you add content you then see an exclamation mark (yellow warning sign); iDvd is telling you you must address this file properly before it can be burned to disc. Otherwise it will likely choke during the encoding process.
Message was edited by: SDMacuser

Is there a way to increase the size of the thumbnails in an iDVD project?

Is there a way to increase the size of the thumbnails in an iDVD project?
Thanks,
Paul

There is a way within apple's Final Cut Studio 2.
However, I have Not been able to do likewise within iDvd alone.

If I delete iMovie events, will completed iDVD projects be affected?

Three questions:
1.) If I delete footage from iMovie, will iDVD projects that use the same footage be affected? I have burned some home videos to DVD's recently (footage went from camera to iMovie to iDVD to burned DVD... never knew this process took so many steps) and I would like to clear up some hard drive space but it would be nice to be able to go back and burn replacement copies of these DVD's in the future.
2.) Why is the footage in iMovie MUCH larger than the exact same footage in an iDVD project?
3.) If I delete footage from iMovie events, will iMovie projects that use that footage be affected?

What I have is completed iDVD '08 projects. What I need to know is this: if I deleted the event and project files from iM08, would I still be able to go back to the iDVD projects and burn additional copies of the DVD in the future?
As others have tried to say, it all depends on what you mean by "completed."
1) If you, for instance, shared your project the the Media Browser, then imported and burned a DVD (which you no longer have), and subsequently modify the iMovie project or delete it, then the "source" file for your iDVD project will be gone.
2) If, on the other hand, a physical file not stored in your "project" package was saved to you hard drive and used as a source for your iDVD project, then it remains available for iDVD and can be used as a basis for additional burns as long as you don't delete it or the iDVD project. In this case, deleting the iMovie '08 project and event files has no effect on future burns.
3) A better option is to simply save the encoded iDVD output as an "image" file. Then you can get rid of the iDVD project file as well and any time you want to burn additional DVD copies, simply burn the image to as many times as needed. Of course, this means you cannot alter the iDVD project so you have to make sure you are really happy with the output before deleting it.
4) Also be advised, that depending on the software available, you can either "copy" or "image" burn your finished DVD as often as you desire. The advantage here is that you don't have to keep any files on your hard drive for future "cloning" of your DVDs. On the other hand, this process takes a bit longer than simply burning a DVD image already stored on your hard drive.
Basically, you have many options here. Evaluate them and decided what is best for your particular work flow.

Why does the file size change when put into an iDVD project? And problems with dual layer discs...

I exported a short video of mine from Final Cut Express and the size of the file came out to 7.3 GB. When I put it into an iDVD project, it says that the file is only 800 MB. I tried just burning it onto a dual layer disc anyway to see if it might still burn at the original file size, but the disc came out unusable for some reason, and obviously hadn't been burned anywhere near full-capacity. So, I tried it again, and the exact same thing happened.
I guess my first question is: why is iDVD changing the size of the file? I want the quality to be the best it can be, so keeping it at 7.3 GB as opposed to 800 MB is rather important.
Secondly, why did the dual layer discs come out unusable? I've burned single layer discs before and they haven't been an issue. Also, I know for a fact that the drive can burn dual layer discs, so that isn't the issue.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can provide me with help on this issue.

LivelyJamesS wrote:
I exported a short video of mine from Final Cut Express and the size of the file came out to 7.3 GB. When I put it into an iDVD project, it says that the file is only 800 MB.
Guessing here but it looks like you edited/exported an SD/DV sequence of about 30 min in FCE. DVD needs to be MPEG-2 so iDVD compresses the original file down to the size that you report.
LivelyJamesS wrote:
I guess my first question is: why is iDVD changing the size of the file? I want the quality to be the best it can be, so keeping it at 7.3 GB as opposed to 800 MB is rather important.
The quality will be what the MPEG-2 compression and the software allow for. MPEG-2 is DVD standard .... there's no way around that.
LivelyJamesS wrote:
Secondly, why did the dual layer discs come out unusable? I've burned single layer discs before and they haven't been an issue. Also, I know for a fact that the drive can burn dual layer discs, so that isn't the issue.
Guessing again but it would seem that you burned a Data DVD instead of a Video DVD which would be unusable by a set-top player. As I said above you can't get around DVD standards.
If by any chance your video was HD originally you can try to go the Blu-Ray route using Roxio Toast or FCS 3 (discontinued) or FCP X. You will also need a Blu-Ray burner.

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 to determine the size of an iMovie09 project?

Hello:
I recently created a nice video of about 2 hours in iMovie09. I "shared" it to iDVD but it was about 10% too big to burn. I went back to iMovie09 and removed some time to make the project smaller but how can I determine the size of my iMovie09 projects before I send them to iDVD? I know that both time and audio will affect the size of the iMovie09 project so the time of the video is not necessarily an accurate indicator.
Thanks!

Welcome to iMovie Discussions.
As long as your movie is under about 1hr 50 minutes it should fit on a DVD.
The thing which determines how much time is available on your DVD is usually the complexity of any Menus which you add in iDVD.
With a simple Menu, which may "eat up" 10 mins of space, you should have room for 1h 50mins of movie.
With complex, multi-level menus, your movie running time may be reduced by about 25 mins, or possibly more.
Keep menus simple, and you should have space for about 1hr 50mins. It's always running time which counts, NOT "size" (in GB) of your movie.

Edit in iMovie using archived iDVD project?

Well it looks like I may done something rather stupid. Before the holidays I produced a family vacation video, burned the DVDs and sent them out to all my family members. After watching it they pointed out some typos in some captions and some editing mistakes, so I wanted to go back and fix those and burn new DVDs. But I just realized I'd archived the iDVD project but not the iMovie project. I trashed the iMovie project to recover disk space. So now I'm left with just the iDVD archive.
Is there any way to recover my iMovie project from the iDVD archive?
(I can't believe I trashed my iMovie files. That just isn't like me at all. <shame>, <embarrassment>, <lesson learned>)
iMovie HD
iDVD 6
- Lofty

You can recover the movie from the archived DVD project but the movie may be in several sections/clips. Just Control-click on the archived iDVD project file and select "Show Package Contents" from the contextula menu. Then go to the Resources/MPEG.nobackup folder.The sections/clips should be in there.
You can import those clipes into iMovie but won't be able to edit the captions, only cut them out and put new captions in over new clips. If you added captions to a black background and not over the movie itself you could cut out those sections and add new sections. But if you have to cut out parts of the movie with captions to add new ones that could lose a good bit of the original movie. In that case I thiink going with the typos would be the better solution.
When you're done use the Share ➙ Media Browser menu option with Size = Large. This will give a better final image than Share ➙ iDVD will. You will have to delete the existing movie file from the iDVD project and add the new, editied movie.
OT

Best way to divide iDVD project onto 2 DVDs?

I have an iDVD project that I've spent sooooooo much time on, and after burning to DVD, the quality was awful (zigzaginess with movement in the shadow areas, etc etc).
The project duration is 80:44 minutes. DVD capacity says 4.4GB of 4.2 GB.
So would the best thing be to divide it into two DVDs? Part 1 and Part 2? Do I just make a copy of the file, and delete chapters 1-25 on one and chapters 26-51 on the other? Is it that simple?

No, a standard DVD-R disk can hold 120 minutes, so you are well within the disk capacity. The file size has nothing to do with it. It is running time that counts. Also, 4.2 GB = 4.7 GB. It is just being expressed differently. But none of this has any bearing on the quality of your final DVD. You are well within capacity. It is not necessary, nor would it be helpful, to divide your project into two DVDs.
If your still images look jaggy, it probably was because you used the Share menu function to share your iMovie project to iDVD and when the prompt came up to render or proceed anyway, you selected render. Don't do that. Always select Proceed Anyway. That way iDVD will do the rendering and it does a much better job than iMovie. iMovie's rendering, in fact, is destructive and can ruin the appearance of your still images on the final DVD.
Instead of using the Share function, I find it best to drag the iMovie project icon (the one with the star on it) into the edge of your iDVD main menu window, being careful not to put it in a drop zone. Your movie will then import into iDVD and iDVD will handle all of the rendering. Your results will be much better.
Then save your iDVD project as a disk image (an option on the file menu) and burn your DVD from the Disk Image using the Disk Utility app on your Mac. That usually yields the best results.
Also, for projects between 60 minutes and 120 minutes duration, you should burn using the Best Quality setting rather than best performance.
If your moving video clips look like they have moving combed lines through them when the clip depicts hard edged images or parallel lines, that is due to interlacing. iDVD is designed to produce projects that play on an interlaced TV. If you play it on a progressive screen TV, or on your progressive computer screen, you may get the wavy lines that come from playing interlaced material on a progressive screen. Splitting your project into two projects will not help that.

Archiving corrupts iDVD project

Hey there, Im new to iDVD (but not macs). Have successfully created and played a couple of iDVD projects. Since I don't have a burner in this machine I have attempted to archive 2 projects and move them to another machine via flash drive so they can be burned. Once the project is finished archiving, and shows the appended "archived" file name, that archived version plays fine in Preview mode. However, if I save it, close iDVD, then re-open the same file the app hangs. If I save the archived project to flash or CD and try moving it to a new machine iDVD on that machine yields an error message and wont load the project. Im using os 10.4.6 and iDVD 5.0.1 so that is all up to date. What is causing the corruption upon saving??
Thanks!

Sue, you are a font of information.
Thanks for the great tip, but No, that has no affect. The ownerships were already at read/write for myself and others. Also, it is not just others who cant play it.,..I cant' play it on the machine I made it on. I get the menu page, but navigaiting to a slideshow hangs the app. It kinda buggin' me as I am used to stuff working. I did find that iMovie '05 has a bug regarding "make movie last as long as selected song" feature...so maybe this app is goofy too? I always favor solutions that dont require an upgrade Thanks!!

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...

What other file format for IDVD project?

hi I have edited hd video files which are Quicktime movies in m-peg2 1920x1080. The files currently put me over the size limit to be able to burn a DVD. I don't want to leave any of the files of of the DVD. My question is what's the next best conversion format I should use so that they all can fit onto my DVD. in other words I want to convert to a smaller size using compressor to fit the idvd project.
Thanks
RD

I advice you to use Brorsoft Video to iDVD Converter.
With it, you can convert video to the best format for burning to iDVD on Mac OS X. iDVD only supports video or image files supported by QuickTime. You can use the tool to convert video to QuickTime MOV file.
Trick:
For best results, in the QuickTime export settings of your video editing application, choose NTSC-DV with a frame rate of 29.97 or PAL-DV with a frame rate of 25. Choose No Compression for audio, and set the sample rate to 48 kilohertz.
Tips:
1. You can drag a QuickTime movie file to the audio well in the Menu Info window or in the slideshow editor. iDVD uses the first audio track in the file as a soundtrack for the menu that is open or for the slideshow and ignores the video. For more information, see Related Topics below.
2. If you share an iMovie HD project as a QuickTime movie using the Full Quality option, iMovie HD doesn’t include chapter markers in the QuickTime movie.

Menues affecting size of an idvd project

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