Multiplexing Error Problem vs. Best Quality

I've been trying to make the .img file for a 29 minute iMovie which consist of 288 photos + beginning and end. I imported the 288 photos at 5 sec (no burns effect), created chapter marks, added audio and was able to create .img OK using Best Quality, as that's what I've always used in the past - many times. I added 4 sec subtitles to about half the photos which meant it created a second photo 1 sec long. When I tried to create the .img again, I got the multiplexing error. I've tried all combinations without success, UNTIL I tried Best Performance, and it created the .img file. I have over 40GB disk space, but only 786MB memory. All photos in iMovie really slows down iMovie after about 40-50 minutes worth, so I'm guessing memory availability might be an issue. I've done all the other things usually posted - run Onyx, delete iDVD.plist, restart before burn, etc. So why does a 29 minute iMovie of all photos create the iDVD .img file on Best Performance and not on Best Quality????. Suggestions appreciated. Thanks Terry
Power Mac G4 1 GHz Dual Mac OS X (10.4.8)

The size I gave on the photos was before they were imported to iMovie.
One of the problem photos was a scanned photo using a Canon N1240 scanner, which has since died and the other was with an Olympus D-450 digital camera. Both were edited (size, cropping, color, brightness, etc) in Adobe Photo Elements V3. Most of the time I import the pictures (in groups) into iMovie using the Import command, but sometimes I just drag them in. I do NOT use iPhoto. I've done several thousand photos this way (my wife is into genealogy)and I have created multiple DVDs of current family and family history. The problem photo had been used in other DVDs without problem. In one test I ran on this particular movie including the two problem images, the .img file was created OK until I added subtitles to each image in iMovie. I've sometimes had problems editing subtitles in that it deletes the image and adds the title to the next image. I do an Edit UNDO and then move the image to which the title is to be edited over 2 images, click the update and then move the image back to it's original position when update finished. It's annoying, but works. Don't remember if I did a title edit to the problem images or not. I think you're right in that one of many things could have happened when the image was imported. Right now I'm thinking something may have gone wrong when I added or edited the subtitle. Just wish the iDVD and iMovie error codes could be made more specific so it would be easier to identify and fix the problem photo(s). Thanks for your response. Terry

Similar Messages

Problem with "Best Quality" DVDs

I put together a few DVDs using iDVD 6. One was a little under an hour and encoded fine with the default "Best Performance." This one plays in all the DVD players in my house, no problem. Two others were a little over an hour and iDVD 6 said there was too much information and to switch to "Best Quality." I did so and created the DVDs. They play fine on my PowerBook and iMac, but do not play in any other DVD players (which are pretty new). They appear not to be recognized ("No Disc Inserted" or it keeps spinning).
Short of cutting out some content to make things fit with "Best Performance" (not really an option), does anyone know how to get around this problem?
TIA
PowerBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.4)

Verbatim printable DVD-R
That's what I use and have very few problems with other people's players. Zero problems with my Sony players. Give it a try.
As far as burning speeds, the following includes info on how to do that by creating a disk image.
Suggest you create a disc image and then burn the DVD. File/Save As Disc Image...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=164927
This will isolate any encoding/burning issues you may encounter. Once the disc image is created, double-click the .img and burn the virtual disc that should appear on your desktop, using Toast to burn the DVD. Disk Utility to burn the .img file. Usually, you can select a burning speed in Disk Utility.
There are variations to this process based on which OS X you are using...
Open Disk Utility (in Utilities folder in Applications folder), click on the virtual disc (maybe the .img) in the left-hand window. Click the Burn icon. A new window should drop down and your SuperDrive tray will open after clicking the Burn icon. Insert a recordable DVD. (Verbatim DVD-R preferred by me.) Click the Close button. Wait. Select a burn speed. Then click the Burn button.
-->If the virtual disk selection won't allow you to click the Burn icon, use the .img file instead. This may have changed in 10.3.9 and did change in Tiger.
Also, you can use DVD Player to play the virtual disk to check your iDVD project before burning to DVD. Launch DVD Player. File/Open VIDEO_TS (Open DVD Media... in Player 4.6). Find the VIDEO_TS folder and open that. (The audio folder is for DVD-Audio disks.)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93006

Solution for my 34506 Error: Titles and Best Quality

I suddenly started getting 34506 errors on a project which previously had gone flawlessly. The errors occurred whether I burned directly to a disk or to a disk image. It made no difference.
The iDVD5 project consisted of importing 9 different movies. These were made in iMovie HD and these movies in turn each consisted of 20-60 photos brought in from iPhoto 5.
By trial and error I found that the errors went away when I removed one of the movies. When I focused on that movie I found that the errors went away when I removed the titles. The titles involved quite a bit of rendering. It is notable that, in this project, none of the movies used chapter markers at any time.
In reading the posts in this Apple Discussion forum, I saw a reference to the "Performance" vs. "Quality" choice which is embedded in the preferences of iDVD 5. I changed this preference from Quality to Performance and it solved my problem.
I hope that this observation is of help to other users.
As you can see that I am using three of the elements in the iLife 5 series. I have also extensively brought in Audio from iTunes. I have found "The Missing Manual" series of books by David Pogue to be excellent as I have worked with my photos and videos. I have the two books "iMovie HD & iDVD 5" and iPhoto 5". They have been hugely helpful as I have created a number of superb DVDs of family and historical events.
Hope this is of help.
Phil Spertus

Hey Phil,
Here's how I solved my problem.
At the beginning of my video, I had a logo image imported from iPhoto. I put some text over it to title the video. (I used subtitle multiple in iMovie for the titling)
Well, I wanted the logo to spin in, so I clicked on the clock to change the timeline view from clips to the actual timeline. I then clicked and dragged the first clip (The logo clip with text) to the right a little which drags all the other clips to the right of it to the right also, creating a space between the beginning of the video and the logo clip.
When you click back to the clip viewer in the timeline, you now have a clip before the clip that you dragged that says "Black" The length of this Black clip depends on how far you dragged the clip in timeline view to the right.
In my case I had about three seconds of black before the logo clip. I then inserted the "spin in" transition between the clips. It worked and looked good in iMovie, and in Quicktime.
In iDVD however, I noticed that the 34506 error would always occur right at the beginning of the multiplexing stage right before it was going to start burning.
I started to wonder if it was because of the "Black" clip. I went into iMovie, removed the clip and Spin In Transition. I also deleted the iDVD plist, and ran Mac Janitor and repaired my disk permissions, and sure enough, I had a flawless burn.
Sorry it took so long to explain, but it seems that the 34506 errors occur for several different reasons.
Bobby

Encoding Problems- tried all fixes, still get -34506 and multiplexing error

I am having a lot of difficulty trying to burn a short (27-min) DVD. I have found lots of useful information and tips in this forum, but still am having no luck. Here are the specifics:
Movie details:
- 103 slides from iPhoto
- ~10 video clips from DV camcorder (12-bit sound, unfortunately, see below)
- ~5 video clips from digital camera (.AVI format)
- lots of transitions
- additional music track from iTunes
- no chapter markers
After working thru various problems and fixes from the forum with no joy (including deleting plist, clearing caches, deleting chapter markers, making sure video extends beyond audio track at end, and resetting computer) here is what I did most recently:
- exported sound from iMovie (AIFF), imported it into iTunes, then saved it as a 16-bit, 48kHz AIFF file (to resolve the 12-bit audio issue)
- pulled new AIFF sound file back into iMovie
- exported new full quality DV file from iMovie, using default settings
- imported DV movie into iDVD, added a theme ("Fun")
- saved as a disk image
Any ideas or additional tricks I could try? I thought that the DV export would resolve the multiplexing issue, and the sound issue would be resolved by the new AIFF file.
Help!

Sue,
Thanks for the tip... I looked at the linked page and the only additional item that I checked as a result was whether there were any 3rd-party QT plug-ins (I have none...)
However, I DID get the file to finally save as a disk image!!! I converted my video in iMovie to a DV stream (but omitted the audio). I then started a new iMovie project, loaded the video-only DV stream file, and separately loaded the audio-only AIFF file I had previously made. The first time I tried to burn this new project I had the same errors appear. Then I switched the quality to "Best performance", and it worked just fine - no errors.
I didn't see anyone else in the forums suggest that the quality setting (Best Quality) might be responsible for the multiplexing error. But that seems to have been the case for me. I wonder if those folks who got their problem fixed by trashing the plist was due to reverting to the default quality setting (Best Performance). And BTW, some additional searching on the forums seems to indicate that for short (<60 min) DVDs, the "Best Performance" setting is more-or-less the same quality. The quality of the DVD I burned certainly seems OK!

Problem burning dvd "multiplexer error"

Hi there, I am trying to burn a dvd using iDVD. Apologies for what may be a simple question but I am very new to Macs after a live with the evil PC!
All appears to start off well, the total project is about 6Gb, and I am using a double layer DVD+R. I have gone into the project settings and amended them to ensure that it is set and recognised as a dual layer disc.
All starts off well and the "Creating your DVD" screen runs down through "prepare", "process menus", "process slideshows", and "process movies"
It then starts the "Burn" section and the progress bar moves across whilst it says "muliplexing". It gets right to the end of this and then the following error comes up "Multiplexer Error - there was an error during formatting".
Any ideas or suggestions gratefully welcomed!
Thanks

Hi
As You see there are many things to consider - obvious onea and totally obscure ones.
Any button on or outside the TV-Safe area ? - Not obvious but that one hit me.
else - A very long list of thougts. (suggestion - print out and see if You pin down the culprit)
Multiplexing Error
PART One.
Use of strange video/audio material eg .avi, .wmv, .mp3 etc.
I only use.
Video - StreamingDV (miniDV tape via FireWire) and
Audio = .aiff (as on audio-CDs) (else coverted to this .aff 48KHz)
*Chapters !*
A. *Using strange letters* in video project name eg +,/; etc. keep to a-z and 0-9 strange letters in project name eg +
as described by Donnyboy69. Does the title of your project have any symbols or decimal points in it. If so, that is why you are getting the error. I had a project that had a + sign which caused the same problem. I renamed it without the symbol and low and behold, it worked.
B. *Location of Chapters*
• Can’t be at start or end of movie (Skip first/start one - iDVD sets this by it self. At the End - no need)
• Not in a transition (or within 2-3 seconds from it)
Important when from iMovie HD6 or previous - Now also observed when using FCE 4
PART Two.
from Robert Modero.
"Multiplexing Error. Problem during initialization of tracks"
Simply remember to add subtitles to your Quicktime files and menu buttons.
Once I did that, I was back in business.
from Boise Jim
Do a safe reboot (by holding down the shift key until you see the spinning gear on grey background, then release, then restart when your start-up screen appears).
I always makes a DiskImage first and test this so that it runs OK
I use only - Verbatim DVDs
I use only - DVD-R
I burn at an as slow speed possibly eg x1
This gives good DVDs
PART Three.
Multiplex Error
Chuck, Chicago 2/7/2009.
Back again. Here is what I have found to work. I also have and use a LaCie DVD-R/RW DL external drive and a LaCie external hard drive as well. Since yesterday I have tried a few ways to burn a themed iDVD project having four 56 minute movies on it, amounting to 226 minutes onto a DVD DL disc, capacity 240 minutes. Apple tech support really didn't know what to do but gave me a very good tip. I had two options left. Apple tech support's tip was to try disc image. One of the replies on a thread with this subject said not to, but my experience today is good. Put your project onto "Burn to disc image," under "iDVD, file." Yesterday encoding took me 23 1/2 hours. Overnight for iDVD disc image, encoding took 21 1/2 hours (again) while I slept. This morning I tried to copy/burn disc image to a DVD with Roxio Toast 7, and it stopped near the end of the burn with some kind of "error" message. So then I tried Utilities> Disc Utility> Burn icon, and followed it through. Be sure to click the DVD DL drive in the window "Burn disc in.". I had one other problem though. At the end of a 46 minute copy, it started to verify, and at the end of verify it rejected the burn. So I tried again, and when "verify" appeared, I clicked on "Skip." The disc finished burning and is doing fine and well. A long and tortuous process, but at last something works. I made several additional copies using Disc Utility. Best wishes. Chuck, Chicago.
2. Disconnect any other external devices not absolutly needed.
eg external USB/USB2 hard disks, other FW hard disks etc.
3 Chapter marks in transitions - minimum 2 sec from
FROM Bev.
(Not a 'guy' but I will answer!)
First, I do not think that mixing widescreen and standard makes a difference in iDVD.
Second, you should use a better brand of DVD disk. Also, many of us have experienced fewer problems on playback with DVD-R disks. Recommended brands here are Verbatim, Maxell and Taio Yuden. Memorex and TDK are not consistent and may not give you a correct burn. They apparently have fewer layers in the composition of the disk. I have always used Verbatim DVD-R disks and have not had any burn problems.
Also, choose a slower burn speed, 4x or less.
Third, to determine if the iDVD project will burn properly, create a disk image file (from within iDVD, go File->Save as Disk Image) and test it. Mount the disk image and then open DVD Player (in Applications) and view your project. If it plays correctly, you can then burn the actual DVD disk from the disk image file using Disk Utility.
From. Boise, Idaho
I did everything I've seen suggested, but a friend (who used to be an Apple Genius) suggested that I do a safe reboot (by holding down the shift key until you see the spinning gear on grey background, then release, then restart when your start-up screen appears).
It worked, and I got a clean burn from iDVD.
Hopefully this can help other people.
by dheb0422
Well, I finally got it, and it was odd enough to post here incase anyone looks this topic up again. Many things were tried, including burning the uneditited film, the edited film without titles and chapter markers, abbreviating the chapter markers in case length was the issue (remember the old iMovie used to truncate them when moving to iDVD?). In the process, I noticed that one, and only one, chapter marker was on the same line as the title marker. All the others were on the line above. The only way I seemed able to change that was to clip a few seconds of film. After that last clip, the offending marker took a place on the line above, as were all the others. That run published, compiled completely and burned. That's one for the books.
*One user more writes*
To add my experience with Multiplex Errors using iDVD (7.0.4), I recently created two iDVD projects
Video from both passed from FCE 4.01 with chapters
One project worked fine in creating disk image file
The other gave Multiplex Errors
I tried suggestions to remove special characters and no chapter marks at beginning, but nothing worked
Note that I've used iDVD for dozens of projects and this is first time I've run into Multiplex Errors
Anyway, for problem project, I tried an experiment where I removed all chapters in FCE and passed to new iDVD project
This time multiplex errors gone
So had something to do with chapters
So now I tried numerous experiments to remove individual chapters and try again creating disk image with new iDVD project
After numerous trys, I was able to narrow problem down to 1 "Bad" chapter mark
That is, when I left the "bad" chapter in my FCE project and passed to iDVD, iDVD gave multiplex error
When I removed "bad" chapter mark (and others in), no mulitplex error
As a final experiment, I moved "bad" chapter mark about 5-10 secs beyond original point and passed to iDVD, the multiplex errors now magically went away and I was able to finally create my disk image.
I have no idea why this worked, but thought I'd mention here in case someone else runs into similar problem.
Rich839
In addition to Bengt's fine advice, burning errors can occur if you have located any of your menu buttons wholly or partly outside of the safe TV viewing area. Go to your main project menu, then click on View/Show TV Safe Area, to check. Drag into the safe viewing area any buttons that are outside the safe viewing area.
Russ One - suggest this
Multiplexer Error-There was an error during muxing preparation
One thing that worked for me was to export the video w/o chapter markers as a self contained movie (thereby not loosing the edits & etc). Then make a new FCE project and import that movie into a new sequence and add the chapter markers. I've used "-", "&" and "," with no problem in the chapter names. Removing the markers or exporting without them did solve the problem but renaming them with just numbers 1,2,3....5, did not solve the problem and since this problem seems to happen with with iMovie as well, it would suggest the problem is in the video or audio and in combination with the chapter markers iDVD just can't handle it. The only other possibility is that both iMovie and FCE share the same or similar chapter marker code that some how is corrupting the markers.
Yours Bengt W

IMovie to iDVD: Error: Need to change to Best quality

I think this must be a bug in iLife 06, create a project in iMovie 6, it will be less then 2 hours long but longer then one hour. Share out to iDVD and you get an error that the files are too large and you should change to Best Quality. Change is made to Best quality but the error still returns, there is no way to get rid of this error with the current iDVD project. Solution: Export the iMovie project (I always use Full Quality) and then drag into the iDVD theme of your choice and it will burn. This happens on my Macs at home and all of the Macs I manage at the university with iLife 06. Has anyone else seen this problem?

But you didn't say you made the change in both places. This needed to be done by someone a couple of days ago.
You can also try this, but you'll have to reset Prefs:
This frequently helps solve some problems. Quit iDVD. Search for the file named com.apple.iDVD.plist and trash it. (A new one will be created next launch of iDVD.) Or look in: User/Library/Preferences. This may solve project loading errors too. Restart and use Disk Utility to Repair Permissions.

Getting Error - Exporting Sequence (FCP 5) using 150 min - Best Quality

Keep getting error trying to export a sequence in Final Cut Pro 5 using Compressor settings DVD 150 min Best Quality. It's exporting the audio files, but not the MPEG2 video file.
The sequence is about 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Any ideas? (FYI: THIS IS FOR A DVD MASTER THAT WILL GET DUPLICATED FOR CONSUMERS)
CJ
310-228-8266

I am having the same problem. Did you find a solution?
Thanks

Change to Best Quality error

No, this is not yet another post asking which really is the setting to get the best quality DVD.
My project runs about 1.5 hours so when I try to burn a disc image I get the error message telling me it's too big for one DVD so change the preference setting to Best Quality. The problem is, the preference setting is ALREADY set at Best Quality.
So I close it out and try to burn again and get the same error.
What am I doing wrong? Please help!

OK I figured out my error.
I was changing the preferences in the program settings - which changed NEW (but not current) projects. Once I went to project on the toolbar and changed settings it worked fine.
Live and learn.

Best Quality/Encoding Problems

Hi,
I recently got a Canon Vixia HG21 camcorder (it shoots in AVCHD format) and I tried using it with my Windows computer. The technical specifications of that computer didn't match with the requirements for Premiere Pro CS4, which was my number one choice for editing software. I ended up buying a new iMac (the specifications can be read here: http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html.)
Now I have Premiere Pro CS4 and I really like all of the editing and effects features that are in it. I'm having a little trouble with importing the videos from the camera. I have been using the USB cord that came with the camera to save it on iMovie (in "full" quality) and then putting it into Adobe Premiere. My main problem though is with exporting the video. Since this is my first Mac I really don't know what format/codec is the best to export a video in. I tried exporting it in Mpeg-4 and H.264 formats but I'm really not sure if these are good choices. When I exported both of them the H.264 format had the best quality but I really think that it could have been better. I'm mainly interested in putting the videos on Youtube and occasionally on a DVD.
Another problem (sorry for so many questions) is that when I exported a 5-minute clip using the H.264 format, I left the computer running for a long part of the day and came back. It still had 2 hours to go after running for 7 hours! Is this right? Because it doesn't seem like it should be.
So basically I have three questions:
1. What is the best way to import videos from my camcorder to my iMac?
2. What are the best ways to export those videos from Premiere CS4 with the highest quality possible?
3. How long does encoding usually take and what is the best way to do it?
Thanks for all the help that I know I'll be able to find on this forum.

The Copying of the files to the HDD will be the route with the AVCHD material. The processing speed and ease of editing that footage will depend almost 100% on the speed of your CPU, with the remainder being handled by the RAM and the I/O sub-system (your HDD's).
For an Export format, especially for the Mac, I'd look into the H.264 CODEC. That should work well too for YouTube.
Good luck,
Hunt

How do I render best quality in 1920x1080 / having problems.

Im at the end of a film.
Shot on Canon HV20 1940x1080.
Im trying to render a clip at full 1940x1080 BEST QUALITY, when I press match sequance it makes the settings 1440x1080 mpeg preview.
There is no custom setting under AVI.
Ive tried also H.264 HDTV 1080p 1920x1080 and it comes out the same as 1440x1080. Theres a lot of noise on the picture.
Is there a big difference between 1920 and 1440?
Im sure I set up the project HDV 1080.
Advice/ Help please!!

Just read 1920x1080 only renders in PF24 Mode...whats that??
Ive just read this
Oh boy! This is a big discussion, and I highly recommend that you read the HDMI threads, but I'll give you the short version.
First, let me tell you that the sensor is actually bigger than 1920x1080, which is 2 megapixels. It's actualy 3 megapixels for photographs, but it's masked off.
You are probably capturing through firewire off of your videotape. HD video is ALWAYS 1440 x 1080 with 4:2:0 colorspace and a 1.33 pixel ratio. The pixels are stretched to give the wider format.
That is the technical standard to fit the video stream within the data rate for the mini-DV tape. Every HD camera that records to mini-DV uses that format. You are not losing anything compared to any other camera.
The interesting thing is that the output from HDMI is 1920x1080 with 4:2:2 color space and square pixels. The HV20/HV30 is one of the few that has HDMI output.
There is much debate on whether the data stream is being intercepted before it's compressed (which is what it appears to be IMHO since there is more detail in the HDMI capture.) HDMI Comparison Thread.
HDMI is captured with an Intensity card by Black Magic Design. The biggest drawback of this is you need a computer running at the same time. That means indoors, or with an extension cord, or portable power. Portable Intensity Thread.
A big advantage is you get two videos at once. One on the computer and one on the video tape.
So its
1440 firewire max
1920 for HDMI.

Multiplexer Error

The following message dialogue boxes showed up at the conclusion of an attempt to burn an iDVD project:
1) MULTIPLEXER ERROR: There was a problem during multiplexing/burning.
2) BURNING FINISHED: Error were found during the burning process - The recording device reported the media error: Write error. (0x0C,)x00.)
iDVD was set to PAL, best quality, std 4:3 aspect - single layer 4.2MB mag media DVD+R - project DVD capacity 1.7GB.
This problem occured twice running. I followed up by successfully burning a CD.
Has anyone any suggestions?
eMac G4 & iMac G3 Mac OS X (10.4.8) iDVD6 Ver 6.0.3

Sounds like a burning problem...
mag media DVD+R
I recommend a disk image burned to Verbatim DVD-R at 4X or slower using Toast or Disk Utility.
David Pogue also recommends Verbatim on page 356 of his latest book:
iMovie HD & iDVD 6: The Missing Manual
Quoting David: "Cheaper brands don't use the same amount of organic dyes and are more likely to suffer premature deaths."
Suggest you create a disc image and then burn the DVD. File/Save as Disc Image...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iDVD/6.0/en/18.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/image_to_diskstone.html
This will isolate any encoding/burning issues you may encounter. Once the disc image is created, double-click the .img and burn the virtual disc that should appear on your desktop, using Toast to burn the DVD. Disk Utility to burn the .img file. Usually, you can select a burning speed in Disk Utility.
There are variations to this process based on which OS X you are using...
Open Disk Utility (in Utilities folder in Applications folder), click on the virtual disc (maybe the .img) in the left-hand window. Click the Burn icon. A new window should drop down and your SuperDrive tray will open after clicking the Burn icon. Insert a recordable DVD. (Verbatim DVD-R preferred by me.) Click the Close button. Wait. Select a burn speed. If you hold your mouse cursor over the pop-up it says: "Select a slower speed to work around burn failures," so select 4x or slower for best results. Then click the Burn button.
-->If the virtual disk selection won't allow you to click the Burn icon, use the .img file instead. This may have changed in 10.3.9 and did change in Tiger.
Also, you can use DVD Player to play the virtual disk to check your iDVD project before burning to DVD. Launch DVD Player. File/Open VIDEO_TS (Open DVD Media... in Player 4.6). Find the VIDEO_TS folder and open that. (The audio folder is for DVD-Audio disks.)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93006

IDVD burning/multiplexing error

In iDVD 5 I get a message that says "errors were found during the burning process" and then it says "error while burning/multiplexing". I have not been able to burn a DVD thus far and I don't know what the problem is. I would appreciate any suggestions.
Thanks, AS

Andrew,
Please tell us more about your project: theme, how you made the movies/slideshows, music, etc.
And start with these tips:
Make sure you have 20GB free space on your startup drive.
Delete the iDVD plist file "com.apple.iDVD.plist"
Repair Disk Permissions on startup drive with Disk Utility.
Set iDVD to best quality. (So you can get up to two hours)
No Chapter Markers at the the beginning (with iMovie, iDVD will add one for you) or within 2 secs of a transition.
Make sure your audio is 16 bit in iMovie. And try using "extract audio" in iMovie.
Use "Save as Disk Image" to encode, and burn with Disk Utility.
John B.

HT1645 I had about 1:40 run time on my video for DVD and chose "professional" as I didn't need to rush. Got Multiplexer Error message. Found no reason or fix for this situation. What am I to do to fix?

This site doesn't seem to get answers. I typed the problem above, then it asks same question before post. What help is that? Needs to be clearer what it wants from me. Others seem to have same issues with iDVD's clarity of information. I have been editing for 12+ years and still can't figure out solutions more than trail and error.

Hi
1:40 - can mean 1 sec 40 frames - or - 1 minute 40 seconds - or - 1 hour 40 minutes
1 hour 40 minutes is 100 minutes and iDVD only cares about duration
• Pro Quality encoding - up to 120 minutes (movie + menu) (menu can be 15 minutes or even more
• Best Performances - up to 60 min. - High quality on final DVD (Can be best for short movies)
• High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6) up to 120 min. - slightly lower quality than above
Reg "Multiplex Error" - This is a tough one and can have a lot of reasons. Read on
Multiplexing error is a very complex problem due to many things (long long list following) - one common but not obvious reason is that material on the iDVD menu goes outside the TV-Safe area (or just touching it).
So first - turn on TV-Safe area and move any object well inside of this.
Wide screen stretched - usually (as I think) it is due to making a 4x3 movie in a 16x9 wide-screen project OR the other way around. This forces one to on flat-screen TV (or other) set the presenting view right - My has 4x3, wide-screen, zoom and auto-wide-screen and I have to switch this by my remote for some DVD I've made "wrong" way.
Now my long long list on Multiplex Error
LONG LONG LONG LIST
Multiplexing Error
PART One.
Use of strange video/audio material e.g. .avi, .wmv, .mp3 etc.
I only use.
Video - StreamingDV (miniDV tape via FireWire) and
Audio - .aiff (as on audio-CDs) (else converted to this .aiff 48KHz)
Photo - .jpg (.bmp known problematic)
Chapters !
A. Using strange letters in video project name e.g. +,/; etc. keep to a-z and 0-9 strange letters in project name e.g. +
as described by Donnyboy69. Does the title of your project have any symbols or decimal points in it. If so, that is why you are getting the error. I had a project that had a + sign which caused the same problem. I renamed it without the symbol and low and behold, it worked.
B. Location of Chapters
• Can’t be at start or end of movie (Skip first/start one - iDVD sets this by it self. At the End - no need)
• Not in a transition (or within 2-3 seconds from it)
Important when from iMovie HD6 or previous - Now also observed when using FCE 4
PART Two.
from Robert Modero.
"Multiplexing Error. Problem during initialization of tracks"
Simply remember to add subtitles to your Quicktime files and menu buttons.
Once I did that, I was back in business.
from Boise Jim
Do a safe reboot (by holding down the shift key until you see the spinning gear on gray background, then release, then restart when your start-up screen appears).
I always makes a DiskImage first and test this so that it runs OK
I use only - Verbatim DVDs
I use only - DVD-R
I burn at an as slow speed possibly e.g. x1
This gives good DVDs
PART Three.
Multiplex Error
Chuck, Chicago 2/7/2009.
Back again. Here is what I have found to work. I also have and use a LaCie DVD-R/RW DL external drive and a LaCie external hard drive as well. Since yesterday I have tried a few ways to burn a themed iDVD project having four 56 minute movies on it, amounting to 226 minutes onto a DVD DL disc, capacity 240 minutes. Apple tech support really didn't know what to do but gave me a very good tip. I had two options left. Apple tech support's tip was to try disc image. One of the replies on a thread with this subject said not to, but my experience today is good. Put your project onto "Burn to disc image," under "iDVD, file." Yesterday encoding took me 23 1/2 hours. Overnight for iDVD disc image, encoding took 21 1/2 hours (again) while I slept. This morning I tried to copy/burn disc image to a DVD with Roxio Toast 7, and it stopped near the end of the burn with some kind of "error" message. So then I tried Utilities> Disc Utility> Burn icon, and followed it through. Be sure to click the DVD DL drive in the window "Burn disc in.". I had one other problem though. At the end of a 46 minute copy, it started to verify, and at the end of verify it rejected the burn. So I tried again, and when "verify" appeared, I clicked on "Skip." The disc finished burning and is doing fine and well. A long and tortuous process, but at last something works. I made several additional copies using Disc Utility. Best wishes. Chuck, Chicago.
2. Disconnect any other external devices not absolutely needed.
e.g. external USB/USB2 hard disks, other FW hard disks etc.
3 Chapter marks in transitions - minimum 2 sec from
FROM Bev.
(Not a 'guy' but I will answer!)
First, I do not think that mixing wide-screen and standard makes a difference in iDVD.
Second, you should use a better brand of DVD disk. Also, many of us have experienced fewer problems on playback with DVD-R disks. Recommended brands here are Verbatim, Maxell and Taiyo Yuden. Memorex and TDK are not consistent and may not give you a correct burn. They apparently have fewer layers in the composition of the disk. I have always used Verbatim DVD-R disks and have not had any burn problems.
Also, choose a slower burn speed, 4x or less.
Third, to determine if the iDVD project will burn properly, create a disk image file (from within iDVD, go File->Save as Disk Image) and test it. Mount the disk image and then open DVD Player (in Applications) and view your project. If it plays correctly, you can then burn the actual DVD disk from the disk image file using Disk Utility.
From. Boise, Idaho
I did everything I've seen suggested, but a friend (who used to be an Apple Genius) suggested that I do a safe reboot (by holding down the shift key until you see the spinning gear on gray background, then release, then restart when your start-up screen appears).
It worked, and I got a clean burn from iDVD.
Hopefully this can help other people.
by dheb0422
Well, I finally got it, and it was odd enough to post here incase anyone looks this topic up again. Many things were tried, including burning the unedited film, the edited film without titles and chapter markers, abbreviating the chapter markers in case length was the issue (remember the old iMovie used to truncate them when moving to iDVD?). In the process, I noticed that one, and only one, chapter marker was on the same line as the title marker. All the others were on the line above. The only way I seemed able to change that was to clip a few seconds of film. After that last clip, the offending marker took a place on the line above, as were all the others. That run published, compiled completely and burned. That's one for the books.
One user more writes
To add my experience with Multiplex Errors using iDVD (7.0.4), I recently created two iDVD projects
Video from both passed from FCE 4.01 with chapters
One project worked fine in creating disk image file
The other gave Multiplex Errors
I tried suggestions to remove special characters and no chapter marks at beginning, but nothing worked
Note that I've used iDVD for dozens of projects and this is first time I've run into Multiplex Errors
Anyway, for problem project, I tried an experiment where I removed all chapters in FCE and passed to new iDVD project
This time multiplex errors gone
So had something to do with chapters
So now I tried numerous experiments to remove individual chapters and try again creating disk image with new iDVD project
After numerous tries, I was able to narrow problem down to 1 "Bad" chapter mark
That is, when I left the "bad" chapter in my FCE project and passed to iDVD, iDVD gave multiplex error
When I removed "bad" chapter mark (and others in), no multiplex error
As a final experiment, I moved "bad" chapter mark about 5-10 sec's beyond original point and passed to iDVD, the multiplex errors now magically went away and I was able to finally create my disk image.
I have no idea why this worked, but thought I'd mention here in case someone else runs into similar problem.
Rich839
In addition to Bengt's fine advice, burning errors can occur if you have located any of your menu buttons wholly or partly outside of the safe TV viewing area. Go to your main project menu, then click on View/Show TV Safe Area, to check. Drag into the safe viewing area any buttons that are outside the safe viewing area.
Russ One - suggest this
Multiplex Error-There was an error during muxing preparation
One thing that worked for me was to export the video w/o chapter markers as a self contained movie (thereby not loosing the edits & etc). Then make a new FCE project and import that movie into a new sequence and add the chapter markers. I've used "-", "&" and "," with no problem in the chapter names. Removing the markers or exporting without them did solve the problem but renaming them with just numbers 1,2,3....5, did not solve the problem and since this problem seems to happen with with iMovie as well, it would suggest the problem is in the video or audio and in combination with the chapter markers iDVD just can't handle it. The only other possibility is that both iMovie and FCE share the same or similar chapter marker code that some how is corrupting the markers.
Summary - What to try
1. Chapters
• Only A to Z and 0 to 9 in chapter title
• No Chapter mark at very beginning of movie
• No Chapter mark in or within 2 seconds from any transition in movie
2. TV-safe area for buttons (no one outside this)
3. Safe re-boot
4. No other external devices connected - that are not needed
SDMacuser adds to this
• On #4 ... No ext. devices. Some think this applies mainly to ext. FW. Not the case. Also applies to ext. USB2 as well (not to mention flash drives too).
Do not leave 3rd party devices / camera / camcorder plugged in unless it is being used with iDvd's One Step process. Certain web cams can trigger this also (especially ones with added features like LED light/s that draw additional power from the FW or USB bus).
5. Minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-up hard disk
6. Make a DiskImage first - reduces where problem originates
7. Trash iDVD pref. file
8. Make a new iDVD project
9. Movies in project with same aspect ratio e.g. 4x3 or 16x9
10. No other programs/applications running during iDVD process. e.g. Internet, screen & energy savers
Yours Bengt W

Multiplexer error - There was an error during formatting

Hello,
I'm using a brand new iMac 3.06Ghz and iDVD '08. The system software is completely fresh will all relevant updates applied. When burning to physical DVD's or to disk images, I'm frequently getting the following error message:
http://skitch.com/willwood/qysy/idvd
This error message occurs right at the end of the burn process and is occurring with about 80% of the burns I'm doing. Sometimes if I format a disk and try again it works second time round.
I went to an Apple store yesterday and spoke to a genius about this problem. I was told that instead of burning directly to a DVD, I should do the process in two stages. Firstly, get iDVD to make a disk image on my desktop and then use Disk Utility to physically burn the disk image to a blank DVD. Well, I've tried this as well and I'm no further forward. The same error message is being displayed. I've run through this guide: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1583?viewlocale=enUS&locale=enGB
and in answer to the questions:
1) Software update run, no updates available
2) I have over 820GB of free space
3) There are no non-Apple QuickTime plugins installed
4) No third-party iDVD theme's used
5) I'm able to burn from other applications like Finder and iPhoto
6) Have run hardware test. No problems identified
7) Issue occurs in the final few minutes of burn, no thumbnail shown
8) ?
9) Have tried re-encoding project
10) Intermittent fault - happens on other projects at random
I've done some googling and can't turn up any other information. Also searched these forums but quite a bit of what I've found relates to Final Cut. What else can I try?

I'm also on the trail of a solution. Actually two possible solutions.
I have two iMacs. My older one has OSX 10.4.11 (Tiger) and the newer one has OSX 10.5.3 (Leopard) on it. I was having very similar problems on both machines EXCEPT the older machine wouldn't say what the error was ... it would just say "there was an encoding error" .... but it was happening at the exact same time as the 'Multiplexer Error' so I think it may be the same thing.
Anyway, on the old (Tiger) Mac I tried removing all third party Quicktime components from /Library/Quicktime (such as Flip4Mac, Divx, and Perian) and tried re-encoding a 1 hour 30 minute piece of video. IT WORKED! So now I am in the process of adding those components back in one at a time to find out which one is the culprit. (personally I suspect it might be Perian sin it is the newest one I've added, and I've added it to the old computer and the new computer before this problem cropped up - but my experiments should tell me for sure)
On the new computer (Leopard) I looked at iDVD '08 closer and found that there are three compression modes (in the Project/Project Info menu) - "Best Performance", which lets you encode an hour or less of video - "High Quality" lets you encode more than an hour of video - and "Professional Quality" that also lets you encode more than an hour of video.
Obviously "Best Performance" works (that's the one I've been stuck with for the last couple weeks), but the "High Quality" mode is the one that chokes with the "Multiplexer Error" - But here's the kicker - just for grins I tried using "Professional Quality" mode and I was able to successfully create a DVD with 1 hour and 45 minutes of video !!!
So for now it's looking like a toss-up between Quicktime components being the culprit or a bug in the "High Quality" encode mode. But at least using the "Professional Quality" encode mode lets me create DVDs with more than an hour of video.
I will continue my experiments and let you know what happens.
By the way, the new computer is using iDVD '08 (version 7.02), while the old computer is using the older version of iDVD (version 6.04). So it's version 7.02 that throws out the "Multiplexer Error" in "High Quality" mode (but works in "Professional Quality" mode), and version 6.04 is choking Quicktime add-on components.
I hope this helps you. It sure makes me feel better having a way to encode more than an hour of video.

Multiplexing Error when Saving to VIDEO-TS folder.

I used idvd-08 for the first time last night and I had a problem.
I saved my project to a VIDEO_TS folder. Everything seemed to work fine but at the end I got an error message saying that a Multiplexing error had happened during the burn.
When I tried to open the file using my DVD app it tells me that the media type is not supported.
The input file was created in FCE 3.5HD.
This is the first time that I have used idvd-08. Can anyone help me?
Thanks,
Steve.

How much free space on your start-up HD?
This is from iDVD '08 Help:
+Saving as VIDEO_TS folder: Saving a project as a VIDEO_TS folder allows you to play it back, on your computer, using software such as VLC media player. Saving as a VIDEO_TS folder is similar to saving as a disc image: the output quality is the same, and both methods take about the same amount of time to complete. *You can’t burn a disc from a VIDEO_TS folder.*+
Suggest you create a disc image and then burn the DVD. File/Save as Disc Image...
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iDVD/6.0/en/18.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/image_to_diskstone.html
This will isolate any encoding/burning issues you may encounter. Once the disc image is created, double-click the .img and burn the virtual disc that should appear on your desktop, using Toast to burn the DVD. Disk Utility to burn the .img file. Usually, you can select a burning speed in Disk Utility.
There are variations to this process based on which OS X you are using...
Open Disk Utility (in Utilities folder in Applications folder), click on the virtual disc (maybe the .img) in the left-hand window. Click the Burn icon. A new window should drop down and your SuperDrive tray will open after clicking the Burn icon. Insert a recordable DVD. (Verbatim DVD-R preferred by me.) Click the Close button. Wait. Select a burn speed. If you hold your mouse cursor over the pop-up it says: "Select a slower speed to work around burn failures," so select 4x or slower for best results. Then click the Burn button.
-->If the virtual disk selection won't allow you to click the Burn icon, use the .img file instead. This may have changed in 10.3.9 and did change in Tiger.
Also, you can use DVD Player to play the virtual disk to check your iDVD project before burning to DVD. Launch DVD Player. File/Open VIDEO_TS (Open DVD Media... in Player 4.6). Find the VIDEO_TS folder and open that. (The audio folder is for DVD-Audio disks.)
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93006

Multiplexing Error Problem vs. Best Quality

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