Titles and the DVD

Hi,
First time asking, but have read some answers already that have been helpful.
I can tell you don't love title questions, but I hope you'll help anyway.
I am editing in FCP4 with video from mini DV. I have titles on black in a dark(ish) gold before and after segments, as well as, identifying titles over people as they come on screen. These titles are black with a medium blue box as background for their names and a dark gold box just underneath as background for there job title.
I used Live Type for all of these, except one of the segment titles is in motion just for kicks. (don't see a difference)
To the questions: 1. I see some fuzziness on the titles on my tv (a Sony 32" wega) I use to get that from Avid's even when I dropped the opacity (though it helped), any ideas? It's worse on the identifying titles and worse the smaller the font. Most of the fonts for everything are 30 point and American typwriter condensed, I go as low as 24 point for some long job titles and use a cursive font for a few segment titles.
Question 2. When I repostion titles in Live type It seems to sometime cause a smeared effect which will carry over to FCP, but if I adjust a little up or down it will get better?
Question 3. I burn a test DVD of part of my program in DVDSP (first time), so I used the basic setting and the titles looked even worse this time on a difference TV. again any ideas?
Here are the details if you need more just let me know.
In live Title I picked the DV 3:2 seting which the tutorial recommended. that gave my the following settings Width: 720px, 9" at 80dpi (I don't get why 80dpi), Height 480px 6.67" at 72dpi, Frame rate: 29.97, Field domiance: None, Pixel Aspect 0.90, Start time: 1:02:29;05, time Format SMPTE Drop, Under Quality--Canvas: Normal, Movie: Normal, Preview: Draft, Color: Dark Gold, Show grid: unchecked, show rulers: unchecked, Grid Width 25px.
For the DVD I exproted as QT, Current settings, audio and video, chaptermakers.
My final project is going to be around two hours the part I tested was about 1/2 an hour. I am thinking I am going to need to use Compressor for the finished product, but that is a whole other subject. I've never used compressor--gulp!
I know this is a lot, any help will be greatly appreciated.

Well, first off, welcome to the forum.
First off, dv ain't great for titles-- but you can get really nice results if you're careful. Back in my avid days I always enjoyed the good titles I could get. Limited (back then) but good.
do you have a decent calibrated monitor, (not a tv?) This is really the best way to judge your work. TV's are "painted" hot and contrasty, and no two are alike. They're built that way to overcome possible terrible viewing conditions in a variety of rooms, and not the best for a uniform result every time.
To your questions:
Try to keep your luma at about 90% You'll start buzzing on some sets if you hit or go over 100% luma, especially if you have a really contrasty color for a bg. Your sizing is about what I use, depending if I'm working for a huge screen or not.
Smear? I take it you're running into interlace interference (for want of a better term.) What you're seeing is a pretty well known issue. Double click yout title to open it in the viewer and click on the motion tab. A little experimenting will show you that a title placed at even, whole numbers for vertical will look better than odd numbers or fractions.
DVD compression is a world in itself. with a show near two hours, I think you're gonna make pile of coasters in your learning curve. and don't worry about compressor. DVDSP uses the same engine-- just two different interfaces. Some like dvdsp for encoding, some like compressor better.

Similar Messages

IDVD problem burning and multiplexing - gets stuck but ejects the DVD and the DVD doesn't play

I am having trouble burning DVDs. Everything seems to be working fine during the iDVD project creation. I can watch the movie and select scenes within iDVD. Then, when I go to burn the DVD, it gets stuck at the burning/multiplexing stage - the wheel just keeps spinning and says there is about a minute left. Yet it ejects the DVD and the DVD won't play when inserted into a DVD player. It will show the intro and the scene selection pages but when you click on one of the scenes, it gets stuck and doesn't play. I have already uninstalled and reinstalled iDVD. The problem persists. It seems like the burner itself is the problem. What can I do to fix it? I have Mac OS X Version 10.6.8 with a 2.8 GHzintel Core 2 Duo and iDVD version 7.0.4.

Hi
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

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ahmad_uetlhr09 wrote:
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Many people throw away cd or dvd players all the time because they stopped working, and very often it can easily be fixed by cleaning this lens.
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Dave, I found you can specify i18n titles through the online portal admin
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cheers,
Markus
"Dave Muirhead" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]..
>
Is there a way to use resource bundles to define desktop, book, page andportlet
titles (and other similar non-content stuff) in Portal 8.1? If not, willit be
supported at some point?

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Reset PRAM. http://support.apple.com/kb/PH6478
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Choose the method for:
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You are certainly welcome!
Good job getting all of that information from your computer, as well! :-)
Now, all of those processes that you "delete" (quit/force quit) from activity monitor should automatically restore once you restart your computer. Before a restart, however, the lack of the quitted processes should speed your computer up a bit.
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It nothing seems to be helping you PowerBook, a hard drive whipe and resinstall may be the easiest route.
As for backing up your hard drive data, I am sorry you are having errors. There are many ways to get around it, though. One way would be to boot a live CD of Ubuntu Linux for PowerPC. To do this, download the .iso file from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ports/releases/8.04/release/ubuntu-8.04.1-desktop-powe rpc.iso. Once the download is finished, you'll need a blank CD to write the file to. To do this, open DiskUtility.app and drag the downloaded .iso file to the left-hand side of the Disk Utility window (where all volumes show up). Select the .iso file within Disk Utility and burn it to a disk. Once the process is complete, insert the CD into the CD-ROM drive of your PowerBook and shut it down. Once it shuts down, press the power button (top right) on your PowerBook and hold down the "C" key on your keyboard. This will tell the PowerBook to boot from watever volume is found in the CD-ROM drive (in this case, the Ubuntu Linux CD). You may be prompted to a black screen with some white text, giving you options on what to boot, as well as some information about your display. Do NOT install Ubuntu Linux, or else it will erase the contents of your hard drive. Choose the option that will allow for you to "live" boot the CD (run without installing). This will probably take a good few minutes to boot. In the event that your display does not work properly, restart, boot from the CD, but use the command where it talks about getting your display to work properly. Once you successfully boot Ubuntu Linux, click on "Places" (top left-hand corner of the desktop) and select your internal hard drive (Macintosh HD, or whatever you named the partition). You can then plug in your external hard drive, and select it from "Places" as well. With the two windows open, drag the wanted files from your PowerBook's hard drive window to the external hard drive's window in order to copy the files. Once the transfer is complete, restart your PowerBook. You shouldn't have to hold any keys down to get it to boot back up into Mac OS X but if it doesn't boot, hold down the option key on your keyboard and select your PowerBook's internal hard drive. Make sure that your files were successfully backed up before you do a reinstallation of Mac OS X.
There are also simpler ways to back up your documents, keeping in mind that you don't HAVE to back up your documents to your external hard drive. You said (I belive) that you could still send email from your PowerBook. Can you just attach important files (possibly indvidual files at a time) and email them to yourself, which would allow you to log onto your other (properly-working) computer and download the files to it's internal hard drive? This could take quite awhile and certainly a last resort.
Another, more-easier and effecient way, in my opinion, would be to transfer the files over your home network to your other working computer (your newly-purchased MacBook Pro). To do this, on your PowerBook, open system preferences, click the "Sharing" icon, and check the box that enables file sharing.
Now, on your MacBook Pro on the same network, conect to your PowerBook over the network. This can be done by (on your MacBook Pro) clicking on the Finder icon (bottom left corner of your computer screen (left-most icon in the Dock)), clicking "Finder" (top of screen in the task bar) and "Preferences." Once the Preferences window is opened, click on the "Sidebar" tab. Check the box that will show "Computer" in the left-hand side of any finder window. Close the preferences window. Click on your computer's name at the top right-hand side of your Finder window. Double click on the "Network" icon (a blue/purple sphere). Double click on your PowerBook's icon. You will most-likely be prompted to enter in some information (username and password). Enter in the proper requested information, and the contents of your PowerBook's hard drive should display in the finder window. Click-and-drag the wanted files from your PowerBook's window to a location on your MacBook Pro's hard drive. Depending on the size of the files and your Wi-Fi router speed, this could take some time. In the event that you are not using a Wi-Fi connection on a home network, let me know, and I will give other options that will allow you to do computer-to-computer file sharing (such as with an ethernet or firewire cable).
This stuff certainly takes time... One might suggest to free up a day with nothing going on to really get things done. Don't get frustrated, as I'm here to help and am fully confident that we'll get this all figured out! :-)

Password protection and the dvd tray

I just bought a Quicksilver mac that was supposed to be from an office that upgraded there computers. The guy that sold it dident know the password to log in, and tomorrow I'm calling the shop to see if they know what it is.
Anyway I couldent get the dvd drive to open, tried pushing the eject button on the keyboard, tried reseting holding the mouse button, tried f12 key and nothing seemed to open it, so I had to resort to the paper clip manual open, then it wouldent want to close. Had to power it down and manually close it for it to stay shut.
I was trying to put in a 10.4 install disk to hopefully bypass the password and wipe the drive and start new.
My question is is it normal for the disk drive to behave this way without a password?

OK, you don't have Firmware Protection on then.
Reset OS X Password Without an OS X CD...
http://theappleblog.com/2008/06/22/reset-os-x-password-without-an-os-x-cd/
Admin Hack...
http://www.hackmac.org/?q=node/4
Starts up like the first time you buy a new Mac, but after filling in all that info again, you should have access to the computer and the other Users & files will still be there... though I was just thinking, this new User probably shouldn't be the same name as an existing one.
If that doesn't work for you (and some users have reported it has not worked for them), try Niel's procedure Making the Setup Assistant reappear.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=607547
I lost my admin user (Mac OS X 10.4 and earlier) ...
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=121786&tstart=0

Titles and the DVD

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