iDVD4 Frustrations!! Can't do a 2-hour DVD!!!

[MattG]

OK--everybody remember in Steve's keynote a month ago when he was telling everybody about how now you can get 2 hours of high quality video on a DVD using iMovie and iDVD4? Well, has anyone here had any luck doing so?

I've got two hours worth of video (actually about 1:59--I had to cut it down a bit) that I'm trying to make a DVD out of. I've done my editing in iMovie, exported it to iDVD, hit "Burn," and then it starts it's process. Problem is, it gets stuck on "Step 3: Asset Encoding..." for about 3 hours or so, before I get one of those "iDVD has unexpectedly quit" errors. The DVD never burns, and I wasted several hours of my time. For what it's worth, I've tried this on both my DP G5 at work and my DP G4 at home. Same error occurs, although on the G5 it occurs much faster :)

I have done two other projects with iMovie and iDVD with shorter length videos with no problems at all, so I'm guessing the 1:59 length of this video is what's causing the problem. I called Apple and spoke to a tech, and he told me that it's most likely due to the length of my video. When I asked him, "Didn't Steve say at his keynote that you could successfully burn 2 hours worth of video onto a DVD using iDVD?" he basically told me that "my mileage would vary," and that "up to two hours" means that theoretically you could get two hours, but no promises. He made the analogy of iDVD to a laptop battery, and how they say you can get 5 hours out of a PB's battery, but you'll probably actually get more like 3.5. Needless to say, I'm not satisfied with that answer. Has ANYONE been able to burn a full-length DVD using iDVD?

[raytube]

Hi,
I had a similar problem with iDVD3, intitially I wasn't aware of the 90 min limit so I had to strip back an edit to make it fit.
I had to do this twice as the first time I got it under 90mins but it seemed to need a bit of extra space for additional files to finish the disk, I ended up being 5 or 6 mins under 90mins and it accepted it.

When video is encoded it doesn't do it exactly the same for every bit of video, 2 different movie that are 10 mins long may actually be different files sizes due to the colour content etc in them. This could be why you are having problems, you may need to strip it back in length a bit more and hopefully it will work.
If I'm right I think video that is lighter i.e. white, bright, is larger as it takes more data than dark or black areas.

Anyway, interested to know how you get on as I've just bought the new iLife suite and it's on it's way!

Rick

[janey]

uh why are you not satisfied with the answer?
ymmv. that's plainly obvious.
its not like you can get 5 hours out of an iBook battery, or cram two hours of whatever on a DVD all the time.
you complaining that you cant fit two hours of whatever on that DVD is just like me bitching to Apple because my airport base station cant reach the theoretical 54mbps 802.11g is theoretically capable of.

[Engagebot]

iDVD is great, but <2hr doesnt do it for me.

on a pc i can cram up to 6 hours if i need (crappier quality, but i need to burn 3 hour discs each week for my job).

if iDVD could bump up the max play time, i'd use it for my job, even if it just compressed the crap out the movies.

[MattG]

Originally posted by übergeek
uh why are you not satisfied with the answer?
ymmv. that's plainly obvious.
its not like you can get 5 hours out of an iBook battery, or cram two hours of whatever on a DVD all the time.
you complaining that you cant fit two hours of whatever on that DVD is just like me bitching to Apple because my airport base station cant reach the theoretical 54mbps 802.11g is theoretically capable of. I think that's a poor analogy. Your base station is limited by distance, walls in your house, etc. 2 hours of video is 2 hours of video, and every DVD has the same capacity on it. If they say it should fit 2 hours, it should fit 2 hours, and if it can't, the program should be able to tell you prior to encoding the data and crashing three hours later.

[MattG]

Originally posted by raytube

Anyway, interested to know how you get on as I've just bought the new iLife suite and it's on it's way!

Rick Other than this problem, it's been great! GarageBand is fun, and iMovie/iDVD seem to work a lot faster now (although...I've been doing my work on a G5 as of last week :)). Haven't used iPhoto yet...

[SilentPanda]

Part of the problem is most likely that your menus contribute to the 2 hours of DVD... depending on how complex a menu system you use that will bring the time down from 2 hours...

[raytube]

Hi,
Yeah, that's what I was referring to in my first post, the menu's contribute to the diskspace so it can sometimes mean that you get less footage on there than the 90 or 120 mins suggested. As I said before, video doesn't compress equally for the same length of time so it will be a bit inconsistent how long you can make your video.
However, it is annoying that you didn't get warned that there was insufficient space before you started burning.

Yep, I'm using a G5 too and I'm looking forward to seeing some performance gain from the new iLife apps.

Cheers,

Rick

[Lanbrown]

Two hours of a blue screen takes less room then two hours of a non-action packed movie, which takes less room than two hours of a lot of full screen movement. All of them were two hours long, but all of them will use a different amount of space on the disc. Two hours is two hours in length, which is independent of size. The disc holds x amount of data, which can be two hours, it can be more, or it can be less.

[janey]

Originally posted by MattG
I think that's a poor analogy. Your base station is limited by distance, walls in your house, etc. 2 hours of video is 2 hours of video, and every DVD has the same capacity on it. If they say it should fit 2 hours, it should fit 2 hours, and if it can't, the program should be able to tell you prior to encoding the data and crashing three hours later.
uh i beg to differ.
dvds are all different. Disagree all you want, but I know I am right.

It's not a poor analogy. Speed does vary on where you are, but what if the computer is right next to the base station? Hrmm.

[MattG]

Originally posted by übergeek
uh i beg to differ.
dvds are all different. Disagree all you want, but I know I am right.

It's not a poor analogy. Speed does vary on where you are, but what if the computer is right next to the base station? Hrmm. Yes, it is a poor analogy. The two situations are no where near remotely similar. You're talking about a wireless signal which varies depending on far away you are. On the other hand, a DVD is a constant 4.7gb no matter what--unless of course you've got some weird external DVD burner that varies how much data it can burn dependent upon how far away the burner is from the computer.

The fact is there is software out there that can put more than two hours on a DVD anyway--another poster on this thread said he has PC software that can put 6 hours worth on a DVD. Sure it's not as good a quality, but he can do it. Surely Apple can squeeze 2 hours worth on a DVD. And besides, I'm not so upset about the fact that I can't fit the 2 hours worth on. I'm upset because iDVD goes to burn the DVD as if it's going to be able to, wastes three hours worth of processing time, then crashes, giving no rhyme or reason as to why.

[janey]

Originally posted by MattG
Yes, it is a poor analogy. The two situations are no where near remotely similar. You're talking about a wireless signal which varies depending on far away you are. On the other hand, a DVD is a constant 4.7gb no matter what--unless of course you've got some weird external DVD burner that varies how much data it can burn dependent upon how far away the burner is from the computer.
hmmm
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213923,00.html

and the two situations might not be similar, but still...what if i bitched to apple because my iBook or PowerBook battery doesnt last up to x number of hours no matter what i do or something.
like i said YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY.

[MattG]

Originally posted by übergeek
hmmm
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213923,00.html

and the two situations might not be similar, but still...what if i bitched to apple because my iBook or PowerBook battery doesnt last up to x number of hours no matter what i do or something.
like i said YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY. Well, regardless of analogies, the fact still remains...iDVD should tell you "I can't do this" if it can't do it, and it certainly shouldn't be in the form of a program-crash three hours into encoding.

I cut my video length down to 1:45 and it worked this time. I'd sure like to have the end part that I cut out, but oh well. It'll work.

[janey]

Originally posted by MattG
Well, regardless of analogies, the fact still remains...iDVD should tell you "I can't do this" if it can't do it, and it certainly shouldn't be in the form of a program-crash three hours into encoding.

I cut my video length down to 1:45 and it worked this time. I'd sure like to have the end part that I cut out, but oh well. It'll work.
well sometimes it cant. software has limits. iDVD doing that is just like some software developer starting a large project, working on it for three years of their life, and then saying they cant do it after the three years.

[Makosuke]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
Two hours of a blue screen takes less room then two hours of a non-action packed movie, which takes less room than two hours of a lot of full screen movement. All of them were two hours long, but all of them will use a different amount of space on the disc. Two hours is two hours in length, which is independent of size. The disc holds x amount of data, which can be two hours, it can be more, or it can be less. Close, but wrong. Two hours of a blue screen takes less space at the same quality setting than two hours of action. If I understand the changes made in the latest version of iDVD, it takes this fact into account.

The important factor in all this is that in the previous version of iDVD, the encoding was constant bitrate. This means that stillframes or small amounts of motion are going to look great, even if you try to squeze 4 hours of constant bitrate video on a disc. High motion scenes, however, are still limited by that same constant bitrate, so they're going to look like crap. That's why the first version of iDVD only allowed 1 hour DVDs--even high motion video was guaranteed to look good at that bitrate.

iDVD 4, on the other hand, uses variable bitrate encoding when you set it to "best quality" (I think "best performance is still constant bitrate, which is why you are limited to 90 minutes on it). The whole point of variable bitrate encoding is that the software looks at the whole movie first, and figures out where the action scenes are. Then, it goes through and actually does the encoding, but saves space on the slow parts by using a lower bitrate (since the high bitrate is just a waste), and turning up the bitrate for the speedy parts, where that extra data is necessary.

Therefore, you can set essentially any finished size you want (a DVD minus menus and extras in this case), and iDVD should be able to fit the video into it. If there's a lot of motion, the overall quality might degrade some, but since it does one pass to check the video it can compress a given chunk of video as much as it wants to make it fit.

The bottom line is, iDVD should NOT have a problem like this; it knows how much space the extras take up, and it should have no problem squeezing the video into what's left, whether quality suffers or not. The fact that it's not only failing (which I suppose could be possible if they set a lower limit on quality, and it wasn't able to maintain that for a given chunk of video), but crashing in the process rather than just saying "sorry, I was wrong, this doesn't fit" means that it is a bug, not an unavoidable fact of life like inconsistant battery life.

I can understand a bug like this getting through, but it is a bug and it's incorrect to believe otherwise. I do hope Apple fixes it in a later version, since iDVD really is a fine piece of software.

[solvs]

Um... couldn't you just buy DVD Studio Pro?

It's expensive, but it can do more than 2 hours AFAIK.

[GregA]

I'm encoding 1:33m at the moment. It has compressed the MPEG fine (2.8GB), just has to burn.

So it does do greater than 90mins... but not sure about 2hrs. I also have a 3m30 video as my main menu (though the video is a single JPEG with an 3minute song).

[MattG]

Originally posted by solvs
Um... couldn't you just buy DVD Studio Pro?

It's expensive, but it can do more than 2 hours AFAIK. I shouldn't have to buy more software just to do what the software I got for free with my computer says it can do. Besides, I doubt my boss, who just spent $4000 on my new setup, is going to be very eager to buy any more accessories.

[Engagebot]

Originally posted by MattG
Well, regardless of analogies, the fact still remains...iDVD should tell you "I can't do this" if it can't do it, and it certainly shouldn't be in the form of a program-crash three hours into encoding.

I cut my video length down to 1:45 and it worked this time. I'd sure like to have the end part that I cut out, but oh well. It'll work.

unless you're a software developer yourself, then just stop with the complaining.

[crazzyeddie]

I've burned a 1:59 minute DVD on my Powerbook without motion menus... took like 6 hours to encode, but it was fine. iDVD wont quit because you have too much data, it will tell you that before hand. Chances are it has something to do with the video youre using, or a setting thats messing up the MPEG2 encoder.

[MattG]

Originally posted by Engagebot
unless you're a software developer yourself, then just stop with the complaining. How about unless you have something constructive to add yourself, then just stop with the replying?

[janey]

Originally posted by MattG
How about unless you have something constructive to add yourself, then just stop with the replying?
mmm if you were a software developer you'd know why what you suggested is so difficult to do.
And also, how does a program know if its gonna crash (when it begins a task) when its 99% done with something? :p :rolleyes: :confused: :o :p

[Lanbrown]

Originally posted by Makosuke
Close, but wrong. Two hours of a blue screen takes less space at the same quality setting than two hours of action. If I understand the changes made in the latest version of iDVD, it takes this fact into account.

Blue, green, red what ever for two hours takes less room, then a non-action packed movie, which takes less than an action packed movie. If the screen changes a lot, that takes room on the DVD. A constant color for two hours has no changes. A non-action movie has less changes then an action movie. Fog and smoke take a lot of bandwidth/space as well as the entire screen is constantly changing. My statement is correct.

[lightboy56]

Okay I am going to go out on a limb and point out that the program suite only cost $49 unless you pirated it. Not making any accusations, just pointing out the cost of the program. I bought the new iLife and use everything but Garageband and I haven't had any problems. I have done numerous movies and iDVD always tells me when I have too much video. I have to agree with someone elses post about your system or whatever else you may have been running while being bored to tears waiting for the movie to burn. I don't like the fact that the progress bar isn't as good as the one that they give you when you are installing programs or even Panther.

I know what Steve said and look, that sounded great and it almost gets us there, but I have had sooooooo many PC users ask me which program I am using and wonder where they can get a copy. I just laugh and smile and say that they aren't lucky enough to get such an easy program to use, unless they switch. They look at me real dissatisfied and then mope away. I don't know where else you can get a really good program for the price that makes it so easy. Just take a look at where things were a couple of years ago and then where we are now. Big difference and a nice change. More will come, so stop complaining.

[Mantat]

As the 2h video, I have to agree, the menu and amount of screen action is relevant to the maximum availlable time.

I think you should try to cut your movie into diferent chapter. It might help iDVD to analyse the best bitrate to use.

Finaly, I have to agree with you: you are right to hope that you will be able to fit 2h on a DVD with iDVD, but you can not expect every 2h movie that you are making to fit on one.

iDVD is mostly for personal - family use, any serious work has to be done in studio pro. I hope that they are going eventualy to allow you more control over the encoding but I think its like the 'superdrive only' thing: if you want to use the best stuff, you have to have studio pro...

[Makosuke]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
Blue, green, red what ever for two hours takes less room, then a non-action packed movie, which takes less than an action packed movie. ... My statement is correct. I wasn't attacking your comment, I was trying to point out something that everybody here seems to be ignoring--that iDVD has (or should have, if they're using a decent VBR encoder, which I assume they are) complete and total control of exactly how much space any chunk of video will take up on disc. The amount of motion, length of the video, or anything else doesn't enter into it--it decides how much storage space the final result will be.

Quality, of course, can suffer greatly depending on what's on the disc--if there's a lot of fire or something, two hours of video could look awful. If it's all one stillframe, it'll be two spectacular looking hours of stillframe. It could also, if Apple set it that way, fix six hours of fire onto a DVD, it'd just be a blocky mess for the entire six hours.

My point here is, this is a bug, and the bug isn't likely with the encoder itself, and I'll bet it doesn't relate to the resulting file not fitting on the DVD--it's probably something else entirely that only shows up on certain video clips, or relates to something specific in this user's setup/files.

crazyeddie had the best stuggestion--try messing with your source files or something along those lines.

For reference, I love iDVD and use it, and a few bugs in a $50 piece of software that should cost $300 (particularly when you factor in iMovie, Garage Band, etc) isn't surprising. But for those talking software design, take a look at FFMpeg; I can feed it a source file of any length or amount of motion, and tell it to export a video file in a number of formats, including MPEG2, with an EXACT average bitrate (thus resulting file size), and it will do so. The result might be exceedingly ugly, but it's possible to set very strict limits and have them adhered to. FFMpeg is just a $35 wrapper for a bunch of freeware tools.

[Lanbrown]

If VBR encoding is used, the software can't know how much space is required until it starts to encode. If the movie the OP was creating took more than 4.7GB, how would it burn it to the disk. He was using time alone as the basis.

[Makosuke]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
If VBR encoding is used, the software can't know how much space is required until it starts to encode. Yes, it can. At least, sort of. If it was single pass VBR, as iTunes uses, then you're absolutely right, and I wasn't mentioning that--you set a minimum bitrate (and usually a maximum), and the software increases the bitrate of parts to keep the quality high in those areas. It won't know exactly how big the resulting file will be until it's done, although it can set upper and lower limits.

Two (or-more) pass VBR (which, again, I believe iDVD 4 uses) can choose an exact final file size. It goes through once, finds the areas with more motion and the ones with less, then sets the bitrate for each of those areas to a level that, when you total everything up, will produce a file of exactly [x] bytes when finished.

Again, if you want to see it in action, download ffmpeg and try encoding some MPEG or MPEG2 video; it'll produce a file of exactly the average bitrate you tell it to, so long as you're doing a 2-pass encode.

Maybe I'm wrong about by assumption that iDVD 4 does 2-pass VBR, in which case this "doesn't fit" problem is a lot more likely to happen. iDVD still shouldn't just up and crash--it should say "sorry, this video is too long"--but not fitting would make more sense.

[MacAficionado]

Can you burn a 2 hour DVD with software that is included with your Windows operating system?

Get Roxio Toast Titanium and you should be able to do it.

[MattG]

Originally posted by MacAficionado
Can you burn a 2 hour DVD with software that is included with your Windows operating system?

Get Roxio Toast Titanium and you should be able to do it. What does that have to do with anything? I love how whenever anybody complains about a feature on Mac software that doesn't work, somebody else on this forum automatically has to play the "why don't you try it on Windows" card.

Save it.

Furthermore, the fact that the software is relatively cheap in the grand scheme of things (only $49) is totally irrelevant. It's not an excuse for when it doesn't work properly.

[Makosuke]

I'm not seeing why several people seem to have a need to defend what is apparently a simple and annoying bug in iDVD 4, at least on MattG's system.

This seems to be turning into some sort of weird argument, for no reason at all. He's not trying to do something unreasonable, just asking for some tech help, same as I've asked about Word font problems or instability of an older version of Thoth on dual processor systems.

The response should be either "I can do it fine with everything I've tried, so there's probably an issue with your system--try repairing permissions, or re-doing the source file, or maybe putting the data on a different hard drive." or "Yeah, I've seen that happen too. Apparently there's either a bug in iDVD with near-2hr files, or Apple's claim of 2hrs was a bit optimistic in some cases."

End of story. There's no need to get defensive about what iDVD can, can't, should, or shouldn't do. This poor guy's system isn't working quite the way he expects, and he's asking for help.

It's possible it's a design flaw, in which case Apple should fix it so the software doesn't crash, and maybe put a little disclaimer of "up to 2 hours" somewhere. The issue isn't that it can or can't do 2 hours, it's that Apple says it can but seems to be crashing in the attempt. Or it might not even be an iDVD bug--it could be a corrupt video file, a disk problem, or a bad install.

Here are some alternate suggestions:

As the useful half of MacAficionado's post said, Toast Titanium can do some useful things with DVDs, and might be worth a shot. Reinstalling iDVD, if you haven't already, might also be worth a shot, as might digging up its cache and preference files and deleting them--corruption does, occasionally, happen.

I recently had some issues with iDVD 3 crashing which seemed to be resolved by running the daily/weekly/monthly maintenance scripts. There are tools like Panther Cache Cleaner to be found at VersionTracker that will help you do those things.

Finally, a combination of ffmpeg and a couple of other shareware tools and/or Toast will let you do just about anything you want with DVDs, but it's a LOT of work. Once you get the hang of it, though, it can work pretty well.

[disclaimer: I really wasn't trying to insult or offend anybody in this or any of my previous posts. I was trying to explain something about the way video encoding works, to point out that this isn't necessarily just a normal side effect of MPEG2 encoding on various video sources. I'm now also wondering why several people are getting defensive about someone looking for help with a smallish bug--far less than the issues many people had with iMovie 3, for example--in what is otherwise a spectacular piece of software. End rant.]

[nospleen]

I agree with you MattG. What is up with all the bashing anyway? If they say it fits two hours, it should. If not, then do not say it does, that simple. If they said it would support 1 hour and 45 minutes, then MattG would not be here complaining. He is just asking for a little help and everyone is basically calling him an ass.:confused:

[LethalWolfe]

MattG,

Have you hit Apple's iDVD help forum? I scanned over there and came across this link. Hopefully it will prove useful.


Link (http://www.kentidwell.com/idvd4/)


Lethal

[Lanbrown]

Originally posted by Makosuke
I'm not seeing why several people seem to have a need to defend what is apparently a simple and annoying bug in iDVD 4, at least on MattG's system.

This seems to be turning into some sort of weird argument, for no reason at all. He's not trying to do something unreasonable, just asking for some tech help, same as I've asked about Word font problems or instability of an older version of Thoth on dual processor systems.

How is it a bug? 2-hours may or may not equal 4.7GB. If the 2-hours takes less than 4.7GB then it will fit, if it takes more it won't. That's what MattG fails to see. While it would be nice to be more informative about it not fitting, Apple would have a hard time making every two-hour project fit. Undesirable results would probably get produced as well.

He already has his answer. The consensus here is the same as what Apple told him.

[nospleen]

Well then Steve Jobs should have said, "In some cases you can fit up to two hours of video." It is too bad that iDVD cannot say that it is too large prior to burning. I understand it cannot until it encodes everything, but it would be great if it would.

[MattG]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
How is it a bug? 2-hours may or may not equal 4.7GB. If the 2-hours takes less than 4.7GB then it will fit, if it takes more it won't. That's what MattG fails to see. While it would be nice to be more informative about it not fitting, Apple would have a hard time making every two-hour project fit. Undesirable results would probably get produced as well.

He already has his answer. The consensus here is the same as what Apple told him. No, I don't fail to see that. I know you can't fit more than 4.7gb on a DVD. Again, what's unacceptable is the fact that the program will lead you to believe that you can fit two hours on a DVD, encode it for three hours, and then crash without giving so much as a reason why. THAT IS A BUG.

[cubist]

Hey, I had iDVD 4 crash on me, on my first DVD - a TWELVE-MINUTE video. I have over 100GB free disk space and 896MB RAM, fresh install of iLife 4.

There is no excuse for iDVD to "quit unexpectedly" in this manner, no matter how long or short the video is. There is no excuse for any software to crash in this manner under any circumstances.

The software has reported its bug to Apple. We will have to wait for a fix.

[Lanbrown]

Originally posted by MattG
No, I don't fail to see that. I know you can't fit more than 4.7gb on a DVD. Again, what's unacceptable is the fact that the program will lead you to believe that you can fit two hours on a DVD, encode it for three hours, and then crash without giving so much as a reason why. THAT IS A BUG.

It can't know until it encodes. It has no idea how much space will be used prior to encoding. So footage takes more room then others. An error would be nice. So you only have one thing to complain about it.

[janey]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
It can't know until it encodes. It has no idea how much space will be used prior to encoding. So footage takes more room then others. An error would be nice. So you only have one thing to complain about it.
how does iDVD have a way to figure out if there's an error until it's encoded everything. i swear its not a bug, its something you cant do anything about unless you freakin give iDVD magical powers that let it see into the future.

[IndyGopher]

The complaint here seems to be that the program crashes. That's a bug. There's really no reasonable way to argue that a program crashing is not a bug. There may be no way to keep it from FAILING, but that is not the same thing as crashing. If it comes upon some insurmountable hurdle, fine, it happens. That's kinda how the universe works. But that is no way an excuse for the program to simply crash. Hopefully it will be fixed. Even a kludge like "Woops, we can't encode this next bit.. do you want to burn what we have so far, or skip this next bit and try the one after, or dash it all and try again?" would be a major improvement. All software has bugs. I think everyone is reasonable enough to know that. But refusing to admit a bug is a bug doesn't help anyone.

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
It can't know until it encodes. It has no idea how much space will be used prior to encoding. So footage takes more room then others. An error would be nice. So you only have one thing to complain about it.

An error message should be mandatory, not just nice.

Sure, some footage takes more room than other footage but for it to spend three hours, not checkpoint anything so that you could pick a stopping point and write to DVD, that is a huge design flaw. For you to waste three hours completely is absurd, even for the price of the application. If that's acceptable to people here, we have far too many people willing to accept Windows-quality failures.

[Makosuke]

Very concise explanation, IndyGopher--crashing is not an acceptable mode of failure for software, period. If it were, then we should've all been happy with OS9 bringing down the whole OS every time Netscape died.

Corrupt data is hard to predict or deal with, so crashes due to bad data be very difficult to avoid, but if this is really a fundamental bug in iDVD (which isn't clear to me), is not a situation in which crashing is even close to acceptable--an error message should be produced. That's what I do when I write software that runs out of space to do its job, and what 10.3 or Photoshop do, as well, when they run out of virtual memory scratch disk.

One more point: Lanbrown and übergeek, please go back and read my previous posts. iDVD absolutely, positively, can know exactly how much space it's going to use on a DVD. There are ways of encoding (single-pass VBR) that do produce a file of variable length, but the "better performance" option of iDVD 4 and any option of iDVD 1, 2, or 3, (all of which are constant bitrate, CBR) all produce a file of a fixed size based only on the length of the material, and iDVD 4's "better quality" option, if it uses 2-pass VBR encoding, also is quite capable of choosing an exact size for a resulting file.

Saying that software cannot encode a given chunk of video to fit an exact final size is simply not correct. It's possible iDVD can't do it if it's not using a good algorythm (single pass VBR or a weak 2-pass algorythm), but it is certainly not a technical impossibility.

[janey]

Originally posted by Makosuke
One more point: Lanbrown and übergeek, please go back and read my previous posts. iDVD absolutely, positively, can know exactly how much space it's going to use on a DVD. (snip)
i have read them, and other people made good points too, some I will point out in my post.
Speaking as a (still learning) programmer, I honestly think you guys are really being rough...the fact that iDVD wont give you an error message, bitching about that is like complaning that OS X doesnt give you a warning before your computer kernel panics or something. It's unfortunate but its not always possible to get everything you want, regardless of whether or not it was promised...
And yeesh, iDVD isnt even $50...the entire iLife suite is $50, even less with discounts, free with new computers, and you people are bitching about imperfect software (admittedly with bugs). If you wanted something more powerful than iDVD you should have gotten another app like Apple's DVDSP or Adobe Encore, not iDVD/iLife.
Or you could have at least sent feedback to Apple so they can fix it in an iDVD update.
Oh and by the way...I found this on Apple's iDVD site...
Put up to two hours of pro quality video on one DVD
fyi, *up to* means *up to* not *exactly* or *about*.

[Makosuke]

Originally posted by übergeek
Speaking as a (still learning) programmer, I honestly think you guys are really being rough...the fact that iDVD wont give you an error message, bitching about that is like complaning that OS X doesnt give you a warning before your computer kernel panics or something. It's unfortunate but its not always possible to get everything you want, regardless of whether or not it was promised... This whole discussion, although interesting, really doesn't help MattG, which is too bad, and I really hope it's not turning into a fight--I'd rather think of it as a technical discussion. So, pointless as it is to make them, a few more points.

1) Good point on Apple's marketing; although you could argue that "up to 2 hours" means that two hours will fit, it certainly doesn't explicitly guarantee that 2 hours will fit. It should, but that would mean they're not technically breaking their promise.

2) Yes, iDVD is an inexpensive piece of software that does a heck of a lot for the money. And, bugs, particularly in low-end consumer software, are bound to happen. That doesn't change the fact that it is a bug, and one hopes one that will either be worked around or Apple will fix in an update. I don't take issue with the existance of bugs or people trying to fix them, I take issue when people insist that a bug isn't a bug.

Trying to find a work around or fix for a bug does not qualify as "bitching" in my book--it's what software troubleshooters, like me, do. Assuming it's not a problem with MattG's specific setup (in which case what's the point in defending iDVD when the crash wasn't even really it's fault to begin with), then the alternative to a work around would be to report it to Apple and hope they fix it.

2) OSX shouldn't need to give you a warning before it panics, because if it is written properly, and no uncontrollable external factors affect it (electromagnetic corruption of the contents of RAM, bad hardware attached, a physical processor problem, disk corruption, or a low-level 3rd party utility tampering with the normal operation of the system), it should NEVER panic. A kernel panic is an indication that the OS has completely failed, and if that wasn't caused by hardware, then the OS has failed to do it's job because of a programming error.

For practical purposes, bugs in large-scale consumer software are almost unavoidable, hence application crashes and kernel panics will occasionally occur, but they are not a certainty. If unprovoked software crashes were an absolute unavoidability (is that a word?), then embedded systems like the computer in your car or microwave would crash a whole lot more than they do.

4) If I'm right and iDVD is using a decent encoder, meaning that it can tell the exact length of a finished chunk of movie before it finishes encoding (which is really the point I was trying to make from the begining), then there's no good reason it should be hanging on a long clip, and the bug probably isn't even directly related to the encoding process--maybe something about handling the chapter track, for all I know.


I love iDVD. It's the 2nd coolest piece of consumer software I've ever used. I'm also realistic about what you're likely to get for $50 these days. I'd just rather be realistic when it comes to identifying bugs or problems with another Mac user's system and trying to get them worked out or around, and not try to legitimize an error as being the fault of unrealistic expectations or an unavoidable occurance, when neither are the case.

[superbovine]

http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/mac/story/0,24330,3611081,00.html

Bigger movies



One of the major limitations of previous versions of iDVD was its refusal to create discs that contained more than 90 minutes of video. That's changed in iDVD 4. IDVD can now create discs that hold up to two hours of movies.



To make that possible, you must launch iDVD's Preferences (found in the iDVD menu) and enable the Best Quality option. With this option enabled, iDVD examines the amount of material you have in your project (this includes all the project's content -- video, pictures, motion menus, and static menus) and configures its encoder to provide the best quality possible while also allowing everything to fit on the disc. Note that switching to Best Quality results in longer encoding times (and by longer I mean several hours to encode a disc that contains two hours of video).

[GregA]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
It can't know until it encodes. It has no idea how much space will be used prior to encoding. So footage takes more room then others. An error would be nice. So you only have one thing to complain about it. Actually, before it encodes the footage it knows it will do whatever it takes to fit it on the DVD. Theoretically, a 45min clip or 2 hour clip at "Best Quality" will take the same space, just have different quality.

I assume you mean that iDVD just doesn't know how it's going to compress the footage to get the best quality, which sections are complex etc. In the 1st Pass it looks at which sections of the movie are complex (lots of movement), and which are simple (which will get compressed more).

I see no reason why iDVD couldn't do it's "1st Pass" at encoding in the background. Is there any reason the 1st pass can't be done as soon as a clip is added? (Actually, even a 2 pass encoding could be done in the background couldn't it?)

BTW: I agree with what seems to be the consensus. A crash (with or without warning) is a bug that should be fixed. But yes, all programs have bugs... which are bad things we don't want.

"up to 2 hours" does seem to me to mean "YOU choose how long you want, UP TO 2 HOURS". Whether that includes menus is up to Apple... I mean, they could say up to 3 hours... the more you squeeze in the lower the quality is - they just drew a line base on time, not quality. Why can't we have a 6 hour slideshow? (besides boredom)

Seeya

[janey]

Originally posted by GregA
BTW: I agree with what seems to be the consensus. A crash (with or without warning) is a bug that should be fixed. But yes, all programs have bugs... which are bad things we don't want.
Maybe in a simple app it might be easy, but you're talking about complex apps like iDVD.
Hundreds of thousands if not millions of lines of code, no app that large will be bug free....let alone OSs, which have a TON of bugs. after all it did take Microsoft and its developers 10 million PLUS lines of code to *test* Windows 2000...1.2 million hours of stress testing...etc. and it STILL wasnt that great...(2195 builds too, and an estimated 4.2 million lattes were consumed by the developers)

I've never used iDVD (would much rather prefer to use dvdsp when given the chance) but it sounds like a (sort of) major bug. hopefully they will change it.

[MacAficionado]

Originally posted by MattG
What does that have to do with anything? I love how whenever anybody complains about a feature on Mac software that doesn't work, somebody else on this forum automatically has to play the "why don't you try it on Windows" card.

Save it.

Furthermore, the fact that the software is relatively cheap in the grand scheme of things (only $49) is totally irrelevant. It's not an excuse for when it doesn't work properly.

This is the only reason why I wrote that:

another poster on this thread said he has PC software that can put 6 hours worth on a DVD

I did not mean to come off as "defending" iDVD or Apple. I was just really trying to offer a solution.

It is like when I get free food sometimes at work. If I don't like it I'm not going to complain, I just won't eat it or get something else that I like, Thats all!

all the best.

[janey]

Originally posted by MacAficionado
This is the only reason why I wrote that:
I did not mean to come off as "defending" iDVD or Apple. (snip)
what are you apologizing for? Someone's gotta name alternatives.
And you are right. MattG I suggest you get another app to use if you're so pissed about how when you use iDVD it wont encode and burn 2 hour DVDs. And remember that...
YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY

[davebenton]

Sorry for the late reply, but I just picked up this thread.

I have been converting a bunch of old family video that was shot on regular 8, 120 minute tapes. Rather convenient, since I can get 2 hours on a disc with iDVD! I've had no problems as long as my content was under 2 hours. 1:59:40 on the last one with no trouble.

iDVD always warns me when I launch if I've got too much content. I've been using iMovie to capture/create chapters, and then export to iDVD. I'm a video editor, and have FCP, but there's no need to get fancy here.

Are you sure you've got the quality set correctly? (iDVD/Preferences)

Just wanted you to know that I'm having success. Maybe I've got an updated version (4.0.1).

Good luck.

[GregA]

I've had no problems as long as my content was under 2 hours. 1:59:40 on the last one with no trouble. Question for you - do you have motion menus? (I assume that 2 hours includes the motion menus you have). Personally I'm not right on the 2 hour limit, so it hasn't been an issue for me.

[DVDSP]

I know this doesn't really help MattG at all but I just wanted to back up Makosuke's point about knowing the file size before encoding. Here's the QT Pro MPEG-2 Encoder Options window, notice it shows an estimated file size of 2.4 MB. If I move either of the sliders in the window it live updates to show me the new file size at that bit rate.

So, iDVD should know the file size at the start of the encode...