iDVD BURNING PROBLEMS!!!!!!!!!!

[forthebrave]

I just finished making my movie through iMovie and exported it to iDVD. I amde all the chapters, my cool little motion menus, added music but when I started to burn it, it's stuck in " Multiplexing and burning.... " it's taken almost 24 hours so far!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know if it usually takes this long or if it froze up~!! WHATS UP??? HEEEELP!!

[MattG]

I just finished making my movie through iMovie and exported it to iDVD. I amde all the chapters, my cool little motion menus, added music but when I started to burn it, it's stuck in " Multiplexing and burning.... " it's taken almost 24 hours so far!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know if it usually takes this long or if it froze up~!! WHATS UP??? HEEEELP!!It takes a while, but certainly not 24 hours. Have you downloaded updates to iDVD and iMovie? They're both up to version 4.0.1 now. Make sure you're updated to the latest version, and try again.

[newt2mac]

If so, it is a bug.. You have to "Delete Encoded Assets" checked off.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93665

If you don't have a DP G5 I don't know...

[Awimoway]

It can easily take 12 or more hours. 24 seems a little high though. Some guy made a long FAQ that tackles a lot of common iDVD issues: LINK (http://www.kentidwell.com/idvd4/). He has a lot of tips for making things run smoother. For example, he says there should be at least as much free space on your boot drive as your iMovie file is large. The last time I burned with iDVD, I had to temporarily move all my music and documents to my external Firewire drive to come up with this much room. Anyway, there could be a lot of things that are causing trouble, so I won't presume to know which one, but if you read the FAQ you might find something useful.

[ericgl]

I had exactly the same problem. You must have the computer set to never sleep.
It worked for me.

[jemeinc]

I had exactly the same problem. You must have the computer set to never sleep.
It worked for me.


No you don't... It will burn throughout the night... It won't sleep if it's working, the screen saver will come on but that's fine... I do all of my asset encoding while asleep... It makes me feel more productive- lol... I tell my wife, "see, I even work while I'm sleeping"- lol.. She 'aint buying it though....

[mullmann]

Depending on what you're doing, and on your system, it's not uncommon for iDVD to take a loooooong time to burn your disc. I've had it take about 24 hours before. The frustrating part is waiting all that time only to find out that it didn't work and then you've wasted a DVD.

I do all my burning this way now:

http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=23370&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0

This is a method of "unlocking" iDVD to let you "burn" your DVD to a disc image on your hard drive (note that you need to have enough free space for the image). If the burn fails for some reason, you've at least not wasted a DVD. Once it's done, you can fire up Mac OS X DVD player to check the validity of the image. If you're satisfied that it works, use Disk Utility to burn the DVD from the image.

Just be sure to read the whole thread in that link. By the time you get to the end, you should have all the info you need to make this method work. It has not failed for me yet.

[Horrortaxi]

It takes a long time, but 24 hours seems a little steep. What kind of Mac are you using?

[kentd]

I tried a month ago to make my first DVD with iDVD4 on a Powerbook G4 1GHz. The movie was about 40 mins long with basically no effects using the default menus.

iDVD4 took over 12 hours and produced a DVD that did not work.

So I tried iDVD3 from my old iLife disks (I renamed the iDVD app to iDVD4, and then installed iDVD3 from the CD).

This worked great--it took just 3 hours and I had a DVD that worked great.

So my suggestion: give iDVD3 a try.

[Awimoway]

I tell my wife, "see, I even work while I'm sleeping"- lol.. She 'aint buying it though....

:D I just watered my display and keyboard…


I do all my burning this way now:

http://forum.rpc1.org/viewtopic.php?t=23370&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0

This is a method of "unlocking" iDVD to let you "burn" your DVD to a disc image on your hard drive (note that you need to have enough free space for the image). If the burn fails for some reason, you've at least not wasted a DVD. Once it's done, you can fire up Mac OS X DVD player to check the validity of the image. If you're satisfied that it works, use Disk Utility to burn the DVD from the image.

Just be sure to read the whole thread in that link. By the time you get to the end, you should have all the info you need to make this method work. It has not failed for me yet.

That is a very nice tip. I'm going to look into doing that. My understanding is that in iDVD 4, the ability to burn to a "disc image" is an easter egg sort of undocumented feature that you have to hack slightly to make it work. It's something Apple added so that people could burn with other drives and such, but it's undocumented so that Apple doesn't have to officially support it. This way, everyone is happy.

[mullmann]

very[/i] nice tip. I'm going to look into doing that. My understanding is that in iDVD 4, the ability to burn to a "disc image" is an easter egg sort of undocumented feature that you have to hack slightly to make it work. It's something Apple added so that people could burn with other drives and such, but it's undocumented so that Apple doesn't have to officially support it. This way, everyone is happy.

Yeah... the "hack" is to drop two files (included in that thread) into your Home folder. That's really it. I've found it to be not only much more reliable than burning with iDVD, it lets me easily do all the rendering, encoding, and multplexing on my fastest Mac -- which doesn't happen to have a SuperDrive. Then I just move the image over to my SuperDrive Mac and burn it with Disk Utility.

[Dirty Harry]

You can also launch the activity monitor while iDVD is working to see if something is hung.

[Dirty Harry]

I just finished making my movie through iMovie and exported it to iDVD. I amde all the chapters, my cool little motion menus, added music but when I started to burn it, it's stuck in " Multiplexing and burning.... " it's taken almost 24 hours so far!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know if it usually takes this long or if it froze up~!! WHATS UP??? HEEEELP!!

Actually, I am having the same problem. I did a simple iDVD project with about 20 minutes of video... and I am still waiting after 22 hours. :confused:

I used "Best Quality" and I am tempted to stop and start again with "Best Performance"... Anybody know how faster is this method usually compared to Best Quality???

I downloaded the last 4.0.1 update but I would need to stop the rendering to install it... should I stop this thing or wait?!?!? The Activity Monitor shows CPU beeing busy (about 80-90%), I can hear the hard drive working from time to time... Everything seems OK, but awfully slow. If only the progress bar was useful...

I am using iDVD 4 in a new iBook G4 1.2 SuperDrive.

[punkmac]

I just finished making my movie through iMovie and exported it to iDVD. I amde all the chapters, my cool little motion menus, added music but when I started to burn it, it's stuck in " Multiplexing and burning.... " it's taken almost 24 hours so far!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know if it usually takes this long or if it froze up~!! WHATS UP??? HEEEELP!!

I posted a question about this before but I was worried after only 3 hours!

I worked it out at encoding is about about twice the playtime.

This was 100 min. feature using iDVD's 2 pass rendering engine.

Came out wonderful!

After my dvds are finished I ripp them to my desktop ditch the 20 gigs of iMovie and iDVD files and just burn the files with TOAST.

One thing I did is buy good quality DVD-rs. The cheap ones I had before are not reliable for long video burning.

Unless this is an issue with 2x vs 4x in the new updates of iMovie and iDVD.

Anyone know?

I.

[Awimoway]

You can also launch the activity monitor while iDVD is working to see if something is hung.

What kind of indication would you look for in Activity Monitor?

[BornAgainMac]

I had the same exact problem on my G5 dual. After a minute it would just freeze. I let it run for 24 hours and it had not moved. I finally formatted and reinstalled the O/S and it fixed the problem and the encoding finished within 3 hours or something. It must be a bug with iDVD 4. Any new project created, even with a 1 minute clip did the same thing.

The speed of the DVD drive is nothing compared to the speed to encode video. It takes a long time even for a G5. At least 2 hours for every 1 hour of encoding. It use to take an hour for one hour of video on a 1ghz G4. Slow! Perhaps iDVD 5 will use Rendezvous to let every Mac you own to participate in the encoding process. And perhaps a new iDVD engine to make encoding faster.

[jgp]

iDVD 4.0.1 has problems, especially with dual G5s. I have a dual 2 and I have found that I cannot burn discs at the "better quality" setting. The term "better quality" seems to be a misnomer as that is the setting to burn discs over 1hr. I have found that I can burn discs at 1 hr or less with the "better performance" setting as well as background encoding turned on. Burning 2hr DVDs was one of the big improvements of iDVD 4 over iDVD 3. It appears that Apple still has some work to do.

[Awimoway]

Burning 2hr DVDs was one of the big improvements of iDVD 4 over iDVD 3. It appears that Apple still has some work to do.

iPhoto's inability to handle large libraries of pictures was iLife '03's biggest failing, and they fixed that with '04. I think it's safe to say that iDVD, though feature-rich, is now the weakest link in the chain. Hopefully major speed improvements to iDVD will be a top priority for iLife '05.

[punkmac]

I had the same exact problem on my G5 dual. After a minute it would just freeze. I let it run for 24 hours and it had not moved. I finally formatted and reinstalled the O/S and it fixed the problem and the encoding finished within 3 hours or something. It must be a bug with iDVD 4. Any new project created, even with a 1 minute clip did the same thing.

The speed of the DVD drive is nothing compared to the speed to encode video. It takes a long time even for a G5. At least 2 hours for every 1 hour of encoding. It use to take an hour for one hour of video on a 1ghz G4. Slow! Perhaps iDVD 5 will use Rendezvous to let every Mac you own to participate in the encoding process. And perhaps a new iDVD engine to make encoding faster.

Yes the 1 hour per for encoding was true with idvd 3 that's what I have(1 ghz G4) and that's how long it took.

The reason for the longer encoding times in idvd4 is the rendering engine is
from COMPRESSOR the encoder used in FINAL CUT PRO!

I'll wait for kind of quality.

Just encode while sleeping.

I.

[forthebrave]

I've almost given up!!! I HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING AND ALL I HAVE IS A BUNCH OF USELESS DVDS!! iDVD 4.0.1 SUX! Do you think I should through out iDVD 4.0.1 and re-install iDVD 3???? I need to finish this WEDDING DVD QUICK!!! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!

[Dirty Harry]

Actually, I am having the same problem. I did a simple iDVD project with about 20 minutes of video... and I am still waiting after 22 hours. :confused:

I used "Best Quality" and I am tempted to stop and start again with "Best Performance"... Anybody know how faster is this method usually compared to Best Quality???

I downloaded the last 4.0.1 update but I would need to stop the rendering to install it... should I stop this thing or wait?!?!? The Activity Monitor shows CPU beeing busy (about 80-90%), I can hear the hard drive working from time to time... Everything seems OK, but awfully slow. If only the progress bar was useful...

I am using iDVD 4 in a new iBook G4 1.2 SuperDrive.


Ok, I'll answer to myself :rolleyes:
I stoped my projecto after 24 hours, the iBook was hot as hell. I upgraded to 4.0.1 and started again using "Best Performance". It worked this time; my project was burned after 20 minutes, though I had waited before for my files to render in the status window. Didn´t want to try with Best Quality again because my project was urgent too.
If your project is urgent I sugest you try with 4.0.1 and Best Performance, as it worked for me and quality was good enough.
Anyway, I don't understand how Apple is able to ship iDvd with such a bug. Is this what iLife is supposed to mean? Why they don't find this obvious problem in their own tests??? :confused:

[Dirty Harry]

What kind of indication would you look for in Activity Monitor?


This link gave me the idea http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93774

iDVD needs a real progress bar .

[forthebrave]

are the two file codes named " Hurz " and " Pfurz ". all i have to do is put these two files in my HOME and i can burn to an external DVD burner? Can i still burn with my internal burner ?

[Horrortaxi]

are the two file codes named " Hurz " and " Pfurz ". all i have to do is put these two files in my HOME and i can burn to an external DVD burner? Can i still burn with my internal burner ?

And once the files are in place, how do you get it to burn to an image? There's no option or preference.

[forthebrave]

I finally figured out how to do it~ Maybe I just had this problem but if you are having trouble with the whole CONTROL+CLICK BURN BUTTON problem try opening FILE and hold Control and click burn from there, it worked for me, a box should pop up that lets you save to IMG

[MattG]

I've almost given up!!! I HAVE TRIED EVERYTHING AND ALL I HAVE IS A BUNCH OF USELESS DVDS!! iDVD 4.0.1 SUX! Do you think I should through out iDVD 4.0.1 and re-install iDVD 3???? I need to finish this WEDDING DVD QUICK!!! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!I understand your frustration--I've been there!

One tip I can offer, though it won't fix your problem it'll at least help with your DVD wastage problem...Go out and buy some DVD-RW's. They are compatible with iDVD (and your SuperDrive), and if you mess them up, you just erase and use again. What I sometimes do is burn the project to a DVD-RW if I'm not sure it's going to come out right. If it does come out right, I use Toast to copy onto a DVD-R. If it doesn't come out right, I erase and try again :rolleyes:

[cawesjmu]

I'm having the same problems with iDVD 4.0.1. I've done all the usuals. Restart, Disk util...ect. I have a 800Mhz iMac with 768RAM. I have a ~16 min video. It has a lot of still pics and a few short video clips. Everything seemed fine exporting to iDVD from iMovie but when i tried to burn, it would take forever and then give me faulty DVD's. I had been checking Activity Monitor and "top" in the Terminal and iDVD seemed to be doing something all the time so it wasn't frozen. So i checked my "Console" for the heck of it and it has a long list of:

(date/time iDVD [387] playlist track 0 contains bad track id)
it says "track 0" evertime. so it must be one file trying to be re-read?

I assume this means one of my pictures or videos is bad or can't be found in the track and it can't burn it, but can i use this to narrow it down to the actual corupt file? All my files are on my compter and not on any external media. does anyone have any suggestions how to find/fix this "playlist track" Thanks for any help in advance.

[punkmac]

Even if you have your files for the dvd, if they have been moved after you created your dvd iDVD might not be able to find them.

I had this problem before. Now I make sure not to change the location of anything (music pictures video) until it's done.

Hope this helped.

I.

[jgp]

I have 4.01 and 10.3.4. I originally had my settings to background encoding (as with earlier versions this seemed to work better). With the latest versions, this no longer seems to be the case. I have gone back to "highest quality" and it seems to be burning well (with video under on hour). I have not tried big 2 hr DVDs with the latest versions so I do not know how well that will burn.

I would also try different media brands (try to get the better ones...). It seems that small scratches in the media can also cause it to hang.

[cawesjmu]

i have redone my movie in iMovie making sure all my files are in their place and haven't moved anything so no paths changed or anything. After doing this, i used iMovie's iDVD link button so that iMovie opened iDVD for me. I renamed the movie in iMovie but in iDVD the old title appears in the status menu. What gives? It's under asset. I can't remove it or replace it. And it doesn't seem to be encoding (there's no blue in the progress bar). Also, when i select "best performance" is says DVD capacity: 1.1GB but when i select "best quality" is says DVD capacity: 0.5GB. that doesn't seem right to me. shouldn't better quality mean bigger file? Any thoughts? Thanks

[Amani]

I Go out and buy some DVD-RW's. They are compatible with iDVD (and your SuperDrive), and if you mess them up, you just erase and use again.

I didn't know you could use DVD-RW with iDVD. So I'll give this a try.

I've used iDVD on my G5 dural processor G5 for two iMovie projects. The first one, about 30 minutes long, worked out well. But when I tried the second one, I hadd problems. The chapters would play well in preview, but when I burned on DVD-R, two of the four chapters would freeze up after they got started. I tried it a couple of more times, but ended up wasting a couple of DVDs.

I upgraded to 4.01, but it didn't help.

Has anyone troubleshooted this problem with any success?

[cawesjmu]

I finally got my movie to burn now. What i did was i exported my movie from iMovie as a .dv file under File>Share. Then told iDVD to import it in a new project. The .dv file was about 6.5 GB but when iDVD imported it, it said it was only 1.1GB. The .dv included my chapter markers and everything and iDVD finally began to encode and burned nicely. The whole process of burning only took about an hour after iDVD had encoded the video and was "Done" in the Status menu. I burned several discs and after the first disk, the subsequent disks only took about 25 min.