iDVD is a Dog

Handbrake has an easier job to do than iDVD. It's easier to transcode from DVD MPEG2 to MP4 (or whatever) than it is to go from MP4 to DVD MPEG2.

But yes, there's better DVD burning software out there, like DVD Studio Pro and Toast Titanium.

SodaAnt said:

Wow! iDVD 2009 is sure a dog when it comes to encoding video.

I have an octocore 2009 Mac Pro with 16G of RAM and it just crawls in iDVD encoding MP4s. CPU usage is very low considering all of the processor cores available. Handbrake, on the other hand, just flies when encoding because it lights up all eight cores.

Is there some way to speed up iDVD so its encode performance is more reasonable? At the rate it's going now, it takes around an hour to encode 60 minutes of video.

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I'm pretty sure that if you re-encode or re-export your file as an appropriate mpeg-2 within the DVD range of settings that iDVD will not re-encode it during burning. I could be wrong, but I know Encore doesn't re-encode when the files are set up correct ahead of time and this also allows the user to make much better quality files than the app would have made anyway.

iDVD might be a Dog, but remember optical media is as dead as iDVD.

1ricca said:

I'm pretty sure that if you re-encode or re-export your file as an appropriate mpeg-2 within the DVD range of settings that iDVD will not re-encode it during burning. I could be wrong, but I know Encore doesn't re-encode when the files are set up correct ahead of time and this also allows the user to make much better quality files than the app would have made anyway.

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Why the sudden urge to revive this thread after three years?
And iDVD has to transcode the imported video (mostly from iMovie) to an MPEG-2 stream, as there is seldom a file coming from another source already using that codec.
iDVD is for consumers, and it was not even 64-bit and also not multi threaded, thus it can only take advantage of two cores.
Compressor and similar applications are much better for that, but if you have Compressor or similar applications, you do not really use iDVD anymore, but DVDSP or Encore (though Encore is a bit .....).