Burning a 2hour movie with iMovie/iDVD - alternatives?

[seaninog]

I help out at our local Amateur drama society every year by videoing their show. It's usually 2 Acts of 1 hour each and I edit it on iMovie before sharing it with iDVD to burn onto discs for the members.

Every year it's a real problem trying to get iDVD to burn the entire thing. Firstly I waiy 1-2 hours for the file to be shared from iMovie to iDVD, then another 1-2 hours while iDVD renders the final film and begins to burn it. The heart-breaking moment is usually with about 20-30 minutes to go when the DVD is inexplicably ejected from my machine and the whole process just hangs.

Up to now I've just persevered and done this again and again until I finally get it to work. This year though I just can't seem to get it to stick and I think I'll have to admit defeat.

My questions are:
1) Am I doing anything wrong or could I do this process any better (I do realise that iMovie and iDVD are more meant for short movies rather than 2 hour epics)?
2) Now that I have the movie created on iMove is there any other software I can export it to that will burn the discs more reliably than iDVD?

I thank you in advance for your help.

Sean

 

[szolr]

Try just exporting it as a movie file or to a QuickTime format. Then burn to disc with [the appropriately named] Burn.

 

[seaninog]

Try just exporting it as a movie file or to a QuickTime format. Then burn to disc with [the appropriately named] Burn.

When you say to export it, do you mean from iMovie?

In doing this, will it retain the Chapters, title screens etc that I have added in iMovie? The link in your post was unclear on this.


Thank you.

 

[seaninog]

When you say to export it, do you mean from iMovie?

In doing this, will it retain the Chapters, title screens etc that I have added in iMovie? The link in your post was unclear on this.


Thank you.

Update on this: the answer appears to be No. I downloaded 'Burn' and gave it a try only to discover doesn't do iMovie files at all, never mind the Chapters etc. It only does Video_TS files.

Are there any other alternatives for burning a 2 hour iMovie file to DVD?

 

[bmcgonag]

Update on this: the answer appears to be No. I downloaded 'Burn' and gave it a try only to discover doesn't do iMovie files at all, never mind the Chapters etc. It only does Video_TS files.

Are there any other alternatives for burning a 2 hour iMovie file to DVD?

Burn will do movies other than Video_TS. Go to the Video Tab, then select DVD from the drop down. When you drag your exported file in, Burn will ask if you want to save it as MPEG2, this is DVD format. Click Yes, let it work, then you'll burn the MPEG2 version to a DVD.

Otherwise you can export your iMovie project as MPEG2 if that's an option.

if you prefer to use iDVD, you need to get the Movie into iDVD, then in iDVD there is a preference somewhere that will toggle from Best Quality to Best Fit, or something to that effect. When you select the right one, it will still have to render the movie. I also think you can first save the movie image from iDVD to your hard drive, then use that to burn over and over from Burn, or straight from Disk Utility. Then you don't have to keep waiting for the movie to render in iDVD each time before it burns.

 

[seaninog]

I can get the movie into iDVD and it does begin to render, but 20 minutes form the end of the first render with no warning or error message it just spits the DVD out and continues the rendering but doesn't ever finish.

Is there anything other than iDVD that I can export my iMovie project to that will then add the fancy DVD menus etc that iDVD does that give the project a professional feel?