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AcesHigh87

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 11, 2009
986
324
New Brunswick, Canada
I have a 90 minute video I wish to burn on iDVD but am running into what seems like a pretty big issue.

I've burned smaller things with iDVD without much issue but this is the first time I tried to burn a full length film and I'm basically looking at an 8 hour burn time which seems ridiculous to me. Is there a way to speed up the burn process? Or perhaps an explanation on why it's so slow?

I know that I could get another program like toast or something so I'd rather avoid responses of "get toast" or something similar. If it's a free program I can use then I'll gladly try it but I don't have the budget right now to go buying extra programs.
 

spinnerlys

Guest
Sep 7, 2008
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The 90 minutes of video most probably have to be decoded into an MPEG-2 stream, that then gets burnt onto the DVD.

So depending on what kind of CPU you have and what settings and how many cuts and how many fast movements in the video exist, it will take a while.

I have a MacPro at work, when I make a DVD (via Avid, Compressor and DVD Studio Pro) it will take up to 40 minutes for 20 minutes of video (from the export out of Avid, the encoding in Compressor and the formatting/creation of the DVD in DVD Studio Pro).
The MacPro has one 2.GHz CPU with 4 cores.
 

AcesHigh87

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 11, 2009
986
324
New Brunswick, Canada
My macbook has a 2.4 GHz processor and an Intel Core 2 Duo. As far as the video, it's an avi file of a rip of "Citizen Kane" I have lying around (not sure if it's actually 90 mins, I'm guestimating for this purpose). The joy of an unowned film, perfectly legal to have a copy.

In any case, it was a DVD rip originally as far as I can recall so it's basically just a regular full length film. I know some programs can burn this kind of thing quickly enough and my sister's PC did a 3 hour film in about an hour but iDVD can't even burn a film that long, Even if it could it would likely take 2 days or so.
 

spinnerlys

Guest
Sep 7, 2008
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If it is an .avi file, it is most likely encoded with Divx or Xvid, MPEG-4 codecs, that are highly compressed.

So, and I'm wondering here, why iDVD even reads that .avi file, it takes some time to convert a highly compressed video file into another.
Also Citizen Kane is 119 minutes long, maybe a tad too long for a 4.7GB DVD-/+R medium.
You could try it with a Dual Layer DVD.

There is also a free software called Burn out there, that will make a video DVD out of video files.
 

AcesHigh87

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 11, 2009
986
324
New Brunswick, Canada
I might try out Burn and see if it's any faster, have you used it though? Like, do you know if it's any good?

Also, even being 119 minutes I could fit Citizen Kane (barely) on a SL disk it just took forever to actually burn. I think the issue of space arises when you get much higher though.
 

spinnerlys

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Sep 7, 2008
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forlod bygningen
I might try out Burn and see if it's any faster, have you used it though? Like, do you know if it's any good?

Also, even being 119 minutes I could fit Citizen Kane (barely) on a SL disk it just took forever to actually burn. I think the issue of space arises when you get much higher though.

It seems to have some problems burning a video DVD, but when done properly it works.

And again to the forever to burn part: the video must first be encoded into an MPEG-2 video, which takes time.
 

AcesHigh87

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 11, 2009
986
324
New Brunswick, Canada
It seems to have some problems burning a video DVD, but when done properly it works.

And again to the forever to burn part: the video must first be encoded into an MPEG-2 video, which takes time.

Yeah, I know it does but Burn seems to be able to take less time to encode. I'll have to try it out later when I get a chance but I'm not really sure how much better it will be. If both are coding the same avi to mpeg-2 wouldn't it take the same amount of time?
 

spinnerlys

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Sep 7, 2008
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Yeah, I know it does but Burn seems to be able to take less time to encode. I'll have to try it out later when I get a chance but I'm not really sure how much better it will be. If both are coding the same avi to mpeg-2 wouldn't it take the same amount of time?

If you mean iDVD and Burn by "both", then no. Burn works in other ways than iDVD does, and iDVD does not really understand the .avi container and the containing codec (Divx or Xvid or ...). Burn might have a better grasp at this and falls back unto other included or borrowed libraries.
 

AcesHigh87

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 11, 2009
986
324
New Brunswick, Canada
Well I burned it with Burn today and it worked out quite nicely as far as time. Encoded in probably half an hour and burned in a little less. The only issue I see though is the menu, I either didn't add one in (somehow) or it didn't work because the movie works but no menu appears. It's useable but kinda makes watching a tricky guessing game
 
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