iDVD Help Please.

[Rahsten]

Hello,

I just edited a home movie in iMovie HD and am now trying to set it up and burn to DVD in iDVD. Everything went pretty smooth until I tried to save as disc image. I got a message saying there were errors, however no '!' showed up in the path display. So, I checked Project Info...apparently the project size was at 45 GB or something hunormous like that. I figured this was because I used Motion Buttons in Chapter selection...so I eliminated them and that brought the size to 5.5 GB.

Here's a question: how do we use Motion buttons in chapter selection if it increases the project size so dramatically that it won't allow it to burn to a disc?

By the way, I'm using Theme 6.0 Shelves. My iMovie footage came to 125 minutes, or 1 hour 25 minutes..I forget...however it displays it. And it is divided into 24 Chapters, set to widescreen and best performance (all the settings to make it smaller!) Yet, it is still too big for a DVD5. I figured I could try to burn to DVD9(dual layer) but the option to switch to that under Project Info is greyed out...

Another Question: How can I switch my choice to burn to DVD9? I don't want to make this into 2 DVDs.

Anyways, I eliminated the 5 minute song I was playing on each of the 4 chapter pages and that brought the size down to 4.1 GB.

However, now I have no music or motion buttons on the chapter pages...what can I do to get them back and burn it to one single layer disc (as I can't figure out how to do dual layer) or is my movie just too long to add those other bells and whistles in iDVD?

Thanks.

 

[diamond3]

Well, first off I would check to see if the movie is under 2 hours. That is normally the cutoff point. Next make sure idvd is set to best quality not performance under the project info and then choose the dual layer or single layer disc. As long as your menus aren't outrageous you should be alright. Ive always tried to keep each menu at 30 seconds or less, otherwise it generates the video for it for as long as the music is. So i'm guessing that if you cut down the length of your menus and tried to get your project under 2 hours and then double check the project quality it should work. Just remember to keep doing a save as disc image.

 

[Rahsten]

OK, that's probably one of the problems...the length of my menus. The video is definitely under 2 hours as I made a point of keeping under the 2 hr mark while editing. I'd check all the detail right now but I can't even access anything in iDVD as it is saving to disc image...has been doing so for the past 4 hours, is that normal? It says 'Creating your DVD' and is at the Process Movies stage , 2/3rds complete. I don't remember this stage taking that long during my first DVD.

I switched from Best Quality to Best Performance as that is what it originally recommended I do to cut down the size. But I'll switch to Best Quality again once this ruddy image is done making itself and check to see if the option for Dual Layer becomes available.

Ha, I think my Menus were outrageous, ie, everyone of em had the ability to play the entire movie...i think.

Can I just manually input the desired length of the Menu loop under Menu on the right side of the application?

Thanks for the help. I'll post back with results and/or more questions.

 

[Rahsten]

OK, Best Quality IS what I had it set at. It still doesn't let me choose dual layer. Could it be that my DVD burner doesn't support Dual Layer? Any ideas on this?

 

[diamond3]

Yeah Best Quality is always what you want unless you are in a hurry.

To Setup the Menu: Click on Menu on the right side and then under loop duration you'll probably want to change that to 30 seconds or less. If you want to put some video to play in the box, what i normally do is:

In imovie, go to the spot where you want your clip to start. Hit apple+T to split the video and then go to the end where you want your clip to end. Hit apple+T again and this should give you a little clip inside your movie in the timeline. Now, click on that clip and hit apple+C, then apple+V and this will duplicate the clip. Drag the new clip into the clips area on the right. Now many times i will cut out 3-5 clips that total together 30 seconds, not just one 30 second clip. Once you have them all in the clips window, select them all and click share -->Quicktime, then select Full resolution or something like that in the drop down and then click the box that says share selected clips only. I usually save this as "the name of the movie"_menu or something like that.

Then import this clip into idvd, add the music you want, then go back to the menu tab on the right side and make sure the loop duration is around 30 seconds or less. In the chapter scene menus, you probably could just check the menu duration.

Also it's very common to take along time to encode a movie. On my imac 1ghz it takes roughly 10 good hours to convert a 2 hour movie into a disc image. Thats why I always start it at night and then let it run.

 

[Rahsten]

Ok, thanks to your help! I've got the video buttons in Chapters working and also a song. I set the loop to the same duration as the song. But, now I have another question. Is there any way to set the Video button duration to loop every 30 seconds and the song to loop when the song is finished playing? I originally had a song that was 1m8s yet when I set the loop to 30, the video AND the music both looped...resetting the song half way through. Is there anyway to loop them independently? Or should i just use mundane music that is repetitive in nature anyways?

Nonetheless, I have it all squeezed into 4.2 GB the project length is in fact 110 minutes long, so that explains the lengthy encoding I guess. I just started the encoding process again with the working video buttons and adjusted the volume of the music, cause it wasn't balanced between menu and chapter screens. Taking your advice and letting it encode over night!

Still can't get the option for Dual Layer to become 'un-grayed' and available to me. Any insight?

 

[diamond3]

I tried looking up your model of the macbook on apples website and it looks to me like yours only has a single layer burner. You can always click the Apple in the top left corner of your screen, click about this mac... and then click more info in the popup box. The system profile window will appear and click the hardware arrow on the left so you can see everything underneath it. On mine you click ATA and it will show you information about your dvd burner. Look around in the system profile window if you cant find it under the ATA

About the Audio and Video loop: You are only allowed to set the loop for both. It doesnt allow you to have different times because what it really does is create the video with audio and encode them together for that length of time. For example; If I put a video clip to play in the background on my main menu that is 20 seconds long and i have audio that is 30 seconds and your duration for loop is 30 sec. long, its going to encode it if you watch the preview so the video plays for the full 20 seconds and then starts over and plays the 10 seconds more.

So your question about making the video button loop every 30 seconds but have the song play the full length. What you would have to do is go in imovie and select the 30 seconds of video that you want and split each end so you have a 30 second clip. (the way i explained in my previous post). Then when you import all your 30 second clips into the chapter buttons along with your 1m8s long song. What will happen is you loop duration by default will be set to 1m8s so all your videos on your buttons will loop over and over until the 1m8s is up, then your whole menu will loop and start over. If your movie is close to 2 hours, the best thing would be to keep each menu under 30 seconds but if it works with it longer then i guess you don't have to worry about it.

Also, could you tell me how long it takes to encode the movie or previous ones you have done. Im curious because i'm planning on getting a laptop for college.

 

[Rahsten]

OK, that all makes sense. I figured it was the DVD burner that was restricting me from dual layer.

I can't say for certain how long it takes because I'm always away from the computer when it finishes. I'm either at work or sleeping. Let's see, I started it at about 1 am last night and it is now 9am and finished. So, less than 8 hours.

However, I have yet another problem! This is my second time encoding this particular movie. The first time, I received a message saying there were errors in burning(but I didn't burn anything...I just made a disc image). After I burned it and played it back in a DVD player it worked totaly fine u until the last 2 Chapters, it was playing footage from an earlier chapter and was all pixelated, sound was all garbled too and I'm not sure where it was from.

The second encoding...same message after it finished. I opened the disc image with DVD player in OS X and when I go to select any of the final 3 chapters I receive a fatal error or something and DVD player is forced to quit. It says there must be a scratch on the DVD (but I'm not playing from a DVD...I'm playing from an image).

Any idea on what I should do here? Should I re-import it and set it all up again, then try encoding again?

 

[diamond3]

I don't know exactly what could be the problem with that. I've never had anything like that happen before. Just an FYI, you can also delete the chapter menus by just clicking the chapter button on the main menu and hitting delete. This will only delete the chapter menu screens, but keep the chapters for skipping through on the DVD if you know what I mean.

This movie is all coming from iMovie right. Nothing weird there? Maybe there is a limit on how many chapter markers etc you can put on a movie through iDVD? I'm sure you'd be alright. sorry, maybe someone else can help you.

 

[Rahsten]

I'm going to try redoing the chapters in iMovie and then sharing it back to iDVD. There are no problems in iMovie, so it is happening somewhere between sharing from iMovie and encoding for burning.

I'll re-post with my results tomorrow, after I redo it and re-encode...again, lol.

EDIT:
After I split a little mini clip for my buttons in iMovie is there a way to re-merge the split clip? I was looking for a way to merge clips but couldn't find anything.

EDIT2:
When I share the little clips to Quicktime it won't let me save to my External. How do I permit it to do that? I repaired permissions and it didn't work. It lets me import and save all the other footage, just not these little Quicktime .mov files.

EDIT3:
OJ, I must be missing something. I managed to make some small clips to use in the Chapter Buttons. I imorted them into iDVD Chapters menu, but they are all their own individual buttons and when I try to copy and paste them over the existing buttons it just makes a link to the short little .mov clips I made and doesn't take you to the actual DVD movie...what do I need to do?

So sorry for being thick, I'm sure there's a simple solution.

EDIT4: Bah. OK, my Loop bar reads 00:00-------------104:22 , so dragging it to set a proper duration only allows me to choose between 18s, 52s and 1m27s...is there some way to manually input the duration without using the ridiculous little slider?

 

[diamond3]

You don't need to worry about re-merging or joining together the clips. As far as i know its not possible in imovie.

And for the clips in your imovie window, you are just clicking on the 30 sec clip for example and then clicking the share-->quicktime-->full resolution and checking the share selected clips only. This wont allow you to save it to the external hard drive? If you can do this step then:

You have you movie finished with all the bookmarks in the right spot, you bring it into idvd by Share-->idvd. Then in iDVD in the chapter menu, click the MENU tab on the right, the click the edit drop zones and it should open a little window. Now you should be able to drag the movie file into the right spot or directly into the window where you want it in iDVD. This is the clip that you created early and saved to your hard drive.

About the other questions you have on the buttons and that, I don't know what them exactly your using. Some of them i cant use because i'm still in os x 10.3. Try a different theme maybe that gives you windows specifically for clips for chapter selection. The reason you duration is so long on the loop is because you used the full video somewhere in the menu instead of clips. This is a feature i hope they update in the future. They need to allow you to type in the duration of the loop, because its sometimes impossible to get the right duration even when adding a 5 minute song. Let me know if you can get the clips all saved for your chapter menu. And make sure you save them so you know which one goes to which chapter marker.

 

[Rahsten]

Yeah, I think there are a few features that need some serious updating. Of course there is always Final Cut...but I looked at that and it just blew my mind. Too complex for the simple things I'd like to do.

And for the clips in your imovie window, you are just clicking on the 30 sec clip for example and then clicking the share-->quicktime-->full resolution and checking the share selected clips only. This wont allow you to save it to the external hard drive?

Yup, but it lets me save to my MacBook's HD, but I only have about 5-15GB free, so I don't like to save editing footage there.

In iDVD, that little Drop Menu window comes up under MENU but there are no zones for me to drop things in the Chapters menu. I'm using Themes 6.0 (Shelves). As a default it sets up the chapters as Movie Buttons in iDVD (if you mark chapters in iMovie that is). I never figured out how to replace the pre-made ones with the small ones you suggested I made, but I was able to get the loop at 30sec and I chose a song which doesn't really matter if it loops after 30. It was weird, in the chapters the loop was the same numbers I mentioned above but I limited the duration to 18s (opposed to 52 which was 2nd smallest) then I saved and checked through it all again. Now the loop duration was much smaller 00:00---------05:03. and I was then able to make them all 30 s. I previewed everything and was happy with it so I just started encoding again before I go off to work! Hopefully no weird errors will crop up again and I will be able to burn a decent DVD!

I think the Shelves Theme won't allow me to use your mini clip method. I could be wrong though.

About the other questions you have on the buttons and that, I don't know what them exactly your using. Some of them i cant use because i'm still in os x 10.3. Try a different theme maybe that gives you windows specifically for clips for chapter selection. The reason you duration is so long on the loop is because you used the full video somewhere in the menu instead of clips. This is a feature i hope they update in the future. They need to allow you to type in the duration of the loop, because its sometimes impossible to get the right duration even when adding a 5 minute song. Let me know if you can get the clips all saved for your chapter menu. And make sure you save them so you know which one goes to which chapter marker.