Simple iDVD Problem - Complicated Solution

[LimeiBook86]

I have a 60 minute iDVD 4 project on my dad's PowerMac G4 (AGP 450, 768mb RAM, 4x DVD-R Pioneer A05) the project is about 2-3gb is size (well the iMovie project solder is about 10-13gbs). I need to burn this onto a DVD but I have a problem. When I try and burn the DVD (after waiting a few hours) it says I need more Hard Drive space. I need to know how much space I need to burn this DVD. It is a movie around 60 minutes and is in the "Best Quality" mode in iDVD. I have two options I believe.

1) Add more Hard Drive space to the PowerMac G4 and try and burn it again. The G4 burned a successful iDVD before but it took forever to encode and burn, I forget how long but it took a few hours.

2) Put the iDVD project on a 40GB Hard Drive that I have lying around (get an external FireWire drive to do this) so I can work on the project on my PowerBook G4 867mhz (12" inch, DVD-R 1x, 640mb RAM) I suppose encoding the video will go quite faster on my PowerBook but burning the DVD at 1x would take a while.

Maybe my dad should just save up for a G5 already. I have 3 iDVD projects like this, they are old Home Movies from an old VHS converted into the computer. They look pretty sharp considering they are from 1984-1986. I have 1 project on DVD so far, now I just need to do the two remaining.

Any ideas? I feel that I need a G5 to get this all done faster. Hopefully my dad will decide to upgrade soon, he's been thinking about it lately. Thanks in advance!

-Mac

 

[Horrortaxi]

iDVD takes a few hours to render and burn a disk. I usually plan on mine taking about 4 hours. Having a G5 will probably help that, but not by much. It'll still take hours to do it.

iDVD will need enough hard drive space to store all the encoded media. I'd plan on having at least 5GB available to cover it, but that's just a guess based on the size of a DVD-R.

So my advice is to free up some hard drive space and then wait for the disk. Do it overnight or something.

 

[LimeiBook86]

iDVD takes a few hours to render and burn a disk. I usually plan on mine taking about 4 hours. Having a G5 will probably help that, but not by much. It'll still take hours to do it.

iDVD will need enough hard drive space to store all the encoded media. I'd plan on having at least 5GB available to cover it, but that's just a guess based on the size of a DVD-R.

So my advice is to free up some hard drive space and then wait for the disk. Do it overnight or something.

Thanks a lot I'll try to free up 5 gigs or so, does it need to be on the same drive? The startup drive has 7 gigs free, the drive with the iDVD and iMovie files has only 800mb free. I also have another partition with 7 gigs free. I dunno exactly where to free up space, on the drive with the files on it I guess.

 

[rand()]

Thanks a lot I'll try to free up 5 gigs or so, does it need to be on the same drive? The startup drive has 7 gigs free, the drive with the iDVD and iMovie files has only 800mb free. I also have another partition with 7 gigs free. I dunno exactly where to free up space, on the drive with the files on it I guess.

Yes, I'm just hazarding a guess here, but I would say it needs to be on the same drive as the iDVD project file.

I would think that if you leave the iMovie media in place, but move the iDVD project itself to one of the drives with 7 gig free, it should encode just fine. Then you can get rid of that media, and things should go smoothly on disc #3.

-rand()

 

[Horrortaxi]

Whichever drive you have your iDVD project on is the one you need to have free space on. This doesn't have to be the drive with the system files or iDVD on it though. In fact, I wouldn't suggest putting big files like that (that you're probably going to delete immediately) on the system drive anyway for the same reason you don't want to edit video on the system drive--fragmentation. But if it's your only option you can do it--it's just not the preferred method.

I'm going to give another suggestion, and I don't want you to take it the wrong way: Practice good disk hygiene. It sounds like you've got your stuff all over the place and sooner or later that'll bite you on the butt. It's nibbling at you now but it can get much worse.

 

[LimeiBook86]

Whichever drive you have your iDVD project on is the one you need to have free space on. This doesn't have to be the drive with the system files or iDVD on it though. In fact, I wouldn't suggest putting big files like that (that you're probably going to delete immediately) on the system drive anyway for the same reason you don't want to edit video on the system drive--fragmentation. But if it's your only option you can do it--it's just not the preferred method.

I'm going to give another suggestion, and I don't want you to take it the wrong way: Practice good disk hygiene. It sounds like you've got your stuff all over the place and sooner or later that'll bite you on the butt. It's nibbling at you now but it can get much worse.

Well this is my dad's computer. We have a 80gb drive that is the startup drive. Then we have a 200gb drive (formatted to 132gb, we need an ATA 133 card ) made into 4 partitions, "Backup", "Classic", "Storage", and "Tiger" for beta OS's. The iDVD project and the iMovie files are on "Storage" and the free 7gb is on "Tiger" since I recently erased a beta OS since it ran very slow. The disk is pretty organized but it can use some cleaning up. I need to get the about 100 gigs off the "200 gb" drive so I can get an ATA card and format it to it's true size. Too bad I'd probably end up buying another hard drive just to format my old one. Now you know why all the files are here and there. It's pretty organized but it can be done better.

My PowerBook is MUCH better organized, everything in the home directory in the appropriate folders and everything is nice and neat.

Thanks for the advice everyone, I hope to try and burn those DVDs soon.