this fixed my "crashing at startup" problem

Doh! ... Did all the above. Good News: iDVD opens!

Bad News: Get an error during encode ...arrgh.

PS... iMovie'08 is a poor replacement for iMove'06

Is Apple geting "Intel'd" ???

Thanks that seems to work. The program allowed to download some of the older themes.(IDVD1,2,3 and 4. I still have 5 and 6 in that desktop folder, just in case I can use them later.

Here's another approach. I don't have iLife '08 yet (ordered) but I think I'll do this before I install.

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20070810091507817

I'll be posting this in a similar thread, so apologies to the powers to be for double posting.

Thanks David for the tip, it was very helpful.

I found I had to do this twice to get it to work, it then installed all the correct themes on the second time around and it seems to be working ok now.

I didn't have the "installed themes" folder. I only had a "themes" folder. I put that into the trash, but iDVD still will not open for me. Please help!

Thank you so much, fixed my problems too.

You are a lifesaver!!! Thanks!!

Tried everything that people said would fix the problem but still did not work for me.

My fix was to trash everything that has idvd in the name and reinstall the app from DVD.

Hope this helps.

Thanks David for your post. It worked great. Stress level dropped to zero (at least for this project.)

- Kathleen

Hi DAvid! sorry for my english im german.
i did what you said, but even if i have deleted all "applic.supports iDVD" i cant use iDVD after installing it new from the iLife08. i start iDVD, i clikck "new project" but then a window appears "searching themes" and that stays and stays and searching and searching, the whole day through.
can you help me?

Search for everything with 'idvd' in the name on your HD. i.e. folders, preferences, files and the application etc. Put them all in the trash and delete them.

(If you have projects saved in the HD, don't delete them!!!)

Then reinstall 'iDVD' only, not full instal, from the installer DVD.

This fixed the problem for me, when the other ways did not.

Hope this helps.

I wish I had found this thread two hours ago! Maybe if I insert the console text, others can find it easier: ##**## Not encoding -> exit(5)

i'm having similar problems on a brand new iMac 24" and trying the solution that apple offers below, doesn't work:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306290
Nor does moving installed themes out of my appication support folder for iDVD.
My application will not stay open long enough even to try to find themes after I dumped them according to apple's instrutions.
Re-installing the appication from the system software disc (iLife 08 came bundled with this new iMac 24")
I've just spend the last 2 hours attempting different solutions --- reloading all of the iLife software, just reloading iDVD, dumping iMovie HD and then downloading the new verion from apple, but nothing is working.
Is it me or did iLife 08 come out of the barn a little too early. iMovie 08 was a real disappointement and now I can't even get iDVD to work. This is not a typical Mac problem. It's usually so easy to use this stuff out of the box. Steve Jobs, please check in on your iLife staff from time to time; they need some help.

Did you deinstal iDVD files before you installed?

Search for everything with 'idvd' in the name on your HD. i.e. folders, preferences, files and the application etc. Put them all in the trash and delete them. (If you have projects saved in the HD, don't delete them!)

Yes, I trashed anything with iDVD in it and re-installed. I even re-installed using a commercial iLife 08 disk, rather than the bundled software that came with the new iMac and same problem. I have come up with a temporary fix that at least gives me iDVD 6. I once again deleted anything with iDVD in the hard drive and then went back to my iLife '06 disk and installed iDVD 6. It also automatically installed another iMovie HD which I put in the trash, since there is a folder in my application folder that contains a more recent version of (iMovie HD 6.0.4). In the process iMovie from the iLife 08 package got deleted but that's OK since I absolutely despise the new version of iMovie.
I'm hoping Apple gets around to an IDVD update that might fix this problem - until then I'm happy with the old version.