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john7690
Level 1 (10 points)

Q: Dual Layer option grayed out in iDVD '08

I have been struggling to get a movie burned for awhile, partly due to learning the software on my new iMac (2.4 GHz 24") and the other part spent learning the size requirement limits for a Dual Layer disc (not sure I have my project trimmed all the way down yet).

I finally have what I think is a finished project, am ready to try to burn it and all of a sudden iDVD will not allow me to select "Dual Layer" as an option in the Project Info dialog (the option is locked on single layer and grayed out). I tried rebooting and that made no difference. The drive is the built-in DL burner.

This is a new problem as I have been able to make this selection in the past. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

-John

Apple iMac 24" 2.4GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.1), OEM internal Superdrive

Posted on Jan 16, 2008 6:05 AM

by F Shippey,Solvedanswer
F Shippey F Shippey
Level 7 (21,504 points)
A:
The raw .m4v file is only showing up as 3.78GB in the Finder, but it is 2:59.## long.


but it's still going to be too big even at Best Performance.



You can fit 2hr 59 min on a DL disc - but you can't use 'Best Performance' - you must use 'High Quality' or 'Professional Quality'.





F Shippey

Posted on Jan 17, 2008 7:55 AM

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john7690

Q: Dual Layer option grayed out in iDVD '08

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  • by F Shippey,

    F Shippey F Shippey Jan 16, 2008 7:36 AM in response to john7690
    Level 7 (21,504 points)
    Jan 16, 2008 7:36 AM in response to john7690
    How long is your project in minutes?


    What encoding mode have you selected?

  • by SDMacuser,Helpful

    SDMacuser SDMacuser Jan 16, 2008 8:47 AM in response to john7690
    Level 6 (13,585 points)
    Jan 16, 2008 8:47 AM in response to john7690
    Is your project over 60 mins. but under 120 mins.? You'll have to address the project info window like this:



    Image Hosted by ImageShack.us




    You should have an option available to you under DVD Type to select DL as opposed to SL. If it's grayed out, quit iDvd and and relaunch the app again. You may have to do this more than once (assuming you are using the correct media and that your mac sees the appropriate DL burner).


    Plus you must select the appropriate media when burning to DL. I recommend using Verbatim or Maxell while troubleshooting on this forum. Thereafter you can choose whatever works best for you and your mac.




    In addition, please read the following from the iDvd08 Getting Started pfd:



    Checking the Project Info Window
    DVD projects can take up a lot of space on your hard disk, and it’s useful to know when
    you need to make more room. In addition, a DVD disc has a maximum capacity. As
    you’re working on your project, monitoring its size will ensure that everything fits.
    The Project Info window, shown below, provides all this information and more.
    To check the size of your project:
    m Choose Project > Project Info.
    Â The total size of your project, in running time (in minutes) and in size (in megabytes
    or gigabytes), shows below the Capacity meter on the far right.
    Â The Capacity meter shows how much of your project’s total size is used by each of its
    elements. The bands of color indicate what proportion of the project each element
    accounts for.
    Â The numbers below DVD-ROM, Slideshows, Menus, and Movies specify how much
    space (in gigabytes) each uses. When you click these numbers, the display switches
    to show the number of these items in your project and how many tracks they use. An
    iDVD project can have up to 99 tracks.
    DVD-ROM refers to the content you’ve specified to be added to the DVD-ROM
    portion of your burned DVD. The running time and size figures that appear below
    Menus reflect the total duration of all the menus in the project. You can have a total
    of 15 minutes of motion, such as video on buttons or in the background, in all
    menus. A project can include up to 99 menus.
    In general, the amount of content your iDVD project contains correlates to the quality
    of your burned DVD, given the encoding setting you have chosen. The white arrow in
    the Capacity meter points to the quality of your burned DVD. Quality is highest on the
    green portion of the Quality meter. If you have chosen Best Performance as your
    encoding setting, the entire Quality meter may be green.





    Hope this helps but if not come on back.




    Message was edited by: SDMacuser

  • by john7690,

    john7690 john7690 Jan 16, 2008 7:21 PM in response to SDMacuser
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 16, 2008 7:21 PM in response to SDMacuser
    Thank you to everyone for your suggestions and requests for further information.

    I was at work at the time and didn't have access to the computer. Now that I am at home I logged out and then completely shut down the system. Upon the next boot up the option for Dual Layer DVD Type magically started working again, hurray!

    The next issue is project size. I thought I was alright until I added the menu, etc. With the motion menu my project has jumped to 184 minutes and about 10GB. That is using "Best Performance" encoding. I know that I can opt to pare down the content, but I'd rather not. My other thought is that when I exported the movie from iMovie I did so at the highest setting (Large: 720x540). I know that if I select Medium: 640x480 I should recoup a lot of space, however I was worried about picture quality suffering. These are home videos and will be played on analog TVs, but I don't want to lose picture quality, will 640x480 be OK?

    I also remember reading somewhere that exporting via Quicktime provided the lowest losses if you used the Apple Intermediate Codec. Is this true, and is it better than exporting to a Movie at 640x480? Should I be exporting that way instead?

    Thanks very much for all your support, I think I'm in the home stretch.

    -John

  • by SDMacuser,

    SDMacuser SDMacuser Jan 16, 2008 7:38 PM in response to john7690
    Level 6 (13,585 points)
    Jan 16, 2008 7:38 PM in response to john7690
    will 640x480 be OK?



    On a standard analog Monitor / TV?


    Yes. But please trim QT playback / run time down to 120 mins or less and use best quality (not best performance) if we are talking single layer DVD-R ....otherwise we need to consider Dual Layer media options provided your burner supports this newer media (see apple system profiler to make sure).



    If it's impossible to trim it down any further on SL DVD-R then consider making a disc image from the file menu within iDvd and use Roxio Toast (fit to disc) option to burn to DVD-R (Verbatim or Maxell).



    I highly recommend staying with Verbatim or Maxell DVD-R SL (especially if the intended audience owns mostly analog TV's and older DVD Players). DL won't play on many older set top players.


    Hope this helps.


  • by F Shippey,

    F Shippey F Shippey Jan 16, 2008 7:51 PM in response to john7690
    Level 7 (21,504 points)
    Jan 16, 2008 7:51 PM in response to john7690
    when I exported the movie from iMovie I did so at the highest setting (Large: 720x540). I know that if I select Medium: 640x480 I should recoup a lot of space, however I was worried about picture quality suffering. These are home videos and will be played on analog TVs, but I don't want to lose picture quality, will 640x480 be OK?


    With iMovie '08 share as Large: 720x540 for best image quality out of iDVD'08. The Share function should produce a .m4v (compressed with H.264) file that is compact and very high quality.





    F Shippey

  • by SDMacuser,

    SDMacuser SDMacuser Jan 16, 2008 8:14 PM in response to john7690
    Level 6 (13,585 points)
    Jan 16, 2008 8:14 PM in response to john7690
    You can leave it at the Larger 720x540 settings for best image quality but it will make the most difference on newer TV sets (as opposed to older analog TV sets that normally display in 640x480 from the factory). Hope this makes sense but if not, come on back.



  • by F Shippey,

    F Shippey F Shippey Jan 16, 2008 8:32 PM in response to SDMacuser
    Level 7 (21,504 points)
    Jan 16, 2008 8:32 PM in response to SDMacuser
    You can leave it at the Larger 720x540 settings for best image quality but it will make the most difference on newer TV sets (as opposed to older analog TV sets that normally display in 640x480 from the factory).


    iDVD will reduce the 720x540 .m4v file down to the correct size (720x480) prior to mpg-2 encoding. It's better to let iDVD reduce down from 720x540 that to have to expand up from 640x480.

    I've been quite impressed how the 724x540 .m4v encodes to a DVD.

  • by SDMacuser,Helpful

    SDMacuser SDMacuser Jan 16, 2008 8:39 PM in response to F Shippey
    Level 6 (13,585 points)
    Jan 16, 2008 8:39 PM in response to F Shippey
    It's better to let iDVD reduce down from 720x540 that to have to expand up from 640x480.




    I agree completely with this statement but again it is most noticeable on newer sets and less on older analog TV sets that are at most 640 by 480 from the factory. You can't squeeze blood from a turnip....



  • by john7690,

    john7690 john7690 Jan 17, 2008 6:11 AM in response to SDMacuser
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 17, 2008 6:11 AM in response to SDMacuser
    I currently have a batch of Verbatim 8.5GB+R DL discs that I plan to use for the project (I've been paying attention to the recommendations regarding disc brand). My problem is that my project as it stands is currently too big to fit on the DL disc. I can squeeze some size down in a couple of ways, but it's still going to be too big even at Best Performance. The raw .m4v file is only showing up as 3.78GB in the Finder, but it is 2:59.## long. With the chapters and menu in place it shows up as being 10GB and 184 minutes long in iDVD, which of course won't work.

    I guess my questions are:

    - I know that the animated menus in iDVD eat up space, how can you get the best bang for the buck without abandoning the cool menu?

    - iDVD doesn't have "fit to disc" option like Toast does, and I do have Toast 8, but I can see that iDVD's menu capabilities are much better than Toast's so I want to use those. If I burn a larger than DL size image from iDVD and then use Toast's Fit To Disc feature how much difference in picture quality will I see vs just going down to 640x480 encoding from the start?

    Thanks for the many replies and great help.

    -John

  • by F Shippey,Solvedanswer

    F Shippey F Shippey Jan 17, 2008 7:55 AM in response to john7690
    Level 7 (21,504 points)
    Jan 17, 2008 7:55 AM in response to john7690
    The raw .m4v file is only showing up as 3.78GB in the Finder, but it is 2:59.## long.


    but it's still going to be too big even at Best Performance.



    You can fit 2hr 59 min on a DL disc - but you can't use 'Best Performance' - you must use 'High Quality' or 'Professional Quality'.





    F Shippey

  • by john7690,

    john7690 john7690 Jan 18, 2008 5:36 AM in response to F Shippey
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jan 18, 2008 5:36 AM in response to F Shippey
    Thank you for this last tip, I guess I should have read the help file first. I wrongly assumed that the settings went from lowest to highest resolution with Best Performance being the lowest/smallest. I'm still not sure why the ability to render in the background would make the overall project so much larger (3+GB), but hey, problem solved, my iMac is busily rendering and hopefully burning the first disc in Professional Quality back at home right now. I even had enough space left over in the project to throw in a photo slideshow.

    Thanks very much to everyone for their helpful responses.