Multiplexer error - There was an error during formatting

I have the exact same issue!
Hope someone can help us out.
It's really painful... especially since the error message occurs AT THE END of a process that can take hours!

have also the same issue ! Moreover iDVD '08 has a very bad estimation of the project size (with settings 'professional quality' PAL Single Layer) : sometimes the project seems to fit well before the encoding, but after the encoding (or the error message at the end of the encoding) the project size doesn't fit anymore...
I never had such issues with the previous version of iDVD on my iBook G4 !

Hey Apple wake up. This has also happened to me. I burn many projects and ever since the 7.02 update was installed, I keep getting the same multiplexing error as well. It tried the save as disc image first, but it does the same thing. I have avoided all the steps that most post as to why multiplexing error occur and nothing helps. Can you at least give us a way to downgrade back to 7.01. I at least know that I can burn a project without these annoying errors. Please someone do something. I have never had a major problem with a software update until now!

I have discovered that if I'm encoding less than an hour of video, so that I don't have to change the default encoding method, it still burns just fine. Anything over an hour that requires a change in encoding method bombs out with the Multiplexer error.

This NEEDS to get fixed FAST! I have customers that want more than one hour of video per DVD!

what exactly is #8 above? (where the question mark is).

Marc,
You are right I can only burn about an hour and 10 minuted of video before I get a multiplexing error. I also have customers, who need more than this on one DVD. I wrote a feedback to Apple today telling them about the update error and hopefully they will fix it soon. I still cant figure out to go back to idvd 7.01. Please Apple make this correction...

I think I have a solution. I downloaded 7.02 update from apple, instead of using the software update through system preferences. I reinstalled the update and have had no problems burning or saving as a disc image. Plus the projects are as close to 2 hours as possible. I sure hope this helps out. Give it a try

I'm also on the trail of a solution. Actually two possible solutions.

I have two iMacs. My older one has OSX 10.4.11 (Tiger) and the newer one has OSX 10.5.3 (Leopard) on it. I was having very similar problems on both machines EXCEPT the older machine wouldn't say what the error was ... it would just say "there was an encoding error" .... but it was happening at the exact same time as the 'Multiplexer Error' so I think it may be the same thing.

Anyway, on the old (Tiger) Mac I tried removing all third party Quicktime components from /Library/Quicktime (such as Flip4Mac, Divx, and Perian) and tried re-encoding a 1 hour 30 minute piece of video. IT WORKED! So now I am in the process of adding those components back in one at a time to find out which one is the culprit. (personally I suspect it might be Perian sin it is the newest one I've added, and I've added it to the old computer and the new computer before this problem cropped up - but my experiments should tell me for sure)

On the new computer (Leopard) I looked at iDVD '08 closer and found that there are three compression modes (in the Project/Project Info menu) - "Best Performance", which lets you encode an hour or less of video - "High Quality" lets you encode more than an hour of video - and "Professional Quality" that also lets you encode more than an hour of video.

Obviously "Best Performance" works (that's the one I've been stuck with for the last couple weeks), but the "High Quality" mode is the one that chokes with the "Multiplexer Error" - But here's the kicker - just for grins I tried using "Professional Quality" mode and I was able to successfully create a DVD with 1 hour and 45 minutes of video !!!

So for now it's looking like a toss-up between Quicktime components being the culprit or a bug in the "High Quality" encode mode. But at least using the "Professional Quality" encode mode lets me create DVDs with more than an hour of video.

I will continue my experiments and let you know what happens.

By the way, the new computer is using iDVD '08 (version 7.02), while the old computer is using the older version of iDVD (version 6.04). So it's version 7.02 that throws out the "Multiplexer Error" in "High Quality" mode (but works in "Professional Quality" mode), and version 6.04 is choking Quicktime add-on components.

I hope this helps you. It sure makes me feel better having a way to encode more than an hour of video.

installing 7.0.2 as Jeff described worked perfectly my movie was 1 hour 59 min and several seconds and used professional quality which took 12 hours on my machine. - Thanks Jeff!

I had the same problem and worked on it for over a month. Here's what I found. Tried to put together a 95 minutes slide/movie/music show in iMovie '08 (v7.1.1) but once I got past 60 minutes of project size iMovie got unstable and sluggish and was tough to work with. Also, I wanted chapters, so I cut the project up into four convenient parts, shared each part to media browser and assembled the parts in iDVD '08 (v7.0.1) as a four frame slide show (each containing a movie) so you could >>| to the next chapter (frame) from the remote control - even if iDVD '08 doesn't let you make chapters from scratch. Kept getting "Multiplex Error During Formatting". Always happened at the very very end of the encoding task, just before getting to "Complete". I did all the hints: removed 3rd party QT components, dump the pref file, lots of HD space, write a Disk Image to the boot drive, tried "High Quality" AND "Professional Quality" encoding... Nothing worked! Others in my local MUG group had the same problems and recommended I start over using iMovieHD (v6.0.4). I was not about to start over and do all that editing again. Tried exporting the four iMovie '08 projects but found .m4v and .mov formats gave poor results (poor image quality and jumpy Ken Burns zooms). Then I exported them as .dv files and imported them to iMovieHD. Now I could make chapter markers and send that to iDVD. Well, that worked! I have a 95 minute movie that can play complete from the top menu AND the sub-menu lets you play any of the 4 chapters separately. I encoded it using "Professional Quality" to Disk Image and use the Dick Utility to burn real media. This took 6 weeks to get to this work around. I am not convinced that the "Multiplexing Error" is the result of a bug in iDVD '08. It may actually be in iMovie '08 sharing to media browser. I found that the error does not happen if the project is less than some x time (about 60 minutes in length as is reported above). *_Apple needs to fix this problem (and bring back chapter creation)_* and I am reluctant to update iDVD or iMovie to the next version because I'm not convinced that the problem is fixed from what I have read from others and once you go forward with the version, you can't get back. In essence today, *iDVD '08 is a ONE HOUR OR LESS DVD MAKER when used with iMovie '08*. Does anyone know what the new updates are suppose to fix?

I have this problem as well.

I've downgraded from Mac OS X 10.5 to 10.4.11, and I've tried editing the movie in FCExpress and iMovie.

Doesn't matter. Same multiplexer error.

In my case, I'm burning an NTSC movie to a PAL disc, which should work.

I've tried burning to file and VIDEO_TS file, to no avail.

I can't find anything that describes what this error actually is. Anyone have any idea?

Alright, bit of an update on this problem.

For reasons I don't fully understand, iDVD makes inaccurate predictions about the size of the films its creating. My film was too long for a single sided DVD.

iDVD wouldn't burn as a dual-layer DVD image (again, reasons unknown) nor would it burn as a VIDEO_TS.

I applied the iLife update from the end of July and - Presto! - I can now burn VIDEO_TS files for iDVD projects of arbitrary size.

What I did was burn it as a VIDEO_TS directory (9.6GB in size), transfer it to a PC with Nero 8 and a dual-layer DVD burner.

Nero has an application that is part of the suite called Recode that will transcode VIDEO_TS directories to a target size (in this case, a DVD +R DL). This worked a treat; the DVD is now in the hands of its proud owner, who couldn't be more pleased with the result.

Nathan,

You weren't the original poster.

For reasons I don't fully understand, iDVD makes inaccurate predictions about the size of the films its creating. My film was too long for a single sided DVD.

The BEST estimate is the running time!!! Up to about 60 minutes on a single layer DVD with 'Best Performance' encoding; up to about 120 minutes on a single layer DVD with 'High Quality' or "Professional Quality' encoding.

What was the actual running time of your movie in minutes?

transfer it to a PC with Nero 8 and a dual-layer DVD burner.

Roxio's Toast Titanium has much the same features on a Mac.

I am going absolutely NUTS with idvd. I finally figured out how to capture my video (vhs) analog movies and transform them into a digital signal and import them into imovie. I successfully did 2 dvd's of some home videos, however they were both less than 1 hour long. The one I'm working on now is 1.5 hours

Now my problem comes with this current video I'm working on, which I imported into imovie, created chapters, shared with idvd, added music to the opening and the scene selection pages and saved everything. I first tried several times just to burn a dvd, which after sooooo many hours received errors about not enough free disc space. So I freed up 20 or so gigs & stored the imovie file on my ext. hard drive. Then I started to get multiplexer errors during formatting. So I upped the
quality to professional quality, without success. I also tried saving a disc image (several times)...same thing. Then yesterday, I tried saving it as a video TS folder and got an error with encoding.

Right now I am trying again, after downloading idvd 7.02 (I have been
previously trying all the burns with idvd '08. Oh, and also, I had been using a theme from version 6.0, and then switched to a 7.0 theme, thinking that may have been the problem. So, I've been at this for about A WEEK now and am REALLY discouraged. Would I be better off doing this in another program like dvd studio pro, which I don't think I have? Is this project doomed?

Thanks for any help you can give me.

after downloading idvd 7.02 (I have been previously trying all the burns with idvd '08.

One and the same application

stored the imovie file on my ext. hard drive

I'll bet is is a USB 2 drive - am I right?