iDVD 08 Menu White After Burn

You should create a disk image of this project before burning a DVD. While in iDVD, go to File>Save as disk image. This will create a file that can be viewed on your computer's DVD player. The disk image will show you how your project will play once burned to disk. Creating the disk image will help to determine if this problem is due to issues with encoding or problems with the burning process.

Report back with what you find out after creating and viewing the disk image.

Exact same problem here, to the letter. My wife worked all night on a slideshow for a presentation and neither one of us could figure out what was happening here. Very frustrating.

BTW, the disk image performed the same as the DVD.

Dan & Shane,

Check out this article. It refers to a "green screen", but otherwise the problem described is similar to yours. http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1044

I hope this helps.

Give this basic remedy a try. Quit iDVD and delete your iDVD preferences. To do this, go to your username> library> preferences> com.apple.idvd.plist. Delete this file. Then reopen iDVD; it will create a new preference file with all of the default settings.

If that doesn't help, do a verify and repair of permissions using Disk Utility.

I tried those suggestions. No change.

We did make partial progress in the slideshow playback. We removed transitions from all slides, and suddenly the slideshows played properly. No pretty transitions, of course, but we can live without those as long as we can see the slides.

The main menu, however, is still a blank white screen. It has audio, and if you deliberately mouse over the text buttons that link to the slideshows they appear, but that's all that's on the screen.

My wife had to take a disk despite that so at least she could show the kids and their parents the slideshow today, but she's going to be using it again in a couple of weeks so I really hope we can figure this out. I'm at a loss.

Is there something in the main menu that trips up on the same issues that slideshow transitions would trip up on?

Thank you all for the help so far, btw!

I see that both of you are using Leopard. Try this procedure as described by Old Toad.

Trouble Shooting Preferences in Leopard

1 - Create a folder titled "Preferences A" on the Desktop.
2 - Open the working Preferences folder, HD/Users/your_name/Library/Preferences, and move the contents to the Preferences A folder on the Desktop.
3 - Make a duplicate copy of the Preferences A folder on the Desktop as a precautionary backup.
4 - With the working Preferences folder empty run the application again and determine if the problems is fixed.

NOTE: you may have to drag the contents of the working folder to the trash and empty if moving the contents to the A folder only copies them instead of moving.

5 - If the problem is fixed:
A - open the working Preferences folder (HD/Users/your_name/Library/Preferences).
B - Open the Preferences A folder on the Desktop, select all of the contents and drag them into the working Preferences folder.
C - When the Copy window pops up check the "Apply to All" check box and then click on the Don't Replace button as seen here.

6 - If the problem is NOT fixed, empty the working Preferencess folder and move the contents of the Preferences folder on the desktop back into it.

I followed all those steps, opened iDVD, saved to disk image, and opened the result in DVD player. No change at all.

Another thought: Is QuickTime up to date? Check to see that you have the latest version.

Unless someone else offers a solution, you may need to reinstall iDVD. First, go to this site and download AppDelete to uninstall iDVD. http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/systemdiskutilities/appdelete.html

Then, follow these directions provided by Old Toad for doing a reinstall using the system disks that came with your computer.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8517353&#8517353

Or, if you have purchased iLife 08 separately, use that disk for the reinstall.

Hopefully one of the veteran posters will weigh in if there is another way to deal with this.

I have QuickTime Player 7.5.5.

On a possibly (???) related note, my wife took the DVD to use despite the crummy white menu screen, and when she tried to run them on two separate DVD-capable Windows PC laptops they caused the computers to crash. One of them turned up a blue screen of death with lots of "fatal error" type text and the other one just froze solid.

But the DVD worked on a DVD player proper (with the crummy white menu, etc.).

What is the source of your video? Check to see that it is supported by iDVD. This is from iDVD Help:

_Video and image formats that work with iDVD_
You can use these movie and graphic formats in iDVD:

◼
Most video or image files supported by QuickTime (see the list of unsupported QuickTime formats below)

◼
16:9 widescreen formats

◼
AAC, MP3, and AIFF audio files

◼
Any format from iMovie: DV, high-definition video (HDV), MPEG-2 SD, MPEG-2 SD, MPEG-4 SD, MPEG-4 HD, and AVCHD

High definition video is converted to work with the format of your project. iDVD supports using 16:9 widescreen video; therefore, when your DVD plays on a DVD player that supports widescreen format, the footage appears in its original aspect ratio.

The following video and image formats are not supported in iDVD:

◼
Copyrighted or protected videos.

◼
Movies saved in thousands of colors using the “none” compression setting in iMovie.

◼
48-bit color images (16 bits per color). To use source files in one of these formats in iDVD, save them in a supported format.

◼
Aurora uncompressed files. For best results, export Aurora clips as DV-format video before importing them into iDVD.

◼
QuickTime VR, MPEG-1 or MPEG-2, Flash, streaming or encrypted movies, or QuickTime spanned movies. You can’t add MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 files to an iDVD project because they don’t contain standard video tracks.

◼
QuickTime Fast Start movies. (Fast Start movies are intended for Internet playback.) When saving a QuickTime movie for use with iDVD, click the Options button in the QuickTime Export dialog and make sure that the “Prepare for Internet Streaming” checkbox is not selected.

NOTE: You can add any type of file to the DVD-ROM portion of your DVD so that viewers can copy the file to a computer. Viewers can access these files only when viewing the DVD in a computer, not a DVD player connected to a TV.

Does anything in here help?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1583?viewlocale=en_US

Message was edited by: Glo H

I think you should rule out the source of your video as the problem. Create a new project, and import about 10-15 photos for a slideshow. Add some music, and then create a disk image. If the disk image plays correctly, then you can look to the source of your movie as the culprit.