iDVD crashes EVERYTIME!!!

I normally hang out in the iDVD '08 group, so I haven't used iMovie '09. It sounds like you have source material that simply doesn't work... From a camcorder? We used to have trouble with 12-bit audio from camcorders. Check your camcorder setting?

Take a look here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3290

Does what you did to help include trashing iDVD's preference file? Home(YourUserName)/Library/Preferences/com.apple.idvd.plist
Drag this plist file to the trash. Then reopen iDVD. You will have to reset any preferences that you had changed from the defaults.

However, I suspect that you have done this to no avail. There have been many problems associated with iMovie 9 and the quality of the footage on a burned DVD disk.
You may want to look at this thread and see if anything done there would help keep iDVD from crashing:
This one recommends sticking with iMovie 6 for better results in iDVD
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1911416&tstart=0

This thread addresses the differences in sharing to iDVD from iMovie and doing it by exporting and importing:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=8905039&#8905039

There is an ongoing long thread addressing quality issues regarding iMovie 9 and dropped frames. See Steve Mullin's explanations:
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9040397#9040397


This one gives further recommended ways to share:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9072012&#9072012

You are very welcome. Glad you were able to get it to work. Starting over is always an option... Frequently, you never know exactly what went wrong.

Hi there,

I'm having the same problem as you and iDVD keeps crashing on the final stages of burning! My original problem was that the movie, when it did finish burning on the fastest speed would play on my Mac but not on the DVD player.

After reading these forums, I have tried to burn it on the slowest speeds (x1 & x2). This takes longer but I'm hoping that this will eliviate the problem. As a result, now what happens is the same as you had: iDVD crashes at the end.

Please can you advise me as to what you did to retify your problem? How did you 'save as an image?!

At the moment, I am simply opening the prog, navigating to the iDVD project in my external drive (Honeymoon-DVD.idvdproj), checking the map to see that it's all being linked correctly and hitting the burn button.

Many thanks in advance!

Darren

So after reading other posts, today I saved my project as a disc image and burned it via the Disc Utility at x4 (the slower speed). Good news is that it didn't crash - the bad news is that it still won't play on my DVD. Any thoughts as to why?

I'm gutted, this is my honeymoon film and took me weeks to make!

Thanks in advance.

Lots of good info above... here's my 2 cents:

When you save as a Disc image, dbl-click on that image to mount it, and use the Mac DVD player app to play it... If this plays well, good news is that you have a good disc image. This disc image can be burnt on any Mac, if the prognosis turns out that the drive is bad (not saying it is, but that's one less variable!).

Now, regarding media type, DVD-R discs have the best compatibility, especially as some of the older DVD players cannot play the "+R/RW" discs. Are you using a DVD-R disc? And does the disc play well on other computers (Mac/PC)?

There's a lot of posts regarding disc media quality... I've used a couple of different brands, and haven't had any coasters yet, except one due to user error (I was multitasking and the app crashed!)... I do use the max rated speed for the discs (e.g. 16x for Philips lightscribe) on my Mac (faster), and slower speeds on my PCs (older CPUs), and haven't had any issues. Reducing the burn speed is a good solution to mitigate other variables - buffer underrun, or media quality issues, or slower CPUs.

Thanks for your reply. You may be onto something here! I have now successfully burned several times (using lower speeds on iDVD and also creating a disc image and using Disc Utility to burn) and none of them play in my player.

My DVD player was a present six years ago and the DVD's I'm writing to are +R's. Could this be the problem?

My next step is to take the ones I've burned and try them on another player. Has anyone anything to add regarding successfully burned DVD's not playing on DVD players?

Thanks again all!

Yes, I always use DVD-R Verbatim disks, burn at 4x or less and have had no burn problems. I did have some issues with my Toshiba DVD player. Seems it liked to reverse the loud and muted audio in my audio tracks....and would also just drop out a few seconds of audio. I was so frustrated thinking it was something I had done, until I put the first burned disk into my Sony DVD player. (Lazy me, not wanting to go downstairs to play my disks). I was shocked, but very pleased, that it worked fine. It was the player not me!
So, now I still test out my burned DVDs in the Toshiba, but if a disk plays funny, I know now to head for the other player before rushing to change or redo anything in my project.