Can I burn an iDVD project to an external dvd writer?

You can, just not directly from within iDVD. You will need to create a disc image of your project and then burn that to your external burner using either Disk Utility or Toast. iDVD only officially supports internal model SuperDrives.

The LaCie external D2 drives come with a set of profiles that allow iLife applications to see the drive. Frankly, you are worrying over nothing - the encode and burn processes take X minutes.

So if you make the image then burn it later it is about the same X minutes anyway. And as you have not a lot of horsepower there in an iBook it is often better to do the iamge , mount it and see if it is A-Ok then burn later even with a superdrive.

Plus you have the image and you can copy it to more DVD's quite efficiently using DU or Toast.

Check LaCie's site for the specs on that drive to see if it will work with PCs.

Yes of course.

I had trouble using a new LaCie external DVD burner with iDVD 5. Although iDVD 5 claims to work with external burners, the only way I got it to work was to save the DVD as a disc image (under the file menu). Then use Toast to burn the disc image onto a DVD (Disc Utility did not work for burning the DVD). This method worked well.

Optional step: after saving the disk image but before burning the DVD, use DVD Player to play the disc image and make sure it works.

The amazing thing to me was that I spoke to LaCie technical support and they were unable to tell me how to do this. They simply said "We don't support iDVD". For a company that markets to Mac users as heavily as LaCie does, to not know how to use thier burners with the most widely used DVD creation program, I find incredible!

DanK

Well, Dan if Apple codes their software to not allow non Superdrives access to iLife applicaitons then it really is not LaCie's fault is it?

Toast is normally included with LaCie drives so DU not working with the drive (it should with the LaCie profiles) is a minor issue.

Since iDVD is a tough program on the whole operation it makes sense to encode to a disk image anyway then burn later. The time difference is almost nil anyway.

Ricktoronto:
While previous versions of iDVD were not supposed to work on non-superdrives, the current version (5) is supposed to work on external drives. While I have not tried any other brands of external drives, I would think that a company that focuses on selling to Mac users as much as LaCie does, would get their drives to work with iDVD. Be that it as it may, the fact that neither LaCie nor Apple technical support could tell me how to burn a disk from iDVD onto the external burner (by saving a disc image and then using Toast) strikes me as pretty lame customer support.

I have a LaCie dvd±rw firewire but I can't get LaCie diskburning package installed, any tips.

What do you mean that you can't get it installed?

If I remember correctly, two CDs came with my unit. One was for Mac and Windows, the other for windows only (this may be wrong: I am not at home now so can't check). The Mac one installed okay, once I found the right file to open. Is this what won't work for you (installing from the CD?).

I then went to LaCie's web site and downloaded a software and a firmware update.

Dan

Dank.
You're right, I can't install from CD or downloaded file. Everytime I get the message installation error.

Rob

You say what???
I have a LaCie external DVD-R/W and it works perfectly with iDVD 05 on a direct burn. I also used it with iDVD 04 and the 'Hurlz Purlz' patch burn. This was in the days before I had a super drive machine on my old Power Mac work horse. All you need to do is to go to the LaCie website and download the LaCie burn profiler for Mac OSX. You only need to install the Toast software that came with your LaCie drive and this is only if you intend to use it. I now run the LaCie on my Super Drive rig in the same way giving me a choice of drives. Somebody has been fibbing.

Silly Rabbit: Where did you find the "burn profiler"? I went to their web page with drivers for DVD burners (www.lacie.com/support/drivers/), but didn't see anything called a burn profiler. Or is it part of one of the other downloads?

Thanks.
DanK

Dank,
I got it from the LaCie website.
It is this one - The third on the page. Burn it to a disc to save you a lot of hassle in the future.

LaCie DiscRecording Support 1.19 for Mac OS X 10.3.2 or later (June 3, 2005)
http://www.lacie.com/support/drivers/index.htm

The profiles are on the CD that comes with it as well. And while this is not a LaCie issue, the fact they provide them (and they work) , well, good for them.