iMovie to iDVD re:Chapter Markers

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iMovie to iDVD re:Chapter Markers

I have been working on a video for the past few weeks and using iMovie '09 I assembled the clips, added audio and added in chapter markers as well. I have tried to Share>iDVD and Share>Media Browser and both options do not show my chapter markers. The video I am working on is 1:42:21 so yes... fairly long but not TOO long for one DVD or anything like that.

When I drag random clips into a new project (all of 41 seconds) and add chapter markers I can Share>iDVD and the markers come up fine in iDVD but when I try to do the same with my 1hr+ movie it takes about 2:30 hours to render and then I still get no chapter markers. I feel like I am spinning my wheels and there is definitely a way to make this happen.

Is there an iDVD or iMovie master out there who can help me out? I am getting very frustrated and have probably tried about 10-15 times (rendering at 2-4 hours each!) I don't understand WHY the chapter markers will show up for the short video and I do everything the same for the long video and get nothing. PLEASE HELP!

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6), iLife '09

Posted on Sep 9, 2009 6:30 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

SDMacuser

Level 6

13,585 points

Sep 9, 2009 9:09 PM in response to appleNewbie34

Hi appleNewbie34

And welcome to apple discussions. All of my own iDvd'09 projects to date have been well under 60 mins. so I don't know how much help I can offer you on this particular issue of a dvd that approaches nearly 2 hrs. You claim that your shorter projects have no chapter marker issues. Exactly how long /short were those initial projects and did they incorporate the same type of video? Or did the source video also change on these longer projects?

Here's what I was able to find and hopefully some of this will help but if not just come on back.

First, I'd recommend you delete all encoded assets. Let's start again (even though you may have already done this many times before).

Second I'd like you to quit iDvd.

Third, drag and drop the plist for iDvd to the trash. Looks like this:

com.apple.iDvd.plist

Fourth, Restart your mac.

Fifth, repair permissions from apple's disc utility.

Sixth, fire up iDvd Also please make sure all of your titles fall within the TV Safe area like this:

Click Here:

Then follow these steps to create a disc image to the desktop:

Click Here

Seventh, now I'd like you to test the disc image for proper playback with apple's dvd player application as follows:

Lastly, let's assume it plays exactly as expected (chapters and all) .... Now it's time to burn the image to Dvd-r. I recommend using Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden, or Maxell. Please avoid using Memorex while we troubleshoot.

Feel free to post back with the results.

Message was edited by: SDMacuser

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Answer 2

Sep 10, 2009 7:06 PM in response to SDMacuser

wow, well for starters I have no idea what you mean with delete the encoded assets. but I have quit idvd and deleted the plist for idvd. Once I figure out what you mean for step one, I don't know what you mean with repair permissions from the disc utility.

To address you're beginning concerns; the projects that had no chapter issues were as short as 41 seconds (just so it would render quickly) and as long as 14 minutes. I created 2 separate (short) files to make sure that what I was doing was working. As I said I exported to media browser and it didn't work, so I share>Idvd and they both worked.

The problem isn't with the chapter markers not working on the actual DVD disk. The problem is when I add the movie to an iDVD project, it doesn't recognize the chapters. (just for some background on the project it is a highlight tape from a basketball season. I would like to have a splash menu that would allow the user to play all, or be able to select to start watching at a certain game instead of fast forwarding through the dvd each time they wanted to watch the 12th game of the season. I know that idvd can add chapter markers at a specified interval but that is not as appealing to me as being able to click through game by game.) Please respond as I value you're initiative to help and insight to the matter.

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Answer 3

SDMacuser

Level 6

13,585 points

Sep 11, 2009 11:05 PM in response to appleNewbie34

.... for starters I have no idea what you mean with delete the encoded assets.

Click Here

---------------

I don't know what you mean with repair permissions from the disc utility.

Double click on your Hard Drive on the desktop > applications > Utilities > Disc Utility ( and repair disc permissions).

As for your request for a Play All button, iDvd doesn't have this feature. But Toast and DVDSP both do. The only way I am aware of to simulate a play all is to add your movies to the slideshow feature w/in iDvd.

http://www.apple.com/ilife/tutorials/#idvd-project

Hope this answers a few questions but if not just come on back.

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Answer 4

Sep 12, 2009 9:32 AM in response to appleNewbie34

I am having the exact same problem. I'm pretty sure it is a bug in iMovie 09 since you don't even need to involve iDVD to see the problem. In iMovie if you do Share>Export Movie>Large, it should create a movie file which can be viewed with the QuickTime Player.app including the chapters.

I'm working on a video about 1:38 with about 40 chapter markers. The first time I exported the movie, everything worked fine and I had my chapter markers in the movie file. Then I went back to do a few more edits in iMovie and I haven't been able to get chapter markers to work since.

It appears that if iMovie doesn't "like" one of the chapter markers it won't export any chapter makers. I'm still trying to figure out what constitutes a bad chapter marker. Maybe if a chapter marker is attached to a clip that is too short, or maybe if it is attached to a clip that is speeded up or slowed down, or maybe just moving a chapter marker from one location to another can mess up iMovie. This is very difficult to figure out since it takes so long to render the movie after each change and iMovie is not giving any clue as to which chapter marker is bad or why.

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Answer 5

SDMacuser

Level 6

13,585 points

Sep 12, 2009 12:33 PM in response to Cal Palmore

Then I went back to do a few more edits in iMovie and I haven't been able to get chapter markers to work since.

Nope. Can't do this and expect chapter markers to behave normally. They won't if you go back and alter the original iMovie project. Remember, it's a reference movie from that point forward. Better to delete encoded assets and try your iDvd again.

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Answer 6

Sep 13, 2009 1:33 PM in response to SDMacuser

I know for a fact that iDVD can do a Play Movie feature that just runs through the whole thing as well as scene selection. Here are photos of my project as well as my chapter test. Notice the length in times as well as just the random placement of ChapterMarkers in the test while they need to be at the start of each game for the actual project. Both videos were added to iDVD through Share>iDVD yet only one is recognized by iDVD as having the chapter markers and imports with the correct format. I KNOW iDVD can do what I want it to and its so frustrating to not know why it won't work for one video vs the other.

The movie in iMovie
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8919/screenshot20090913at258.jpg

The movie Share>iDVD (notice its just the menu and then the movie with a Play Movie selection)
http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/1846/screenshot20090913at256.jpg

The Chapter Test movie in iMovie
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/5421/screenshot20090913at259.jpg

The test Share>iDVD (Notice there is a Play Movie and a Scene Selections Submenu that iDVD intelligently adds on its own.)
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/122/screenshot20090913at301.jpg

After hours and hours of compiling film and lining everything up this is the last step to complete my project. Can someone out there PLEASE help explain why iDVD refuses to intelligently add the Scene Selections menu; or is there a way that I can force it to create that menu and recognize my chapter markers?

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Answer 7

Sep 13, 2009 4:00 PM in response to appleNewbie34

If you haven't read the posting on Chapter Marks on 9/9 suggest you look at it too.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2147174&tstart=15

I exported a 1 hr 50 min iMovie 09 using SHARE:EXPORT MOVIE that created a MPEG-4 file. Delete iDVD.plist in your User:Library:Preference file and open a new iDVD project. DO the delete iDVD.plist every time you start up iDVD on a different project or same project if make changes in iMovie. I then dropped the MPEG-4 file into gray area of Main Menu which created buttons for Play Movie and Select Menu. I then dropped the same MPEG-4 file into the AutoPlay box (top box when you click on the Map button). I only had 5 Chapter Marks. Never tried more than 6. I'd suggest you limit your chapter marks to 6 and try this. Of course it's an all night project if you have a long movie. Good luck.

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Answer 8

SDMacuser

Level 6

13,585 points

Sep 13, 2009 5:20 PM in response to appleNewbie34

There are alternate ways (work around) to meet your goal to play all content within iDvd. However, to the best of my knowledge, no Play All exists within iDvd to play all items (slide shows + images plus all movies combined; short of a duplicate QT movie of the entire project) without an an automatic return to the main menu after every movie /slideshow plays through; that is with the exception of an Autoplay Movie (dropped into the very first well / box while in map view within iDvd or when adding slides or movies to iDvd's slideshow feature). Keep in mind that it is possible to add both slides and movies to iDvd's slideshow for "continuous play" from start to finish (within the slideshow feature itself). Hope I got this right, but if not please feel free to speak up.

Btw, Toast 9 and 10 as well as FCP => DVDSP all have play all features / check boxes at your disposal.

Message was edited by: SDMacuser

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Answer 9

Sep 13, 2009 11:13 PM in response to appleNewbie34

You may have encountered a known 'bug' in iDVD 8/9 that causes problems with chapter markers not being read properly on either a disk image file or a burned DVD disk. This happens when you edit an iMovie that you have already imported into an iDVD project. Although iDVD will alert you that your 'assets have been modified' and ask if you want iDVD to 'update,' and will appear to be doing so, your new edits will mess up the chapter markers. Usually, you find that all scene selections default to the same scene/chapter. This is found using iMovie 6 and iDVD 8/9, but with iMovie 9, there may be different problems.

The only 'fix' for this is to recreate the iDVD project and then import the completely finished iMovie.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA23788

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Answer 10

mdx

Level 1

0 points

Sep 14, 2009 12:11 PM in response to Cal Palmore

I think I found the bug : I had the same problem with different size of movies and different number of chapters. Eventually I found that I used the & character in some chapter names. By the just avoiding it, it ran perfectly OK.
Note that I haven't performed an exhaustive test of other potential "bad" characters (accented characters are OK).
Hope this will help.

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Answer 11

Sep 14, 2009 2:16 PM in response to Cal Palmore

Follow up to my earlier post. After much work, I found the one bad chapter marker out of the 40 I had in this project. When I remove that bad marker and Share>Export Movie>Large, everything works as expected and the exported file has chapter markers in it. When I go back and re-add the bad chapter marker and Share>Export Movie>Large there are no chapter markers in the exported file.

In this particular case I tracked it down to iMovie 09 not liking the "&" character! In other words if you create a chapter marker with the text "Fred & Ethyl" it will fail but if you change it to "Fred and Ethyl" everything is OK. I would suggest appleNewbie34 or anyone else having problems with chapter markers go back and check their marker text for unusual characters. Who knows what other characters iMovie 09 doesn't like.

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Answer 12

Sep 14, 2009 2:29 PM in response to mdx

mdx,

Yes the & character was the cause of all my problems. When I came back here to report my success at finding the bug I see that you found it too. Like you said, I wouldn't be surprised if there were other characters that iMovie 09 doesn't like as well.

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Answer 13

Sep 14, 2009 3:49 PM in response to Cal Palmore

Don't know for sure yet but since it was a basketball film I used the @ character to indicate away games. Changed it to "at" and going to try everything again. Hopefully this is the probelm and I will report back with (good) news.

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Answer 14

Sep 14, 2009 4:20 PM in response to Cal Palmore

Seems I had a problem with the "&" in chapter marks when going from iMovie 09 to iDVD as the & was in the last chapter mark and it was never working. I deleted the & not knowing for sure it was a problem. However that wasn't the only problem. I still had to delete iDVD.plist regularly.

On a 30 min iMovie 06 I just used the "&" in chapter marks and it works OK. HOWEVER, I'd edited the iMovie 06 and did the share to iDVD (after deleting iDVD.plist, etc.) and all seemed OK in iDVD. But when I went to create the .img file iDVD said needed to do asset update. I clicked OK and then went to check to see if chapter marks still worked and I'd lost all but one. Don't know why it said needed asset update as I'd closed iMovie. I went through the whole process again and this time made sure iMovie 06 was closed immediately after iDVD opened up. That time the .img was successful. Sure is a pain recreating the iDVD Themes, etc. every time.

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Answer 15

SDMacuser

Level 6

13,585 points

Sep 14, 2009 7:48 PM in response to Cal Palmore

I wouldn't be surprised if there were other characters that iMovie 09 doesn't like as well.

Someone may wish to compile a running list on this forum. We may be able to revive the thread each time we find additional charters that throw a money wrench into iDvd's encoding .....

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