Level 1

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Chapter markers in iMovie leading to Scene Selection in iDVD not working

I'm attempting to create a DVD with scene selection. My original file in iMovie (10.1.14) has chapter markers inserted at the desired spots. I've exported it as a .mov file, and imported it into iDVD (7.1.2). From I've read in the iDVD Help document, importing it into iDVD should result in a Scene Selection button in the main window and a Chapters pane next to Themes, Buttons and Media, with buttons for each of chapter markers. However, neither of these things has happened.

If I single-click on the Play button in the main window, I can select "Create Chapter Markers for Movie" from the Advanced menu, that only allows for markers at uniform times—not at the specific spots needed.

According to the Help document, one can set the iDVD preferences for when to create chapter submenus. I do have the "Create chapter submenus" option selected, but it hasn't helped.

As Apple apparently no longer supports either of these applications, I'm not sure that contacting them would be of any help.

Thanks for any guidance!

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on Jan 5, 2020 9:17 PM

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Old Toad

Level 10

215,900 points

Posted on Jan 8, 2020 9:44 AM

That last system that iDVD was fully compatible with was High Sierra, 10.13. After that it continuall was less compatible with each succeeding system. You'd be best served by creating an external boot drove with High Sierra and use to when you want to use iDVD or migrate on to one of the many video DVD authoring apps that are available at the App Store.

If you use still photos to create video DVDs along with movie files there are two apps that look promising: Wondershare DVD Creator and DVD Maker Lite - DVD Creator. I've done minimal testing on both and believe Wondershare is easier to use. Both can save the project as disk images and both have demo versions to test before purchasing.

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Ken Parsons Author

Level 1

12 points

Jan 9, 2020 12:06 PM in response to Old Toad

Sorry for the delayed response, but I've been trying the various strategies that you've each proposed (thanks, Old Toad, for chiming in!). Alas, nothing has worked.

I can't create a disk image from either the newest file or the original iMovie 6 file (sans chapters) produces the same error message.

I investigated the DVD authoring apps you recommended, but found that—although its website says nothing about this!—the Mac version of Wondershare DVD Creator does not do chapters! I discovered this only after having paid for it, and am now tussling with the company for a refund. DVD Maker Lite–DVD Creator may possibly do the job, but it's so counterintuitive, and its manual written in such mangled English as to be indecipherable that I gave up. The others I looked at either didn't do chapters or were quite expensive. This project is pretty much a one off—I'm just doing a favor for a student who wanted her senior violin recital transferred to DVD. As I doubt I'll do this again, I don't want to spend a lot of money.

I bought a 64GB usb drive, formatted it as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), and copied iDVD to it, but the same problems came along for the ride.

I'm now trying to install High Sierra on said drive (per Old Toad's suggestion), but am hitting yet another wall: I've downloaded the High Sierra installer, but when I attempt to open it, I get this message:

I tried moving the installer to the usb drive and opening it from there, but got the same result.

So again, I'm stumped. Any suggestions welcome—what I thought would be a 2–3 hour weekend project has ballooned into something far larger!

Ken Parsons Author

Level 1

12 points

Jan 9, 2020 2:09 PM in response to thesurreyfriends

As the video is over an hour long, I have Encoding set to Professional Quality, as per your suggestion.

Jan 9, 2020 2:33 PM in response to Ken Parsons

OK.

Regarding High Sierra Install, have a look in your applications folder.You might see "Install OS High Sierra"

EDIT

Sorry, you have already done that.

Jan 11, 2020 11:00 AM in response to Ken Parsons

Great news!

Thanks for letting us know.

Jan 8, 2020 2:46 AM in response to Ken Parsons

Difficult to know what is going on, especially as we know that iDVD is glitchy in recent OSs.

Some of my themes don't work as they should and that is 3 OSs younger than yours.( El Capitan.)

As you are still in testing mode then best to create disc image each time and test in DVD player.You can then burn to DVD from the disc image once you have proved it is OK. Control click disc image>Burn.

if your video is less than 1 hour in duration then in iDVD> Preferences>Projects, select Encoding to Best Performance.

If over 1 hour select Professional Quality.These changes take effect on new Projects, so make new Project after making the change.

Playing around like this can be very time consuming and before you know it many hours can go by.

With regards to the external drive approach mentioned above, I suppose you could test it out using a USB stick of say 16GB.

Format the stick to Mac OS extended (journaled), in Disk Utility.This will erase what is on it so copy over anything you want to keep. Then copy iDVD onto the stick and run it from there. I have not tried this but it should work.It will be very slow but it just might test the principle for you if you want to pursue the external hard drive route.

Might be worth trying another video file from iMovie 10 to iMovie 6 to iDVD to see if it makes any difference. It only needs to be a few minutes long to test.

I assume that the video file from iMovie 10 is ProRes? Is that correct?

As it seems that iDVD did not get to the burning stage in your last post then your discs are probably still useable, i.e. they have not been written to yet.

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Chapter markers in iMovie leading to Scene Selection in iDVD not working