Problems burning DVD from Final Cut Pro

There is a free program called Burn. Itcan make a video DVD. You could export a movie out of FCP and try using Burn to make a DVD. Be sure to choose video DVD and not data; the latter would make a DVD with your movie file in it, and would not play in regular DVD players.

When the export stops, is it at 66%?

That is when the data compression is done and the creation of the actual disc starts. In some cases, the embedded Create Disc application fails to launch and the whole process stalls.

One possible workaround is to manually launch the Create Disc application ahead of time. Now this is embedded deep inside the FCP application bundle. If you want to try it, I can later look for it and tell where it is and how to manually launch it.

Sounds like you have determined a software or media issue which is great. Please still keep in mind the other information I provided as that is still relevant.

In order to find your problem area of your movie project, there is a concept of "delete half and half" that I've used for years to quickly find your problem. As long as your whole movie project is saved in its current broken state, you can just delete the first half of the time line and then try to export the last half. If the export still doesn't work, then revert back to your saved project or undo the delete and then delete the second half of your video time line. If it now exports you know where your problem is. You can do the same process to the back half of the video project until you find the actual area or transition, audio file or effect that is preventing the entire project from exporting properly. Fix that issue or rebuild it and Voila problem solved.

Todd Derek | Apple Consultant

The one I remember was free.

I am not at my mac to confirm the exact details but to reach the Create Disc, you’ll have to go to the Applications folder, control-click on Final Cut Pro, and choose Show Package Contents; then drill down a few levels (perhaps needing to do Show Package Contents once more) until you reach a subfolder Embedded Apps with Create Disc inside. Do NOT make any changes inside the application package. Either drag Create Disc to the Dock, or Command-Option-drag to the desktop to make an alias.

Then try launching the Creste Disc app before starting your export.

This is the one I had in mind:

https://burn-osx.sourceforge.io/Pages/English/home.html

Note that, as per the screenshots, the one you showed from the App Store does not seem to support making an actual video DVD.

Your issue may be more general than just exporting/burning a disc. Have you checked your boot drive usage, or any drive you have assigned to use with FCP? If you are running out of drive space you might see similar behavior. Also, make sure any external drive is formatted with APFS for SSDs and HFS+ for HDDs. During burning or export, your Project/timeline is rendered and that can quickly add a lot of media to your various drives...

Thanks for including the screen shots! Here's what I'd recommend...

First, it's important to understand and communicate in your question the difference between DVD-Data and DVD-Video formatted DVD disks. If you want to create a DVD-Video disk that you can put into a DVD video player, and which has a DVD menu system or even simply a way for the user to navigate with their remote to play the one or multiple videos that are on the DVD-Video disk, you must format and prepare the DVD disk in that format.

If you are creating a video in whatever output you want (.mov, .mp4 etc.) as a single digital file, you can export that to your Movies project folder as a flat completed file from what you made from FCP. Then when you insert your blank DVD-Data disk, you can manually copy that file or multiple videos to the disk on your desktop. Then when you eject it, it will burn the data to the disk. This can be transported to any other computer that still has access to a DVD SuperDrive. (Yikes)

One last think to consider is that in your FCP screen shot, you have the output set to your hard drive not a connected SuperDrive. Since the Mac Studio does not come with an internal SuperDrive, perhaps you have the external Apple SuperDrive (MD564LL/A) connected to your Mac Studio (which would also require a USB-C to USB adapter MJ1M2AM/A), there's no trace or mention of an external SuperDrive connected in your screen shots.

Note: In these more modern times, most are exporting to YouTube, Vimeo or other media serving platform in 4K. That way it can be shared to many w/o the use of a DVD disk that scratches and usable by one person at a time.

Apple Consultant | Todd Derek