Burning movies using iDVD?

iDVD encoding settings:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=iDVD/7.0/en/11417.html

Short version:

Best Performance is for videos of up to 60 minutes

Best Quality is for videos of up to 120 minutes

Professional Quality is also for up to 120 minutes but even higher quality (and takes much longer)

That was for single-layer DVDs. Double these numbers for dual-layer DVDs.

Professional Quality: The Professional Quality option uses advanced technology to encode your video, resulting in the best quality of video possible on your burned DVD. You can select this option regardless of your project’s duration (up to 2 hours of video for a single-layer disc and 4 hours for a double-layer disc). Because Professional Quality encoding is time-consuming (requiring about twice as much time to encode a project as the High Quality option, for example) choose it only if you are not concerned abo

In both cases the maximum length includes titles, transitions and effects etc. Allow about 15 minutes for these.

You can use the amount of video in your project as a rough determination of which method to choose. If your project has an hour or less of video (for a single-layer disc), choose Best Performance. If it has between 1 and 2 hours of video (for a single-layer disc), choose High Quality. If you want the best possible encoding quality for projects that are up to 2 hours (for a single-layer disc), choose Professional Quality. This option takes about twice as long as the High Quality option, so select it only if time is not an issue for you.

Use the Capacity meter in the Project Info window (choose Project > Project Info) to determine how many minutes of video your project contains.

NOTE: With the Best Performance setting, you can turn background encoding off by choosing Advanced > “Encode in Background.” The checkmark is removed to show it’s no longer selected. Turning off background encoding can help performance if your system seems sluggish.

And whilst checking these settings in iDVD Preferences, make sure that the settings for NTSC/PAL and DV/DV Widescreen are also what you want.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1502?viewlocale=en_US

The cause of the problem could be two-fold: the one stated, and your choice of the outdated Microsoft AVI file container which, depending on the video codec used, may not be compatible.

But if the video plays in Quicktime and/or iMovie it should be OK. Does it?

Encoding can take a considerable time. 4 hours is not unusual.

(From fellow poster Mishmumken: )

How to create a DVD in iDVD without menu (there are several options):

1. Easy: Drop your iMovie in the autoplay box in iDVD's Map View, then set your autoplay item (your movie) to loop continously. Disadvantage: The DVD plays until you hit stop on the remote

2. Still easy: If you don't want your (autoplay) movie to loop, you can create a black theme by replacing the background of a static theme with a black background and no content in the dropzone (text needs to be black as well). Disadvantage: The menu is still there and will play after the movie. You don't see it, but your disc keeps spinning in the player.

3. Still quite easy but takes more time: Export the iMovie to DV tape, and then re-import using One-Step DVD.

Disadvantage: One-Step DVD creation has been known to be not 100% reliable.

4. (My preferred method) Easy enough but needs 3rd party software: Roxio Toast lets you burn your iMovie to DVD without menu - just drag the iMovie project to the Toast Window and click burn. Disadvantage: you'll need to spend some extra $$ for the software. In Toast, you just drop the iMovie project on the Window and click Burn.

5. The "hard way": Postproduction with myDVDedit (freeware)

Tools necessary: myDVDedit ( http://www.mydvdedit.com )

• create a disc image of your iDVD project, then double-click to mount it.

• Extract the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders to a location of your choice. select the VIDEO_TS folder and hit Cmd + I to open the Inspector window

• Set permissions to "read & write" and include all enclosed items; Ignore the warning.

• Open the VIDEO_TS folder with myDVDedit. You'll find all items enclosed in your DVD in the left hand panel.

• Select the menu (usually named VTS Menu) and delete it

• Choose from the menu File > Test with DVD Player to see if your DVD behaves as planned.If it works save and close myDVDedit.

• Before burning the folders to Video DVD, set permissions back to "read only", then create a disc image burnable with Disc Utility from a VIDEO_TS folder using Laine D. Lee's DVD Imager:

http://lonestar.utsa.edu/llee/applescript/dvdimager.html

Our resident expert, Old Toad, also recommends this: there is a 3rd export/share option that give better results. That's to use the Share ➙ Media Browser menu option. Then in iDVD go to the Media Browser and drag the movie into iDVD where you want it.

Hope this helps!

I don't know what 'UK Player' is, but you may need to convert the file to a format that Quicktime and/or iMovie can understand.

For that you need mpegStreamclip:

http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html

which is free.