GRRR! "There was an error during movie encoding"

Question

Level 1

4 points

GRRR! "There was an error during movie encoding"

I can't seem to compile and burn a DVD to save my life with iDVD. I have a video that I created and exported using iMovie and two shorter ones created in Photoshop CS6 — all three are the same encoding: 1920 x 1080, H.264, AAC, Color profile: HD (1-1-1). The one exported with iMovie is a .mov file and the other two are .mp4 files — none of them with any sort of copyright/permissions protection on them.

iDVD previews them all just fine, but EVERY SINGLE TIME I go to try and burn a DVD it gives me the above error message, "Encoding Video: There was an error during movie encoding" which tells me absolutely nothing. This might not stress me out so much if it were just a personal project, but rather it's for a friend's wedding that I shot and iDVD's failure to do a basic thing like encode video is really ticking me off.

I tried to localize the issue by trying to burn just the .mov file and then just one of the .m4v files — and have found it chokes on m4v files. Why is this so??

If I'm doing something wrong, the error message should give me a little more feedback than just "oh there was an error."

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jun 23, 2012 8:18 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 23, 2012 11:49 PM in response to mtwords

Hi

We are only Users - trying to help other users - rarely Apple or program developer drop in for a look so I would send feedback here

• www.apple.com/feedback/idvd.html

BUT as Apple discarded the product in all - can not even be bought any more - any further development is most certainly never to be.

But what You feed iDVD matters and - You and so many more has the idea that .mov or .m4v etc are movie formats/codecs - they are not - only containers - so to figure out what You give iDVD You need to find what's in them. I do like this

• Open them in QuickTime Player

• here open Inspector [cmd+I]

• read - Video Format/Codec: nnnnnnn

What does it say and in what frame rate (fps) ?

iDVD can only do good (very good) DVDs when feed

25 or 29.97 fps

interlaced SD-Video

So by feeding it 1920x1080 24fps - to make a NTSC (29.97fps) DVD - result will be very BAD. Conversion is of need. I use following programs to do this

• Frame Rate - JES_Deinterlacer

• MPEG Streamclip

• QuickTime 7.6 + Pro-upgrade

Yours Bengt W

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Answer 2

mtwords Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 24, 2012 4:56 AM in response to Bengt Wärleby

After inspecting the files, I noticed that the .m4v file framerates were actually 30 fps, whereas the .mov files were 29.99 fps. As a last ditch effort, I opened up the .m4v files in QuickTime, exported them as 1080p .mov files, and it appears that iDVD is proceeding along normally.

I don't know if iDVD is choking on the .01 FPS difference (seems odd to me that it'd make any difference with only 1/100th of a second difference) or the file format (.mp4).

At any rate, it appears to be working now and is presently burning — switching to the .mov file format worked. Whether it's the file format or it auto-converting the framerate to 29.99 (from 30), I don't know. I'll have to investigate that later.

Thanks for your repsonse Bengt.

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Answer 3

Jun 24, 2012 8:26 AM in response to mtwords

fps diff of .01 - is just academic as 29.97fps most often are refered to as 30fps.

But feeding iDVD

24fps or 25fps - to a 30fps (NTSC) project = Bad result and so

24fps or 30fps - to a 25fps (PAL) project also results in BAD DVDs

also freeding iDVD HD (1920x1080) or any progressiv as 60p or 50p - will not improve a bit but result in a BAD DVD.

I feed iDVD

• interlaced SD-Video of same fps as I project is set to. PAL or NTSC (no more options avail.)

(streamingDV .dv)

Yours Bengt W

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Answer 4

Aug 15, 2012 8:38 AM in response to mtwords

mtwords's tip about opening the .m4v files with QuickTime X and exporting them as .mov files worked for me. Thanks so much!

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Answer 5

Nov 22, 2012 8:38 PM in response to mtwords

I‘m sorry to tell you that iDVD only surpports QuickTime format and the fileshould be smaller than the standard DVD size of 720 x 540 pixels (NTSC) or 768 x 576 pixels (PAL).

LEAN MORE: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH5505

So you have to use an app to convert 1080p video to iDVD format.

Tip: For best results, in the QuickTime export settings of your video editing application, choose NTSC-DV with a frame rate of 29.97 or PAL-DV with a frame rate of 25. Choose No Compression for audio, and set the sample rate to 48 kilohertz.

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Answer 6

1ricca

Level 1

14 points

Dec 30, 2012 8:46 PM in response to mtwords

SOLVED: most .mp4 files cause this error.

Simply re-export your project or just re-encode the already outputted file as .mov or .m4v and it will fix this.

However, there are still other things that can cause this too, so don't be surprised to find out you have a compound issue if you solve just this one thing.

Your file should always be either 29.97 or 23.97 fps non-interlaced (progressive). If your source footage is 59.97 or higher or is interlaced in certain ways, you will have issues encoding and/or bad quality.

The easier way to fix this issue is to just take the file you are dropping into iDVD and recompress it in Apple Compressor or similar app as make sure the output settings are at one of the correct frame rates and not an mp4, preferably a .mov file.

I hope this helps. Drives me nuts that it can't simply do mp4's.

here's a helpful thread on how to easily do this for free: http://www.applemacvideo.com/idvd/import-mp4-to-idvd.html

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