iDVD won’t complete burn + quality poor from disk image

Hi

Then it's hard to suggest much more. You write

The DVD project is based on 2 Quicktime movies, and comprises the following:

1. movie: 12 mins, 5GB, 1280x720 (ProRes422)

2. movie: 2.20mins, 871MB, 1280x720 (ProRes422) created with PhotoPresenter and FCE

3. background image: 1.2MB, JPG, 3000x1868

4. audio for menu page: 1.7MB, mp3

I'd really like to get this one to work!

Mac OS X (10.6.6), 2.53 GHz, 8GB RAM, 500GB, 7

1. I never use ProRes422 - only .dv or AIC

2. I NEVER use QuickTime conversion from FCE/P

3. should work OK

4. Never never .mp3 audio for me - all converted to .aiff 16-bit 48kHz or 44.1kHz (Audio-CD)

And 500Gb Start-Up hard disk is OK - BUT how much of this is free (other hard disks do not count) ?

I never go under 25Gb when using - interlaced SD-Video material (.dv) - If HD-material then 4-5 times more will do.

HD-material - iDVD downscaling process is BAD - so I use what is DVD-Standard (no matter what DVD authoring program used) = interlaced SD-Video

May be You find anything interesting in this note on DVD-Quality I made

DVD quality

1. iDVD 08, 09 & 11 has three levels of qualities. (version 7.0.1, 7,0.4 & 7.1.1) and iDVD 6 has the two last ones

• Professional Quality

(movies + menus up to 120 min.) - BEST (but not always for short movies e.g. up to 45 minutes in total)

• Best Performances

(movies + menus less than 60 min.) - High quality on final DVD (Can be best for short movies)

• High Quality (in iDVD08 or 09) / Best Quality (in iDVD6)

(movies + menus up to 120 min.) - slightly lower quality than above

Menu can take 15 minutes or even more - I use a very simple one with no audio or animation like ”Brushed Metal” in old Themes.

About double on DL DVDs.

2. Video from

• FCE/P - Export out as full quality QuickTime.mov (not self-containing, no conversion)

• iMovie x-6 - Don't use ”Share/Export to iDVD” = destructive even to movie project and especially so

when the movie includes photos and the Ken Burns effect NOT is used. Instead just drop or import the iMovie movie project icon (with a Star on it) into iDVD theme window.

• iMovie’08 or 09 or 11 are not meant to go to iDVD. Go via Media Browser or rather use iMovie HD 6 from start.

3. I use Roxio Toast™ to make an as slow burn as possibly e.g. x4 or x1 (in iDVD’08 or 09 this can also be set)

This can also be done with Apple’s Disk Utilities application when burning from a DiskImage.

4. There has to be about or more than 25Gb free space on internal (start-up) hard disk. iDVD can't

use an external one as scratch disk (if it is not start-up disc). For SD-Video - if HD-material is used I guess that 4 to 5 times more would do.

5. I use Verbatim ( also recommended by many - Taiyo Yuden DVDs - I can’t get hold of it to test )

6. I use DVD-R (no +R or +/-RW) - DVD-R play’s on more and older DVD-Players

7. Keep NTSC to NTSC - or - PAL to PAL when going from iMovie to iDVD

(I use JES_Deinterlacer to keep frame per sec. same from editing to the Video-DVD result.)

8. Don’t burn more than three DVDs at a time - but let the laser cool off for a while before next batch.

iDVD quality also depends on.

• DVD is a standard in it self. It is Standard Definition Quality = Same as on old CRT-TV sets and can not

deliver anything better that this.

HD-DVD was a short-lived standard and it was only a few Toshiba DVD-players that could playback.

These DVDs could be made in DVD-Studio Pro. But they don’t playback on any other standard DVD-Player.

Blu-Ray / BD can be coded onto DVDs but limited in time to - about 20-30 minutes and then need

_ Roxio Toast™ 10 Pro incl. BD-component

_ BD disks and burner if full length movies are to be stored

_ BD-Player or PlayStation3 - to be able to playback

The BD-encoded DVDs can be play-backed IF Mac also have Roxio DVD-player tool. Not on any standard Mac or DVD-player

Full BD-disks needs a BD-player (in Mac) as they need blue-laser to be read. No red-laser can do this.

• HOW much free space is there on Your internal (start-up) hard disk. Go for approx. 25Gb.

less than 5Gb and Your result will most probably not play.

• How it was recorded - Tripod vs Handheld Camera. A stable picture will give a much higher quality

• Audio is most often more critical than picture. Bad audio and with dropouts usually results in a non-viewed movie.

• Use of Video-editor. iMovie’08 or 09 or 11 are not the tools for DVD-production. They discard every second line resulting in a close to VHS-tape quality.

iMovie 1 to HD6 and FinalCut any version delivers same quality as Camera record in = 100% to iDVD

• What kind of movie project You drop into it. MPEG4 seems to be a bad choice.

other strange formats are .avi, .wmv, .flash etc. Convert to streamingDV first

Also audio formats matters. I use only .aiff or from miniDV tape Camera 16-bit

strange formats often problematic are .avi, .wmv, audio from iTunes, .mp3 etc

Convert to .aiff first and use this in movie project

• What kind of standard - NTSC movie and NTSC DVD or PAL to PAL - no mix.

(If You need to change to do a NTSC DVD from PAL material let JES_Deinterlacer_3.2.2 do the conversion)

(Dropping a PAL movie into a NTSC iDVD project

(US) NTSC DVDs most often are playable in EU

(EU) PAL DVDs most often needs to be converted to play in US

UNLESS. They are play-backed by a Mac - then You need not to care

• What kind of DVDs You are using. I use Verbatim DVD-R (this brand AND no +R or +/-RW)

• How You encode and burn it. Two settings prior iDVD’08 or 09

Pro Quality (only in iDVD 08 & 09)

Best / High Quality (not always - most often not)

Best / High Performances (most often my choice before Pro Quality)

1. go to iDVD pref. menu and select tab far right and set burn speed to x1 (less errors = plays better) - only in iDVD 08 & 09

(x4 by some and may be even better)

2. Project info. Select Professional Encoding - only in iDVD 08 & 09.

Region codes.

iDVD - only burn Region = 0 - meaning - DVDs are playable everywhere

DVD Studio pro can set Region codes.

1 = US

2 = EU

unclemano wrote

What it turned out to be was the "quality" settings in iDVD. The total clip time was NOT over 2 hours or 4.7GB, yet iDVD created massive visual artifacts on the "professional quality" setting.

I switched the settings to "high quality" which solved the problem. According iDVD help, "high quality" determines the best bit rate for the clips you have.

I have NEVER seen iDVD do this before, especially when I was under the 2 hour and 4.7GB limits.

For anyone else, there seem to be 2 places in iDVD to set quality settings, the first is under "preferences" and the second under "project info." They do NOT seem to be linked (i.e. if you change one, the other is NOT changed). take care, Mario

to get this to work I

• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up (Mac OS) hard disk

• Use Verbatim DVD-R (absolutely no +/-RW)

• Set down burn speed to x4 - less burn errors = plays on more devices

• No other process running in background as - ScreenSaver, EnergySaver OR TIMEMACHINE etc

• and I'm very careful on what kind of video-codecs, audio file format and photo file formats I use

• and I consider the iDVD Bug - never go back to video-editor to change/up-date - if so Start a brand new iDVD project

• Chapters set as they should - NO one at very beginning and no one in any transition or within 2 sec from it

• Lay-out - Turn on TV-Safe area and keep everything buttons, titles etc WELL INSIDE not even touching it !

Try to break the process up into two stages

• Save as a DiskImage (calculating part)

• Burn from this .img file (burning stage)

To isolate where the problem starts.

Another thing is - Playing it onto a Blu-Ray Player. My PlayStation3 can play BD-disks but not all of my home made DVDs so to get this to work I

• Secure a minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up (Mac OS) hard disk

• Use Verbatim DVD-R (absolutely no +/-RW)

• Set down burn speed to x4 - less burn errors = plays on more devices

• No other process running in background as - ScreenSaver, EnergySaver OR TIMEMACHINE etc

• and I'm very careful on what kind of video-codecs, audio file format and photo file formats I use

• and I consider the iDVD Bug - never go back to video-editor to change/up-date - if so Start a brand new iDVD project

• Chapters set as they should - NO one at very beginning and no one in any transition or within 2 sec from it

• Lay-out - Turn on TV-Safe area and keep everything buttons, titles etc WELL INSIDE not even touching it !

TO GET IT TO WORK SLIGHTLY FASTER

• Minimum of 25Gb free space on Start-Up hard disk

• No other programs running in BackGround e.g. Energy-Saver

• Don’t let HD spin down or be turned off (in Energy-Save)

• Move hard disks that are not to be used to Trash - To be disconnected/turned off

• Goto Spotlight and set the rest of them under Integrity (not to be scanned)

• Set screen-saver to a folder without any photo - then make an active corner (up right for me) and set

pointer to this - turns on screen saver - to show that it has nothing to show

• No File Vault on - Important

• NO - TimeMachine - during iMovie/iDVD work either ! IMPORTANT

• Lot's of icons on DeaskTop/Finder also slows down the Mac noticeably

• Start a new User-Account and log into this and iMovie get's faster too - if a project is in a hurry

• And let Mac run on Mains - not just on battery

Yours Bengt W

Did You try

in iDVD - Save as a DiskImage ?

How does this play (with DVD-player tool) ?

If OK - then burn by using Disk Util tool. Now no premature ejects or multiplex error should be able to occur.

Yours Bengt W

This might help:

1 - delete the IDVD preference file, com.apple.iDVD.plist, that resides in your

User/Home()/Library/ Preferences folder.

2 - delete IDVD'S cache file, Cache.db, that is located in your

User/Home()/Library/Caches/com.apple.iDVD folder.

Click to view full size

3 - launch IDVD and try again.

In Lion and Mountain Lion the Library folder is now invisible. To make it permanently visible enter the following in the Terminal application window: chflags nohidden ~/Library and hit the Enter button - 10.7: Un-hide the User Library folder. Once the library is visible you can easily locate and delete those two files.

OT

Hi Conran.

I'm having the same frustrating experience.

Although I have managed to burn one or two (out of several attempts), they do not work on my DVD player, nor on my computer (the message says "not permitted").

I'm sure they may be some clues in Bengt's reply, but really, should that be necessary!?

WHY doesn't it just work??

This is a Mac for Christ's sake. Things are supposed to JUST WORK!!

This plainly doesn't.

Now I'm off to try other ways and probably waste more of my precious time.

Cheers.

SUCCESS!!!

The post above did it for me:

in iDVD - Save as a DiskImage ?

How does this play (with DVD-player tool) ?

If OK - then burn by using Disk Util tool. Now no premature ejects or multiplex error should be able to occur.

How does this play (with DVD-player tool?

Double click on the disk image to open/mount it and then launch DVD Player. It will recognize the video DVD and play it.

WHY doesn't it just work??

This is a Mac for Christ's sake. Things are supposed to JUST WORK!!

The last support of iDVD by Apple was with Snow Lion. We're two operating systems since of the last update to iDVD. We're lucky it's working as well as it is.

I'm having the identical problem, and am using the poor-video-quality DVDs produced by Disk Utility for now, but would really like to get the better quality video. What happens if you save the file as a VIDEO_TS folder from iDVD? Is there a way to use Disk Utility or some other app to create a DVD using that, and would it correct the loss of video quality, do you think?

Maybe going back to iMovie and exporting it as a DV Stream would work? (Share/Export using QuickTime.../Movie to DV Stream) I just don't know the way to take the resulting file and get it onto a DVD.

Sorry these aren't necessarily solutions, just thoughts as I'm trying, with very limited experience, to work through the same issues you're having. 😕

Disk Utility does not have anything to do with the quality of the final video DVD. It just burns the disk image to disk. iDVD created the disk image of Video_TS folder.

Read Bengt Wärleby's post on iDVD quality in this topic: I'm getting poor quality DVDs from i: Apple Support Communities

Thanks, I think Conran and I both understand that. The reason for using Disk Utility is that iDVD cannot complete the burn itself, but results in an error that aborts the process and ejects the blank DVD. To burn the DVDs, we have opted to use iDVD to save the project as a Disk Image, then use Disk Utility to burn the DVD. However, in creating the Disk Image, iDVD has been compromising the video quality considerably. But are you saying that whether iDVD is used to create a Disk Image or a VIDEO_TS folder, which are two separate options, the video quality will still suffer? Though I know little about this, I think I understand that the VIDEO_TS folder is necessary for a DVD to work, so I presume creating a Disk Image must somehow incorporate a VIDEO_TS folder within it. I was just wondering if perhaps using iDVD to save as a VIDEO_TS folder by itself, and not a Disk Image, might somehow eliminate the loss of video quality.

This is what the content of an video disk created by iDVD or any commercial video disc contains:

Did you read Bengt Wärleby's post about what affects iDVD quality?

Thank you for reply. I guess there's no point in bothering to create a VIDEO_TS folder without syncing the audio with it. I did read Bengt's post (and a few others as well), and have checked all that I could to ensure the best video quality. Given all of this, I'm not sure I'll be able to get it any better. It's a shame, because when iDVD actually managed to successfully burn the DVDs, I never had video quality problems. It's only now that I have to make a Disk Image and burn it with Disk Utility that it has become an issue. I just don't know what to do about it. Thanks for all your suggestions! 🙂