iDVD. Poor quality video in drop zones

I've been out of the iDVD loop for some time now... One thing that used to solve some problems was repairing permissions; but I doubt that will solve your problem. Might be more of a matter like how the video was shot and what quality.

Since it's been a couple of months since this problem was posted, maybe it was solved?

Hi

No direct answer as I usually do not use "Drop Zones" - still might be interesting to discuss.

- Video material dropped into this "Button Viewer" - Was in what Video-Codec ?

- How many minutes was this clip ?

I would use

# Video-Codec = AIC or StreamingDV

# just a few minutes - as this can not play the full movie anyway.

- Free Space on Start-Up (Boot) Hard Disk (Macintosh HD) ? How much ?

I never let this go less than 25Gb when SD-Video Quality material is used and about 4 - 5 times more if HD-material is used.

Yours thinking out aloud. Bengt W

Just tested the drop zone in the same theme that you posted with a video created with PhotoPresenter and it was very sharp.

Try this basic troubleshooting fix:

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

User/Home/Library/ Preferences folder.

2 - delete the contents of IDVD'S cache folder: User/Home/Library/Caches/com.apple.iDVD.

3 - launch IDVD and try again with a new project with the same theme.

NOTE: In Lion and Mountain Lion the Home/Library folder is now invisible. To make it permanently visible enter the following in the Terminal application window: chflags nohidden ~/Library and press the Return key - 10.7: Un-hide the User Library folder.

If you're running Mavericks, 10.9, go to your Home folder and use the View ➙ Show View Options menu to bring the this window:

You're 'da man!!! I base that on your answer and the fact that a woman would not refer to herself as Old Toad. 😝

Thanks for helping with this issue!!!

Len

A corrupt preference file can cause a multitude of of problems within an application. We see it happen often in iPhoto as well as other other apps. It's a basic troubleshooting procedure for when an app seems to have gone off the rails.

No.

HI

Me just thinking out aloud.

What would happen if the video-clips used for these button-movies was de-interlaced (made as progressive instead of interlaced) ?

Will the problem be less noticable ?

To me it sounds as an interlace problem. So just adding a still photo should result in a clearer picture.

IF NOT - then the problem is of a much deeper art.

Yours Bengt W

Just created a test project with that same theme and added a 5 minute movie to the drop zone and set the loop for the full 5 minutes. The encoding was set for Best Performance to elicit pre encoding of any video files. Added the same movie to the menu and only it began pre encoding. Saved as a disk image and played with DVD Player to compare the drop zone to the movie itself in the video DVD.

The drop zone movie wasn't as sharp as the version added as a movie to the menu. But then, I suppose it isn't supposed to be as it's only a menu enhancement and not primary element of the video DVD.

In the screenshot the video used for the drop zone is highlighted. Below in the next pane is the encoded video added directly to the menu.

I guess it's just the nature of the beast.

This is the format of the video I tested: