Q: iDVD messing up chapter marks, making them useless

Thanks, OT, for your quick response. It was helpful ...and inspirational (I was getting despressed about this problem!). I have now successfully burned the DVD. Here's what I did:

1) I re-opened iMovie and checked that all was OK with my movie and its 11 chapter marks. None was too close to a transition. Everything was fine. I knew not to create a chapter mark at the very beginning. One chapter title had a comma in it, but I decided to leave it there and hope for the best (in the end, no problem).

2) I created a new iDVD project, got the warning about changed assets and clicked "Proceed". I had to, to proceed any further. I decided to proceed with great caution, so after each of the following steps, I saved the project, closed the file, re-opened the file, and tested that all was still working OK (especially the ability to go directly to any chapter using the on-screen "remote" control)….

3) In the Project menu, I checked the Info settings and changed the disk type to DVD-DL (as this was a rather long video);

4) For the main screen, I selected an Old Theme (this video was shot in 4:3 aspect);

5) For the two sub-screens, I selected the sub-screen of a different old theme (I like the way this handled the list of chapters better);

6) On the main screen, I re-positioned some of the text, and assigned different fonts and colours of fonts;

7) On the sub-screens, did the same;

8) I renamed the first (automatic) chapter label. It was showing "Beginning" but I wanted something more relevant;

9) On the main screen, I added three drop-in photos, maximum allowed;

10) On the sub-screens, I added one drop-in photo to each, maximum allowed;

11) On the two sub-screens, I replaced the background image with another of my own;

12) On both sub-screens, I added music. The main screen already had canned music & I left that as is, but may try a change another time;

Happily, after each of these steps, after closing and re-opening the file, the project video seemed to work fine on the computer. If a problem with chapter usage had occurred, I would have been able to isolate the change that triggered the problem. None of these did.

So, with intrepidation, I clicked on "Burn" button, and inserted a blank disk when requested. It took a few hours, but turned out successful!

CONCLUSION:  The most important thing is to ensure there are no unsaved changes in the iMovie file, when starting iDVD. In iDVD, save your work frequently (after every change) so it's easier to recover if necessary, and thoroughly "test" the video (in iDVD) after every change before making the next change. This takes more time, but can save a lot of grief (& wasted time) later.

Hope this advice can help others. Thanks again for yours.

FF

==

i forgot to mention that before starting iDVD, I turned OFF the following in System Prefs:

- Time Machine

- Energy Saver

- Screen Saver

i didn't want anything interfering with the iDVD process.

Thanks.

I'm using Verbatim DVD+R DL disks for this project.

Apparently DL disks burned from disc images may not play well on some players. This warning appeared when trying  Save as Disc Image.

MAybe still a good way to test the video before burning normally.