Q: idvd on my mac

iDVD, being dead and unsupported for over 3 years, is not compatible with the new Photos library.  So now we must export the photos we want to use in the iDVD project to a folder on the hard drive and import them from there into the iDVD project by dragging and dropping,

. Why the heck have it on the computer if you cannot see the photos. I am really ticked.

You'll notice it's not offered any more by Apple.  And why to have it on the computer?  Even with it's import shortcoming it still, far and away, the best video DVD authoring application for the Mac.  So much so that I have a bootable external hard drive with Mavericks setup to run iDVD, iMovie 6 HD and other oldies but goodies when I need to.

You don't have to keep iDVD on your computer.  There a a number of video DVD authoring apps available from the App Store and some are free with more full featured versions available for purchase.

iMovie will only crate a movie file of photos from the Photos library.  You'll still have to export the movie as 480p and manually drag it into the iDVD menu window. 

It's pretty easy to drag a number of selected image files into an  iDVD slideshow window to create the slideshow.  Try it and see.

In the Photos library.  Select the images you want to use and go to the File ➙ Export X Photos menu option:

First create a folder on the Desktop and then export the photos into that folder.  Drag the image files from that folder into the open iDVD project window.  Also do not move or delete that folder until the iDVD project is completed and burned to disk or saved as a disk image.

Follow this workflow to help assure the best qualty video DVD:

Once you have the project as you want it save it as a disk image via the File ➙ Save as Disk Image  menu option. This will separate the encoding process from the burn process.

 

To check the encoding mount the disk image, launch DVD Player and play it.  If it plays OK with DVD Player the encoding is good.

 

Then burn to disk with Disk Utility or Toast at the slowest speed available (2x-4x) to assure the best burn quality.  Always use top quality media:  Verbatim, Maxell or Taiyo Yuden DVD-R are the most recommended in these forums.

You can set the play time for each slide to up to 59 seconds (in square box) or, depending on the number of slides set the total play time to  the max (in oval),

The screenshot above is for a slideshow of 641 images, thus 344 minutes.  For a slideshow of 57 images the max play time was 57 minutes.  Setting the max time would be much easier than having to set each slide individually to the 59 seconds.

If you use iDVD to create the slideshows from still image files that you've exported out of the Photos library and import into iDVD you can set the slideshow to manual as long as no music has been selected to play:

You can also drag the folder you use to export from Photos to into the iDVD/Media/Photos window so it will always be there to access the photos for the slideshow:

.

Create a slideshow in the iDVD project by selecting Add Slideshow from this menu:

Then double click on My Slideshow to get to this window where the manual selection and adding of photos is done.

and unsupported for over 3 years

Someone at Apple must still like optical media.  I am thankful that they leave the iDVD section open.   So in a sense, they are still supporting iDVD to a certain point.