Magic iDVD damaging disc when burning

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Magic iDVD damaging disc when burning

I recently successfully made a slideshow using Photos slideshow and stock music (duration approx. 62 mins.) and burned disc using Magic iDVD. Btw, I didn't click "create project", just chose theme, dragged and dropped movie, and clicked burn. No problems. I then went back to my Photos slideshow and added my own soundtrack (now duration is almost 70 mins), exported again (which overwrote slideshow since I kept same title) and went through the same actions to burn disc. Now on playback disc freezes 3/4 of way through. Thinking maybe it was bad disc, I tried again to burn and this time on playback picture was shaky around edges and disc frozen much sooner. I don't know what the problem is or how to fix.

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), Magic iDVD troubles

Posted on Oct 8, 2015 1:48 PM

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Answer 1

Old Toad

Level 10

216,178 points

Oct 9, 2015 9:24 AM in response to lfelipeasks

iDVD has a bug that if any of the video media is edited after it has been added to the project it will produce errors upon encoding. So since you edited the slideshow you should start a new project rather than use the existing one.

Also 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.

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Answer 2

lfelipeasks Author

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Oct 12, 2015 6:06 PM in response to Old Toad

Thank you for taking the time to help. I followed these steps to try again, but test video quality is poor: First, I trashed existing slideshow video files so I would have a fresh project. I exported my Slideshow Project again (which saves in Movies), this time export time doubled to 15 hours. File is 5.5gb and plays perfectly. I opened Magic DVD, dragged & dropped my video, clicked create, and used advanced preferences to change speed to 1x at Best Performance and followed advice to File-Save as Disk Image. My video compressed to 4.04gb (thankfully will fit onto disc) but on playback video quality is not as good and image shakes in different areas of screen. I haven't tried burning a disc as it seems quality won't be too great and it has that same shaky quality as my first attempt when discs were damaged on burning.

Is there anything else I can try? Would there be a different outcome if I selected "Create Project" instead of "Magic DVD" in iDVD menu? I do not want to use a DL disc since I will be giving these as gifts and I understand these don't play on all DVD players. I also can't figure out why my first slideshow project video, which used the standard theme music, worked without a hitch.

Any insight or tips would be really appreciated. Thanks!

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

216,178 points

Oct 13, 2015 8:31 AM in response to lfelipeasks

The video format for the exported slideshow should be 480p. Anything larger requires iDVD to downsize it to 480p at a loss of resolution.

I exported my Slideshow Project again (which saves in Movies)

Don't you mean iTunes? Photos doesn't have an option in it's export to send movies to iMovie, only tunes.

My video compressed to 4.04gb (thankfully will fit onto disc)

iDVD will always fit the contents of the project to one disk as long as the total playing time is limited to 120 minutes or less (including animated menus) and either High Quality or Professional Quality encoding is selected.

Is there anything else I can try? Would there be a different outcome if I selected "Create Project" instead of "Magic DVD" in iDVD menu?

That I can't address as I've never used the Magic DVD method.

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