Q: iDVD no longer burns, El Capitan

How much free space do you have on your boot drive?

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.

NOTE: In Lion and Mountain Lion, and later 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 or later go to your Home folder and use the View ➙ Show View Options menu to bring the this window:

Create a new project with a few of the same photos and follow this workflow to see if you can create a disk image:

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.

If you can then the old project is damaged and should be recreated from scratch.

Are the photos you're using large in pixel dimensions or file size? Are they all jpegs?  One user had problems with very large pixel dimension images.  See if you can create a project with about 10 different photos and save to disk image.

As a test log into another user account on your Mac and see if you can create and save to disk image an iDVD project.  This will tell us if the problem is system wide or limited to your account..

Also dDownload and run Etrecheck.  Copy and paste the results into your reply. Etrecheck is a diagnostic tool that was developed by one of the most respected users here (and recommended by Apple Support personnel) in the ASC to provide a snapshot of the system and help identify the more obvious culprits that can adversely affect a Mac's performance.

Hi RayB615 and Old Toad

I think OT has covered most of the problem. I would go this way.

a. Create a very very simple DVD project - only one .dv file included

- to see that iDVD does it's job at all

b. See that all photos used are in .jpg - nothing else and size of the photos IN PIXLES X PIXLES - not in stored or compressed size (this doesn't matter here) only HIGHT resp LENGHT in pixles - AND that bit depth are not 16 or more.

- Now use a few of these and see if iDVD performs

c. If they all fail - Try to create an external BOOT-drive with the old Mac OS. Start from this and see if iDVD come back to a performing state.

Sorry to say - I can not do this test for You - as I value performance and reliability far more than state of art (newest up-date) - So I'm still in Mac OS X.6.8 and iDVD 7.1.2. And to me all is well.

BTW - it seems like iLife suit has a problem with large picture. I love to make Panoramas and iPhoto choke up and close - from time to time.

Photos of 10.000 x 7.000 - is problematic. Even so non merged ones on 36M-pixles (7360 x 4912) are hard to import - I have to import two at a time - Rather tedious when ariving with 5000 pictures to import.

Yours Bengt W (in Sweden)

I don't see anything unusual in the report.  Are you use still photos in an iDVD slideshow or are you using movie/video files in the project? 

If you're just using still photos in iDVD slideshows for the project try the same test that Bengt suggested with 3 or 4 photos in an iDVD slideshow.

BUT the image quality was very poor (640 X 480)

That's the resolution of video DVDs.  If your images are not in the 4:3 size aspect ratio crop them to that ratio to relieve iDVD from having to do that during encoding.  What are the pixel dimensions of the images you're using in the project?

This Apple document describes preparing still images for use with iDVD:  iDVD '09 (7.x): Preparing images for iDVD slideshows

I have started with your suggestion for resizing and have gone with the 1024 x 576 pixels for (UK) PAL Widescreen.

Might work if You also set iDVD to do a Widescreen DVD - Two steps to set this - First when creating a BRAND NEW PROJECT - set this right here ! and then when You've selected Theme - go up to top Menu Row and select Project / Projectinfo

Here to set it to 16x9

Else use the size 640 x 480 - Using bigger size forces iDVD to DOWNSCALE - And it does this VERY BADLY ! with a poor poor result.

By using the above method I will have reduced each individual image from (on average) 12MB to 500KB.

Will this not reflect in a much reduced image quality on dvd playback?

NO - Video DVDs are as STANDARD - 640 x 480 and iDVD or any other DVD authoring software will deliver just this.
YES there is HD-DVD BUT they do NOT play on standard DVD-players only a few Toshiba HD-DVD-players can playback these

Feeding iDVD with higher resolution forces it to downscale - and it does this BADLY !

Most UK TV's are now 50" High Definition (16:9 ratio) - or am I missing something?

Yes - Video-DVD is as STANDARD 640 x 480 in resolution wherever they come from (at it's best)

If You need better then consider

- Blu-Ray e.g. Roxio™ Toast instead of iDVD

- Saving material to an USB-memory - My TV takes this and I can keep a much higher quality.

Yours Bengt W

addition: may be You find someting in my old note on DVD Quality ?

1. DVD quality

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-HD6 - 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 (v.7) or 09 (v.8) or 11 (v.9) are not meant to go to iDVD. Go via Media Browser (Share to MediaBrowser and as MEDIUM (not HD as downscaling is done badly) or rather use iMovie HD 6 from start.

iMovie'13 (v.10) - Share as 480P (If I understood it right)

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.

- iDVD - set Burn Speed in iDVD Pref. / Advance - BEST IS NOT BEST - x2 or max x4

- Roxio™ - set in burn process

- Disk Util tool - set in burn process

BEST IS NOT BEST

• 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.

• I use Verbatim ( also recommended by many - Taiyo Yuden DVDs - I can’t get hold of it to test )
• I use DVD-R (no +R or +/-RW) - DVD-R play’s on more and older DVD-Players
• 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.)

NTSC = 29.97 frames per second

PAL = 25 frames per second (fps)

• Don’t burn more than three DVDs at a time - but let the laser cool off for a while (20-30 minutes) before next batch.

It is EASY to over-heat the DVD-laser - resulting in EXPENCIVE REPAIR ! - YES it goes "Kaputt" and will not heal.

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

• 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)

• 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)

• 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 for SD-Video Quality and about 4 - 5 times more - if it is a HD-Project.

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

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

Do not have more external devices connected as is of urgent need. Move hard disks that are not to be used to Trash - Or 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

First - then make an active corner (up right for me) and set pointer to this

Secondly - turns on screen saver

Then - 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 DeskTop/Finder also slows down the Mac noticeably

if a project is in a real hurry

First - Then Start a new User-Account and

Then - log into this and iMovie get's faster too

And let Mac run on Mains - not just on battery

Yours Bengt W

I believed the master has answered your last questions in his last two posts. There's no one more knowledgeable in all things  iDVD than Bengt.