Laney122
Level 1 (8 points)
iLife

Q: iDVD File Will Not Open

I am currently using a 2015 MacBook Pro running El Capitan. I have an important iDVD movie that I created on 12/25/07 on my 2007 MacBook that I have on that old MacBook and on an external hard drive. After searching long and hard, I finally figured out how to download iDVD to my new MacBook Pro, hoping I could view my old movie. However, when I try to open the file, iDVD either says that the file is not writable, so I cannot open it OR it opens and plays something that is not the movie I made. This is interesting because when I right click and choose Show Package Contents, I can see screen shots of the movie I made.

 

Is there any way that I will ever be able to view this movie again? It is an interview I did for a college project with my late grandfather, so it would be really special to have.

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

Whitney

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch,Early 2015), OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Jul 29, 2016 10:03 AM

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Laney122

Q: iDVD File Will Not Open

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Jul 29, 2016 2:06 PM in response to Laney122
    Level 10 (140,881 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 29, 2016 2:06 PM in response to Laney122

    Is this a disk image of a video DVD?  If so you don't use iDVD to view it, you use DVD Player which will be in the Applications folder.  iDVD is only for creating video DVD disks.

    OTsig.png

  • by Laney122,

    Laney122 Laney122 Jul 29, 2016 2:14 PM in response to Old Toad
    Level 1 (8 points)
    iLife
    Jul 29, 2016 2:14 PM in response to Old Toad

    Old Toad,

     

    I tried opening it in DVD Player, but it says it is not supported. This is a movie I created (I do not have a DVD of it though) using my computer. Here is a screen shot of the file:

    Screen Shot 2016-07-29 at 4.13.12 PM.png

    Thanks for your help!

    Whitney

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Jul 29, 2016 2:19 PM in response to Laney122
    Level 10 (140,881 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 29, 2016 2:19 PM in response to Laney122

    That is an iDVD project file.   Control (right) - click on the file and select Get Info from the contextual menu.  What are the permissions for that file?  You should have Read & Right access:

    Finder001.jpg

    What have you got?

  • by Laney122,

    Laney122 Laney122 Jul 29, 2016 4:29 PM in response to Old Toad
    Level 1 (8 points)
    iLife
    Jul 29, 2016 4:29 PM in response to Old Toad

    I checked and I do have read and write permissions.

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Jul 29, 2016 4:41 PM in response to Laney122
    Level 10 (140,881 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 29, 2016 4:41 PM in response to Laney122

    Have you tried opening iDVD and creating a test iDVD project?  Do so and save it to the same location that the other file is.  Can you do it?  What does the file look like?  It should have the theme used as the icon for the file like this one:

    Finder002.jpg

     

    Since your file has the generic iDVD icon it may be damaged.  Control (right) - click on the file and select Show Package Contents from the contextual menu.  See what's in the Resources folder:

    Finder003.jpg

  • by Laney122,

    Laney122 Laney122 Jul 29, 2016 7:28 PM in response to Old Toad
    Level 1 (8 points)
    iLife
    Jul 29, 2016 7:28 PM in response to Old Toad

    I made a test iDVD project and saved it and it did save with the theme icon like you said it would. However, I could not get it to open by double clicking, or by command clicking - open with iDVD.

     

    Here is a shot of what is in the package contents of the old iDVD file:

    Screen Shot 2016-07-29 at 9.21.49 PM.png

  • by Old Toad,

    Old Toad Old Toad Jul 30, 2016 9:03 AM in response to Laney122
    Level 10 (140,881 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 30, 2016 9:03 AM in response to Laney122

    Can you drag the newly created iDVD project file onto the iDVD icon in the Dock and open it?  If not then there's some issue with the iDVD installation.

     

    Select the second file on the list and double click on it.  It should open in Quicktime Player.  It won't have the sound however.   If that's the video you want, we'll have to do some more to try to open it with iDVD. 

  • by Laney122,

    Laney122 Laney122 Jul 31, 2016 5:35 PM in response to Old Toad
    Level 1 (8 points)
    iLife
    Jul 31, 2016 5:35 PM in response to Old Toad

    Dragging the newly created project onto the iDVD icon did not work. However, when I clicked "Open Existing Project" in the iDVD program, it opened just fine.

     

    I was able to open the old movie file in Quicktime, but it was only 7 seconds. Just the intro to the video. I'm not sure what happened to the rest of my work. Hmm....

     

    Thanks again!

    Whitney