Burning DVDs

Question

Level 1

7 points

Burning DVDs

Hello Genius,

I am wanting to burn DVDs.

Please don't give me a lecture on how no one does this anymore. I have been asked to give a physical DVD to coaches for recruiting purpose. 🙂

My operating system is 10.9.5. I have an internal superdrive. I created the video in imovie, then imported into iDvd version 7.1.2. The video is working perfectly on iDVD when I click play for a preview.

I insert Magnavox DVD+R with plenty of storage (It's 120 minutes, and my video is 70 minutes.)

I click the BURN icon, and iDVD goes thru the series of: Prepare, Process Menus, Process Slideshow, Process Movies, Burn. Takes about 90 minutes. (Seems way too long.) Each change in process takes a very long time to test. A few times in the middle of the process, I get an error, "Multiplexer Error. There was an error during LayerBreak handling before formatting."

If it makes it completely through the cycle, the DVD does not play in a DVD player. I have tried standard and Blueray.

I understand iDVD is no longer supported by Apple, but it should still work, correct? I also tried Burn, and it just crashes.

Thanks for the help!

iMac, OS X Mavericks (10.9.4), Mail 7.3

Posted on May 15, 2017 5:40 PM

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Answer 1

Klaus1

Level 9

52,879 points

May 16, 2017 1:17 PM in response to Poobah33

iDVD works just fine, but not with inferior media. Most of us here recommend Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden DVD-R. Also, a slow burn speed of 2x or 4x is highly recommended.

Using the correct encoding settings is also important:

iDVD encoding settings:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1502?viewlocale=en_US

Short version:

Best Performance is for videos of up to 60 minutes

Best Quality is for videos of up to 120 minutes

Professional Quality is also for up to 120 minutes but even higher quality (and takes much longer)

That was for single-layer DVDs. Double these numbers for dual-layer DVDs.

Professional Quality: The Professional Quality option uses advanced two-pass technology to encode your video (The first pass determines which parts of the movie can be given greater compresson without quality loss and which parts can’t. The second pass then encodes those different parts accordingly) , resulting in the best quality of video possible on your burned DVD. You can select this option regardless of your project’s duration (up to 2 hours of video for a single-layer disc and 4 hours for a double-layer disc). Because Professional Quality encoding is time-consuming (requiring about twice as much time to encode a project as the High Quality option, for example) choose it only if you are not concerned about the time taken.

In both cases the maximum length includes titles, transitions and effects etc. Allow about 15 minutes for these.

You can use the amount of video in your project as a rough determination of which method to choose. If your project has an hour or less of video (for a single-layer disc), choose Best Performance. If it has between 1 and 2 hours of video (for a single-layer disc), choose High Quality. If you want the best possible encoding quality for projects that are up to 2 hours (for a single-layer disc), choose Professional Quality. This option takes about twice as long as the High Quality option, so select it only if time is not an issue for you.

Use the Capacity meter in the Project Info window (choose Project > Project Info) to determine how many minutes of video your project contains.

NOTE: With the Best Performance setting, you can turn background encoding off by choosing Advanced > “Encode in Background.” The checkmark is removed to show it’s no longer selected. Turning off background encoding can help performance if your system seems sluggish.

And whilst checking these settings in iDVD Preferences, make sure that the settings for NTSC/PAL and DV/DV Widescreen are also what you want.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1502?viewlocale=en_US

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Answer 2

Rich839

Level 8

48,156 points

May 16, 2017 8:58 AM in response to Poobah33

Hi,

I agree with Klaus 1's excellent post. It really is a good primer for burning a DVD.

To add some additional comment:

Try burning your iDVD project as a disc image. That process will take you through all the encoding procedure. If it burns successfully then you know that the encoding is fine and that the problem exists elsewhere, such as with a dirty optical burner or poor disc media or a malfunctioning DVD player.

Since you are getting a LayerBreak error, you might double check your iDVD settings to verify that your settings are for a single layer DVD and not a double layer DVD.

DVD-R works better than DVD+R. Some DVD players have more difficulty with DVD+R.

Check your project to confirm that all of your menu buttons and titles and inside of the TV safe viewing area. If some are outside, that has been known to cause multiplexing errors. In that case, move them inside the save TV area. If chapter breaks occur on a transition or at the very beginning of the project, that can sometimes cause burning errors.

Also, since sometimes you do get a successful burn I am wondering if you might be over stressing the iDVD app. iDVD was created to burn .dv media to a standard DVD. Your iMovie movie likely will be at .Mp4, and if it is very hi def that might cause iDVD to hiccup occasionally. If you think that could be the problem, you might reduce the definition in your project a little. Just a thought.

Good luck with this.

-- Rich

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