iDVD burning guide - reading required

As there seem to be many burn issues - it just never seems to stop - I have allowed myself to put together a little burning guide. As we have no "stickies" in discussions, maybe we can bump it a few times 🙂

Disclaimer: the advice given in the following is not (or only in part) my own wisdom, they are merely a collection of very good advice given by many experienced members of this board. Thanks to Sue, Beverly, Karl, Karsten, Fred, Len, Bengt, Matti, and many others who have been helping to keep things working - keep it up.

How to correctly burn a DVD
Before you start (from iMovie)

• Do not use the "Share to iDVD" option in iMovie, but save and quit iMovie then open iDVD and drag in your movie from the media pane or choose File > Import > Video. This has two advantages:
a. Only one app is open
b. It avoids a bug present in iMovie concerning photos/slides described by Karl Petersen in this thread:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2105598&#2105598

• iDVD likes to have the project(s) on your startup disc with min. 20 GB of available disc space

• iDVD doesn't get along well with 12-bit audio from camcorders (16-bit is required)
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=494268&tstart=0&start=45

• iDVD 6 only: There have been several issues concerning hangs/crashes when using mp3 files. Convert all mp3 audio files into AIFF before importing/burning.
Related thread: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=507979&tstart=0


Step-by-step

1. iDVD is NOT a disc burning app, so leave that work to software designed for it. Instead use iDVD's "Save as Disc Image" option (File > Save as Disk image). This creates an .img file on your HDD, that can be stored for future use and gives you the option to preview your DVD on your Mac before burning to disc.

2. Use Disc Utility or Toast to burn your DVD at slow speed. 4x is acceptable, 2x (... or even 1x) is better.

3. Use high quality DVD-R (not DVD+R) media (e.g. Verbatim) to minimize burn errors and compatibility issues. Make sure the DVD is compatible with slow burn speed (e.g. 1x-4x)

Note:
• iDVD 4 disc image burning can be enabled through the patch HPfurz
http://homepage.mac.com/geerlingguy/macsupport/mac_help/pages/0015-burn_idvdother.html


Additional Reading:

• John Beatty: Troubleshooting iDVD
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=508221&tstart=0
• iDVD appears to be unresponsive when encoding Audio
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302988
• Burning a disk image file on a CD or DVD in Mac OS X
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93006
• How to copy previously-burned DVD-R video discs
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=42724
• About optical disc drive burning and write speeds
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301551
• Factors that affect writing to or reading from optical media
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25402
• Jim Taylor's DVD FAQ
http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#0.1
• Which DVD media to buy and why
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=2815102#2815102

hope this helps

mish