- Publisher
- Nick Mead |
- Date
- March 9, 2009
I recently transfered all of my family's home movies onto one DVD using iMovie and iDVD. The problem was this involved years of film which added up to 60GB of DV footage in iMovie. Even when edited, the final edited footage came to almost 8GB - way too much to fit on a normal DVD.
Blank Single Layer (SL) DVDs can only hold 4.7GB of data so I had a big problem. To split the film in iMovie and re-export it to iDVD would have taken absolutely ages. My only option was to buy a blank Double Layer (DL) DVD which annoyingly, are only sold in packs around where I live. So I ended up paying almost $20 just to use one disc. The problems didn't stop there either. In fact, they only just began so here's a few tips that I hope might be able to help you if you've found yourself in the same situation.
Check DVD Player compatibility - For some strange reason, many DVD players can't even play DVD Double Layer disks and this includes new players too. If you're burning your project as a gift like I was, make sure you find out whether the recipients DVD player can play DL discs.
Clear some hard drive space - To export a project such as mine to iDVD required around 15GB of free hard drive space to work. In addition, iDVD required another 15GB to burn the movie. When you do finally come to the point where you burn your movie, iDVD will warn you how much disk space it needs to burn.
Burn at a slow speed - After about 7 hours of rendering the project for burning, iDVD informed me that there had been a "Multiplexer Error" during formatting and the project was unable to burn. A Google search revealed that many other users had experienced the same problem but explanations varied from lack of hard disk space to dodgy DVDs.
I finally discovered that the problem is solved simply by burning at a slower speed. in iDVDs advanced preferences, de-select the option "Burn at maximum speed" and select one of the lower ones (4x speed worked for me).
Lower the encoding quality in iDVD - There are three rather confusing encoding settings in iDVD's "Project Info" settings - Best Performance, High Quality and Professional Quality. It seems that Best Performance takes up the most disk space, while High Quality and Professional Quality take up a few gigabytes less. By changing to High Quality or Professional, you may be able to fit a large movie onto a Single Layer disk.
The colored bar indicates the final output quality - the more green the better basically. If the bar is coloured red towards the end, it may mean that the quality of your movie is degraded.
Go make a big cup of tea - Or make that several cups because your project is going to take a lot of time to render and burn. Mine took around 9 hours and that was just under 8GB. This consumes a huge amount of processing power too so it's best not use your Mac during this time if you can help it.
Commented
THANKS MAN! You saved my day too! :D
Nick, This is my first project in imovie and I am worried now. I recorded my mom's home movies on dvd, got it into imovie, added music and ended up with 11 GB or 218 min. I would like to burn multiple single layer and just label them disc 1, disc 2, and likely disc 3 since each one will only allow 4.7 GB each (single layer). My issue is this. I have no idea how to split a project. I would like to duplicate it so I have a saved copy of exactly everything I have been working on up to now. It is perfect the way it is watching in 1imovie. Then I will feel better about trying to split up the duplicate project encase I really start screwing things up. How do you split a project up into separate projects? Is it hard? Thank you so much for your time. You seem to really be helping alot of people and I would be so grateful if you could help me too. Thanks, Mary
I tried burning 3 .avi files (each under 900 MB) to a dvd using iDVD. When I clicked on the project info the bar was beet red. One by one I began deleting each of the .avi files. It finally got down to one, 556 MB file and it barely fit. What gives? Why is iDVD taking my 556 MB file and making it larger on the DVD?
Good information though!
this didn't really help my problem either. I am trying to improve the quality of the project when burnt to a DVD through iDVD. I had it at best performance and the images in myslideshow still turned out in horrible quality. HELP
Hi. I just completed an imovie project and burned it to DVD using iDVD. The project uses a combination of digital still photos and video clips. It looks pretty good on my iMac screen, however when playing in the DVD player on my 50" plasma TV, the photos have a real 'squiggle' to them. Almost like the pixels are wiggling. It's quite distracting and I was obviously hoping for a crisper image. Disappointing!
Not 100% sure but could it have something to do with using the 'Ken Burns' effect on the slides and my TV processor not keeping up to the moving image?
Is there something I can do to retain the clarity while still being able to view on my television? THANKS!
Hi really need help here.
On my IDVD:It keep saying Multiplexer Error There was an error during formatting. I am burning on a DVD+R 4.7GB. tried to slow down the speed to 2X and plenty of space on the hard drive but no use. I have 7 Short Movie and need it for my presentation,it contains around 3.7 GB altogether,checked for errors, but I cant find any. is there a solution for this? this is really frustating...
I have been using Final Cut pro for several years but now with the new updates, most everything is different. Don't those geniuses know us mortals do not learn that fast. I have several projects that need to go to media browser for IDVD. where does one go to send these files to media browser, its different then it used to be. Please KISS steps.
I just transfer a shourt imovie to idvd and it transferred successfully not didn't trasnfer the sound. :( What did I do wrong?