multiplexing and burning

[pwarren]

I have one iMovie that I cannot seem to burn to a dvd. All goes fine with Steps 1 through 3; however at step 4, Multiplexing and Burning, the process just stalls. I have not had this problem with any other movie. I have tried doing this on a variety of computers. I have tried re-compressing the movie into a quicktime file. Any ideas?

[terryj]

Not knowing your FULL specs,
( your computer details are incomplete)
but if you have a DVD-Burner,
You must also have iDVD3 or 4?

If you send the project over
to iDVD 3 or 4, what happens there?

Do you have Toast 6?
What if you build the project in iDVD 3 or 4,
and then try to burn with Toast 6?
What then?

[pwarren]

Sorry for the lack of info.
I am working on a G4 with iMovie 4 and iDVD 4. (I don't have Toast.) I have been going straight from iMovie to iDVD. It is in iDVD that it gets bogged down. Should I get Toast 6?

[terryj]

Toast 6 will help, but only if you author the files
and save them as a project ( thus avoiding Burning
in iDVD4), but it will still multiplex the file in iDVD4.

I think this is where your stall is at...the multiplexing stage.

I'll need more specifics of the iMovie project at this point...

1. Were these captured files ( from a video camera) in IMovie?

2. Were these files of other types IMPORTED into iMovie,
such as files that were originally .avi's or QT .mov?

3. Are there any photos from iPhoto in this project?

4. How many transitions/effects are in the iMovie project?

#'s 2, 3 and 4 can greatly affect your ability to multiplex.
For instance #3...if a photo has been moved out of your
iPhoto library, or is corrupt, or if iPhoto is corrupt, this
can cause an issue where if iDvd can't find it, it can't mux it.
Same with any audio files from iTunes.

#2 can affect it if the flavor of the file imported uses a codec
that would make it hard on iDVD to mux, such as DIVX 5.0.

looking forward to hearing more...

[cbkilner]

The only times I've had issues with step 4 in iDVD (the log usually shows a buffer underrun error), it has been due to a bad or corrupted video frame (usually one of these glitchy looking frames you get when your camcorder battery runs out of juice or is the video heads are misaligned) or a corrupted audio file (usually an added sound effect). If I go back into iMovie and edit out bad-looking frames or funky audio clips, the issue goes away and the movie burns fine. Also, I've heard of iMovie/iDVD having issues with movies that start with certain kinds of clips, but don't remember the details.