disappearing video with sizzle

[AKAAM]

hi was wondering if anyone has experienced this...

I've combined two animation files using sizzle. I've put menus and buttons the way I want and made a disk image. When I test the image with the mac dvd player it works fine except when I go back to the menu, and then hit resume. Then it plays the audio but I just have a black screen instead of the animation.

Anyone experienced this or can point me in the right direction? The file played fine before putting it through sizzle.

Thanks in advance!

[thoughton]

Have you tried burning it to a rewritable and testing if it does the same thing in your DVD player?

It could also be some kind of authoring error. Either something was set incorrectly, or a bug in Sizzle 0.5.

[AKAAM]

I guess I'll try that. I did go back and re-make the disk image but the same thing happened...Maybe I'll try from scratch and see if it does the same thing. Will let you know!

[AKAAM]

Haven't done the RW idea yet but tried again from scratch and image still disappeared when went to menu and then hit resume. But if I hit the arrow to start chapter from beginning, it works again. Odd...

My other question that you might be able to help me with (can't find anything in the forum) is with audio. Used ffmeg (sp?) to convert an mp3 file to mp2 but sizzle still won't recognize it (says it only accepts AC3 or MP2 files!). Any suggestions on how to turn standard mp3s into something sizzle will recognize? Want to put the mp3 as background audio to the menu.

Thanks!

[thoughton]

I can't really help with your menu audio problem, I'd suggest trying ac3 as well. Sizzle 0.1 (what I use) is pretty rock solid but doesn't do menu authoring. Sizzle 0.5 does menus but has some bugs, so after some early problems I went back to 0.1

[AKAAM]

arg! Sizzle .5 is making me frustrated. I guess I can look for sizzle .1 but would like to make menus as well. Can you recommend a simple process? I have several 100 meg files I want to combine onto a dvd to watch in a regular DVD player.
I have ffmpegx but it doesn't seem to work when I try to change the mpegs to dvdffmpeg. I have Toast 6 and I can use it to create video ts files but not much of a menu. I also have DVD2one. I'd rather not get more software because I'm a newbie and it takes a while to figure out each new program. I also have IDVD but I guess that only works with mov files or imovie projects.
I guess I could use toast (or sizzle .1) to make video ts folders and then DVD2one to join them together (which i've done before, but no menus). Is there a menu method I could use in between?
Many thanks for your time and assistance!

[thoughton]

As far as I am aware the only easy way to make your own menus is with Sizzle 0.5, iDVD or DVD Studio Pro. I only use Toast to burn, not sure if that now has menu-making as well or not.

If I was you I'd stick to Sizzle 0.5 and menus without sound.

Or you can get all your files into MOV containers and use iDVD, but (this may have improved recently) iDVD has (used to have?) problems with widescreen video.

[AKAAM]

Well, I used sizzle .5 to put together 14 animation shorts. Some of the files lost the video when I hit resume but going back to the start of the chapter brought the video back and just had to fast forward to where I left off.
Then I used popcorn to burn the mounted dmg file (containing the video ts folder) and that went smoothly. Dvd player would play the disc fine in the computer.
However, it wouldn't work in the DVD player. got the main menu fine and even though moving the curser around was backwards could still access the menus for each individual episode. But playing the episodes wouldn't work - often got a quarter screen frozen shot, or the whole screen mixed the main menu with the episode menu, also a frozen shot.
Could my dvd player just be too old to deal with a dvd built from mpegs? Or the use of popcorn? Or something else?

[Makmic]

You're not the first to face difficulties with sizzle 0.5, and I agree that it seems to be player dependent (I, personnaly, have no problems with my sizzle authored DVDs on my Sony NS305, but they do not pass on my LiteOn 5006).

You could try to find a CaptyDVD copy.

Or, if you have a lot of courage, there is the very tedious way (but bringing nice results) described (in french) at:
http://www.macetvideo.com/authoringpro/authoringpro.html

A small abstract of this process:

* Author individually as a VIDEO_TS each of your 14 animations (with ffmpegx, moviegate, Toast or what you want). This VIDEO_TS contains VTS_01_xx files.

* Rename the VTS_01_xx's of your second animation to VTS_02_xx's, of your third to VTS_03_xx's, and so on.

* Create an IDVD project with your prefered Theme with 14 empty movies (one black 720*480 image saved as mov file). Generate the corresponding image file. It is very fast since there is almost no encoding.

* Replace The VTS_YY_xx's files in IDVD image by the files you renamed before (YY going from 1 to 14).

* If your new VIDEO_TS folder is too big (>4.3 Gb), pass it thru DVD2oneX.

* Test, burn (and take a big beer, you deserved it).

Enjoy

[AKAAM]

Ok, will try this idea. Will do it with my new batch of shorts and see how it goes. Any idea how many idvd would be able to put on one dvd? Each is about 11 minutes or so and about 100meg. Heard idvd will only do 90 minutes max. Do you know if that is for imovie projects or for anything?

[terryj]

Ok, let me jump in:
U have a bunch of files, each 100MBs, each 11 mins long.

well in theory that would mean that you could fit roughly
11 files onto a single DVD. ( 120mins divided by 11min=10.9999 epsidoes)

If you have iLife 05 ( iMovie, iDVD, and iTunes)
then why not take the directly into iMovie 5,
( the 9min limitation is removed here) and place them
onto a timeline, and export them with chapter markers
into iDVD 5? You can then build your menus and
chapter/index menu ( importing native .mp3 files
from iTunes for background audio), and then burn to disc?

rinse, repeat, until done?

ilife 05 fixed a lot of limitations on the software. With CBR
encoding,(Best Quality) you can squeeze 120 mins to disc in iDVD 5.
iMovie 5 no longer has the 9min limitation on imported
movie/dv files, so you wouldn't have to edit your clips.

Now if all you have is iLife 04 ( iMovie 4, iDVD4, etc)
then you can still get the clips into iMovie with the help
of QT Pro and QT Helper Scriptz to set the 9min limit.
in IDVD 4, yes you are limited to 90 mins max, so you
would have to cut your clips down to about 7 or 8 clips
per disc.

Also remmeber if you put in motion menus ( ie video
playing in the background in IDVD) that counts as ONE clip.
if you use a static ( ie .jpg) background, then you can put the max clips on the disc.

[AKAAM]

Sounds good! Thought I couldn't import mpegs but is doing it now (though 11 min file is taking 33 mins). Must be idvd only that won't accept mpegs direct.
Never used idvd before. When you mentioned moving videos as background counting as a clip, any idea how that would affect an imovie project with 11 chapters, each 11 minutes long?

[AKAAM]

Hey Thoughton, I've been trying to find sizzle .1 but no luck. Would you happen to know of a link? Everything is .5!

[thoughton]

Here you go
http://www.thoughton.co.uk/downloads/sizzle0.1.dmg.zip

[AKAAM]

Thanks! Will try it out and let you know how it goes.

[AKAAM]

Terrj, tried importing the mpeg file to imovie and the program locked up. Tried again with a smaller file (about half the size and length) and it started to do the same freeze, but it came out of it and the video was imported fine but there was no audio.
Have you run across this problem?

[terryj]

With mpegs, yes.
You must first convert the mpegs into .DV or into QT .mov files first.
Sorry, I thought you had the files already in a QT Compatible space.
MPEG is NOT a QT Compatible space for editing (import),
but is a final resolution file type(export).

You can achieve this by using ffmpegx to convert to .mov,
or QT Pro to convert to either .mov or .DV for
ingesting into iMovie.

[AKAAM]

Ok, converted to mov file using ffmpegx and imported the file to imovie but now is taking 44 mins to import. I will let you know if it works but wondering what advantages doing it this way will give me (aside from being able to edit the episode). Could I just turn the mpeg into a video ts folder using something like sizzle and then put the video ts folders through idvd to create chapters and menus there?

[AKAAM]

It worked! Thanks Terry. Also realized that I can't import a video ts folder into idvd. Misunderstood what macmic was trying to tell me. I guess either approach will be time consuming, especially with 10+ clips.

[terryj]

Your welcome,
glad you got it.

yes, it will be time consuming.
What you can do in the future is
to try using QT PRO ( apple, $30)
to convert the clips directly into .DV
streams. iMovie is converting the
clips to .DV from .mov, which is
why it takes a bit. You won't really
save too much time ( QT Pro will take just
as long to convert) but then it just
*plop* drops into iMovie without
converting up, as iMovie's default
is .DV Stream, then QT .mov files second.

You can also set ffmpegx ( v. 0.09s) to "batch"
a bunch of clips overnight from mpeg to .mov,
and then the next night, do the imports.
That will save you a little bit as well.

[AKAAM]

Sorry it's taken so long to get back to this thread. Have created several small imovie projects and have put them together in idvd. Everything seems to be going smoothly but I would like all the mini projects to run one after the other when I push play. However, when I preview it only lets me view one project at a time. When I went back and inserted chapters, it still wouldn't recognize the 2nd project as chapter 2. Any ways out of this hole I've dug myself into?

[terryj]

At this point the easiest would be to edit the movies into one single movie file, and then you can set chapters
"between episodes."

things like this are what DVDSP is made for...

[AKAAM]

Figured you'd say that
That's probably the easiest way, but is there another method to import seperate imovie projects into a continuous movie in idvd?

And do you recommend DVD studio Pro even if someone already has imovie and idvd? What are the advantages?

[AKAAM]

You can also set ffmpegx ( v. 0.09s) to "batch"
a bunch of clips overnight from mpeg to .mov,
and then the next night, do the imports.
That will save you a little bit as well.

Just a quick question about the above: how do I batch these clips? I've looked through the help section and this forum and I can't find any info on how to convert several mpegs to mov files in sequence using ffmpegx (v. 0.09s). Is it so easy that I'm missing something?

[thoughton]

Just keep starting a new encode while the previous one is processing. The 2nd 3rd 4th etc ones will all be queued.

[AKAAM]

Thanks Thoughton. Figured it out after I posted the message - was so easy I missed it!

Anyway, just to finish what this thread started about, I completed the project. I took nine animation episodes, each 11 minutes long and 100 meg, and used ffmegx to convert them to mov files. I then imported all of them to imovie. I edited some of the clips to make them shorter, added chapter markers and exported the project to idvd. Then I was able to change the scene selection to episode selection and make some funky menus.

Only drawbacks were space (the 9 clips together in imovie were 20 gig), numbers (originally had 11 but idvd wouldn't accept the extra 2 maybe because pushed it over 90 minutes, though I have idvd5), and that I couldn't do individual menus for each episode/chapter (or is there a way?).
Next time I might import one mov file to one imovie project and end up with 9 separate projects to create 9 separate menus in idvd. Will be more time consumming since I was able to import all 9 episodes in sequence over night into one project but don't know any other way around it.

So thanks for your help guys. I appreciate it.