idvd 5 will not allow burn option.

[dvkat]

Hello... new here and this is my first post. I've spent the last week creating movies from our old home movies from when we were kids as a Christmas present for my parents. I did all the editing in "imovie" and everything seemed to go alright. But when I put it into "idvd 5" to burn to a dvd no matter what I try the "burn" button remains greyed out and I cannot burn the movie to a dvd. I tried making an archive of the movie but still get the greyed out "burn" button.

I even went so far as to reinstall idvd and this did not help. I have a MacMini and this is the first time I've attempted to make a dvd. I have successfully burned regular music and data cds before on it but never tried a dvd. I hate to have wasted all this time making a movie that I have no way of getting off my computer so I can share it with my parents.

I hope someone can help, as I'm running out of time before Christmas!

Thank very much.

Kim

[rumplestiltskin]

Did you try the "Save as disk image" item in the File menu? (I may not remember the exact wording.)

[dvkat]

Yep I also tried that, but when it got to the end of the "rendering" process (think that's what it's called) I got a message saying "finished with errors" and it would not save the image even with "errors". Of course it didn't say what the errors were.

Thanks

Kim

[strathq]

IDVD is installed on Mac's regardless of whether you can use it.
Is your mac mini fitted with a superdrive? can it burn DVD's?

[dvkat]

Uh oh... boy do I feel silly. You're right... mine will only burn cd's not dvds. Helps if you read the manual! Wonder if I can buy something to add to my mac so that I can burn dvds?

Thanks

[strathq]

my ibook only does CD's... my work around was the Lacie external Hard Drive... it came with a copy of Toast... highly recomended...

[rumplestiltskin]

Uh oh... boy do I feel silly. You're right... mine will only burn cd's not dvds. Helps if you read the manual! Wonder if I can buy something to add to my mac so that I can burn dvds?

Regardless of whether your mini has a DVD burner or not, the version of iDVD you have (if it's the original that came with your mini) will "burn" to a disc image which Disk Utility will burn for you if you connect a FireWire DVD burner (about $100; $75 if you build one yourself).

I have seen the error you mentioned in the "save as disc image" process and this usually is due to bad permissions so run Disk Utility and "Repair Disk Permissions" on your HD before you do anything else. Sometimes the iDVD project you've created has to deal with something "bad" you've put into your iMovie. You might try exporting from iMovie to a "full-quality" movie and then drop that exported movie into a fresh iDVD project.

You might also get ffmpegX and the Apple MPEG2 component (the latter from Apple); these will permit you to take the iMovie and author it to the requisite VIDEO_TS folder and image it. Disk Utility will then burn it. Toast is also a good option (and you won't then require Apple's MPEG2 component).

Burnz is also a great app for burning discs of many types but it has no ability to author a DVD (which Toast does have).