Exoerience with Hurz and Pfurz

[phillip9]

Here's my experience with Hurz and Pfurz.
1.First, I am using an 867 Mhz Quicksilver G4 with OS 10.3.2
2. Placed Pfurz and Hurz files (see "iDVD Easter Egg" posts) in my PERSONAL FOLDER within the root’s User folder. (Did not work if placed directly in root’s User folder.)
3. Prepared 5 minute movie using DV camera tape footage and iMovie 4.
The movie had about 10 transitions, some titles, and 2 mp3 music files.
4. From within iMovie 4, I launched iDVD 4.0.1 using the “Share” option.
5. Created a “Play Movie” button on a motion menu (using one of the new templates available in iMovie 4).
6. Used iDVD to test the finished project including audio sync.
7. Clicked the “Burn” button. This first click yielded nothing, but that’s normal (normally requires a second click before burning occurs).
8. Second click of the “Burn” button was followed by the appearance of a new window containing several options: one option was to either create a disc image or go ahead and complete a burn. Under the burn option, both of my DVD burners were listed: my internal 2X Superdrive and my external Formac 4X DVD burner.
9. I chose “create disc image.”
10. Program entered “Stage 2” (“Menu and slideshow rendering and encoding…”. This stage lasted about 35 minutes. Keep in mind this was a 5 minute movie.
11. After 35 minutes, “Stage 3” entered (“Asset encoding …).
12. After 12 minutes, a window appeared asking if I wanted to “Save.” I saved.
13. Stage 4” entered (“Multiplexing and burning…”).
14. Stage 4 lasted about 2 minutes, following which I had a Disc Image file on my desktop.
15. Double-clicking the “Disc image” icon yielded a mounted volume containing a VIDEO_TS file and an AUDIO_TS file. I copied these files to a new folder, dragged the folder into Toast and burned using Toasts DVD option. I used my external Formac DVD burner. Although 4X-capable, I burned at 1X for best result.
16. The resulting DVD played beautifully. Audio was in sync (although since the movie was only 5 minutes, this is not a good test for audio sync problems).

[galactica]

WOW
50 min for a 5 min video
thats what 15 hours for a 1.5 hour video!

something must be wrong!?

[phillip9]

Galactica. This was a test of whether Pfurz and Hurz actually work ... not a test of how fast one can make a DVD. I'm sure that for a 1.5 hour video (which could not use the best quality setting that iDVD uses for a shorter burn) and with a dual 2 GHz machine, the compression/processing time would be considerably shorter. But the point is tha no Superdrive was required.

[phillip9]

I should note that in step 7 (above), the control key must be depressed when clicking the burn button.

[pusa]

Placed Pfurz and Hurz files (see "iDVD Easter Egg" posts) in my PERSONAL FOLDER within the root’s User folder. (Did not work if placed directly in root’s User folder.).

What do you mean by putting in the personal folder within the root’s User folder? I'm trying to get this to work.

[willrob]

You want to put the two files (not in a folder) directly in the user folder that bears your name. In other words on your start-up disk you have a folder in the topmost level named "Users". Inside that folder will be two or more folders (depending on other users of your computer). One folder is called "Shared" and contains items you wish to share with networked users. The other folder, which containes you personal files (and is more than likely named after you, or bears a name you created) is where you want to drop the two files. Do not put them inside the Movies or Music or Pictures folders. They just sit there out in the open (some SP15 sunblock might offer some protection).

[willrob]

I just want to add some benchmarks from a recent burn, my first since upgrading to iDVD 4.01—or the previous version of iDVD4. The disk was set up with close to 2 hours of video, a stock motion menu and no other files added. I only had 1X speed disks on hand, so one has to give at least an hour to the writing stage. The total time from clicking Burn to the disk poping out of my drive completed was four hours and twenty-five minutes.
I'm using a dual 1 gig G4, and left the machine alone during the multiplexing/burning.

The finshed disk looks good considering that the original footage was from Super8 film transfered to VHS tapes. I didn't try to use compressor to get a better bitrate, since I knew iDVD would recompress it. I made the footage dv format and dropped it into iDVD. I'm not sure a shorter total time (under an hour) with higher quality wouldn't take just as long to multiplex. I know 8G dvd-R drives and media are on the horizon an d hope that iDVD will eventually support them, requiring less compression time.

william

[pusa]

You want to put the two files (not in a folder) directly in the user folder that bears your name. In other words on your start-up disk you have a folder in the topmost level named "Users". Inside that folder will be two or more folders (depending on other users of your computer). One folder is called "Shared" and contains items you wish to share with networked users. The other folder, which containes you personal files (and is more than likely named after you, or bears a name you created) is where you want to drop the two files. Do not put them inside the Movies or Music or Pictures folders. They just sit there out in the open (some SP15 sunblock might offer some protection).

Thanx, willrob. It totally works. YAY!!!!!!!