iDVD workarounds, please!

[the_reever]

Hi,

I've taken a DVD I own, ripped it to elementary streams, used DiVA and mAC3dec to convert to edittable formats, used QT6pro to mux and cut out parts I don't need, used iMovie to reassemble the parts and add chapters, and exported to iDVD to author. Whew!

When I try to burn the DVD it says the content is too long to fit on a standard DVD-R. No big deal since I could just use HPFURZ to "easter egg" the files to the HDD instead and use DVD2OneX to shrink them down (sorry, "transcode") so they will fit on a standard 4.7GB DVD-R. Or so I thought.....

iDVD will still not allow me to create .VOBs if the "Content Is Too Long". Is there a workaround for this that any knowledgable guru is willing to share?

Thanks in advance for your input!

Best regards,

Reeve

[terryj]

lemme guess...
Content is longer than 1 hour?

If so, iDVD is probably looking at the fact you
( I'm assuming you are using iDVD4) have your
quality set to Best Quality, rather than Best Compression.
Change this, and it should fit.
Search here for more info on this:

http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?14@246.QBa0aG4Plau.0@.eebeb28

[cbkilner]

Actually <1 hr is Best Performance; >1 hr uses the Best Quality setting.

If that is not the issue and your movie is close to 2 hours, get rid of motion menus (or all menus by dropping the iMovie into the autoplay well in map view).

If >2 hrs, split the movie in iMovie (i.e., drag 1/2 the clips out of the timeline, burn, switch timeline clips, and burn DVD # 2).

[llee782]

I just mentioned this in another thread, but something like this may be your only answer. My tutorial for getting more than 90 minutes of video into an iDVD disk works just as well to get more than 2 hours, provided you make logical changes to increase the size of the "half" project parts and reduce the size ot the resulting DVD image with something like DVD2ONE.

I don't think you'll be able to create a single DVD using iDVD if the content you put into the project totals over 2 hours.

[the_reever]

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions.

Yes, terryj, I am using iDVD and the content is greater than an hour but I haven't yet checked to see exactly how long it is. It may indeed be over two hours.

cbkilner, the content came from two DVDs originally so I would like to consolidate the clips I need from each to one single DVD-R.

llee782, the link you provided looks very promising and I've download the .pdf to view at my liesure. Upon a first cursory glance it seems that DVD Stuio Pro would be a more simple, albeit, more costly solution. My school has this software and will let me use it since I'm making this DVD-R for them so this may the way to go. I'll try things out and see how it turns out.

Best regards,

Reeve

[the_reever]

I tried using DVD Studio Pro, as the solution offerred by llee782 was very comprehensive but a very time consuming process, and was able to import my iDVD project. Now the sound is out of sync with the video, where it was perfect before in iDVD. I looked in the manual but it didn't say anything about resolving this issue. Any ideas?

Thanks!

[FCPguy]

Yeah, a common way to get your pro apps to work better is to throw away the prefs list and refresh (called refreshing the preps ) You do this by:
1. Quit the app (DVDSP in this case)
2. Open Hard drive
3. Go to User> (name of user) >Library>Prefrences
4. Look for Plist (dvdsp Plist) drag to trash
5. Look for DVDSP Data folder - inside drag DVDSPprefs and POAcache to trash (BUT DON'T EMPTY THE TRASH)
6. Launch DVDSP and make sure it is working right
7. If all is well, empty trash and it will have made new fresh prefs.
(If you are using these programs a lot... do this once every week or so at least)

This helps a lot of little bugs and keeps the apps running in tip top shape! Good luck!

[FCPguy]

Oh, and I didn't have my computer in front of me , but all that should work the same.