iDVD 3: outrageous error

[balkandvb]

I was making my first ever dvd today when iDVD 3 told me while i was burning and it gave me a rediculously numbered error which its pointless to even record.

Basically i know no one can help me on this so i am here to just say this: idvd 3 is crap. if any CAN help though, it'd be nice. The only thing i like about i dvd is the preset dvd menus..

Im using g4 mirror door, Pioneer 109, DVD-R media from fuji film.

[sjk]

Please be more vague and negative?

[tWoSour]

Please be more vague and negative?

no, I think he did just fine there......I'm sure hundreds of people are going to drop by and help.....

[balkandvb]

well im just simply stating i dont even know HOW i can be helped because the message iDVD 3 gave me told me in no way shape or form why it didn't succeed. In addition, iDVD 3 has no advanced controls to help with bitrate, burning speed, etc..

I successfully burned a dvd in Toast 6 but i don't like its encoding it left a lot of artifacts especially in fast paced video.

I have yet to try with ffmpegx but how can i put menus in there and two or more video files instead of one?

[miksu]

In addition, iDVD 3 has no advanced controls to help with bitrate, burning speed, etc..

Of course it doesn't have those controls, since it's supposed to be easy to use, even grandma can use it with perfectly good results. Fiddling with bitrates etc. needs some knowledge, if U want decent quality. Grandma or 12yo kids don't know anything about bitrates, be it VBR or CBR, or quantization matrix. Actually, most people know nothing about them, or videostandards in overall. And still they have to shrink movies. Take a look at those weird AVIs with 512x384 resolution and WMA2-audio at 16kHz... Usually it's also NTSC screensize with PAL framerate or vice versa. And scaled down 20% (640x480 to 512x384), or something creative.

Therefore, iDVD has more than adequate controls for its intended user base. It makes DVDs that work on most DVD-players. You can always buy DSP and MPEG2-encoder like Bitvice, or whatever U prefer.

And with your accurate description of errors, I am sure there are many people willing to help

[SERBIAN]

Since you have Pioneer 109 drive you should use PatchBurn app first to enable iDVD to work with that drive correctly...

[thoughton]

I was making my first ever dvd today when iDVD 3 told me while i was burning and it gave me a rediculously numbered error which its pointless to even record.

Yeah, that's right. The number was pointless. If you had written it down you might be getting a little more help right now... Since you didn't - no one has a clue what went wrong.

[terryj]

I'll try and be slightly more polite than my fellows,
but for the record, yes you did screw up asking for help
and not telling us what the EXACT error was.

We don't mind you coming here to vent, but if you are
going to come on here and vent, just remember, that
someone else might be having the same problems as you,
and could have benefitted from the help in answering
the question....


That said here our a few common errors that I know
of off the top of my head:

error -1
error -2

these are general finder type errors, usually resulting in
the finder not being able to perform a simple task.

error -3
out of memory error. Not enough ram/vm to perform the task.

error -36
i/o error. Could not access the disc (one example: the disc
is full you are trying to write to)

error- Power Calibration Area Error (0x73, 0x03.)
could not accurattely control the DVD drive, could be
a driver isssue or it could be you need to install Patchburn3.

[balkandvb]

yea well my error was with about, hmm.. NINE digits maybe? I supposed that was just a bogus number given by iDVD.

And yes, i do know bitrates and other options iam not the "average" user

So Serbia, i should get patch burn? my firmware is 1.17 i know the latest is 1.40..

[terryj]

The firmware of the Pioneer drive has ZILCH to do
with the on board drivers installed in the OS.

from my contribution to the upcoming FAQ:

Firmware on the drive just tells it certain calibrations
necessary to preform certain actions internally,
like burn at this speed, this type of media is acceptable,
this is your on-board buffer rating.

Patchburn "patches" the on board ( read: Native OS)
drivers, that tells the OS how internally installed parts
are accessible/mountable/usable, and what apps have
protocols to be able to utilize such devices.
When Patchburn 3 patches the drive kernal, it changes
the device's ability to be usuable by any apps that use
apple's drive kernals by giving it the status
"'apple [or vendor] supported", which is an all clear
to those apps.

So while your firmware may be up to date, unless the
OS says the device is "'apple [or vendor] supported",
you will still have issues using the drive with apps on the mac,
the iApps [iMovie/iTunes/iDVD] being the most notorious.

[balkandvb]

so final answer for me is try patchburn for iDVD 3 to work? And btw, is iDVD 3 encoder good? The toast encoder left too many encoding hiccups in the video when it was displayed on tv..

[balkandvb]

ok .. problem solved! Thank you very much for letting me vent.

I installed patchburn and iDVD 3 worked flawlessly and I was impressed by the quality of it's encoding... flawless.. Now I guess i love it. And thanks for all for helping out.

[sjk]

Glad you resolved this to your satisfaction. So much for your initial "idvd 3 is crap" comment, eh?

[balkandvb]

Yes i take that back completely!

[terryj]

another satisfied customer.....