Time to export? (iMovie2 to iDVD)

[RickC]

A friend is working on a 40 minute imovie for me. He said that his computer was working most of the day exporting to iDVD. He selected the export to iDVD option. I read somewhere else that it should only take the same time as the movie to do this. Does this sound right that it took so long?

2nd question- when the xomputer finished exporting, he couldn't find the exported file. Where should he look?

[LD-50]

When I export 45 minutes of video from iMovie to iDVD at default settings (i.e. no audio compression, and DVSPRO video) it takes about 19 minutes on a G4 867. From my humble experience, iMovie needs to be the active window — i.e. you cannot hide iMovie and have the export continue. I am not sure if this is a limitation for the "consumer" software (BTW, can FCPro export when hidden/in the background?). You have to leave the iMovie window open while exporting.

Also, when you export, you specify a path/location for the .mov export file. I think it defaults to "My Great Movie.mov" in your "Movies" folder in your home directory. If it didn't work for your firend, maybe a reboot and trying the process again will help ....

[jchansen]

Yes, keep iMovie in the foreground. That almost surely is what happened. By the way, when my machine was a 400 G3, it took almost exactly real time to export. I added a 500 G4 upgrade, and it now takes about 40 minutes to export an hour.

Jeremy