iDVD, LONG times

[Sean7512]

I was wondering if there was a way to tell if iDVD 4 has froze on me or not. I am burning a movie, I started it at 10pm last night and it is now noon. I have made many DVDs before, but they have normally never toke longer than 4 hours or so. When I went to sleep last night, I thought it froze on "Asset Encoding" but when I woke up, it was at "Multiplexing and Burning." I'm not sure what Mulitplexing is, but it is surely taking forever! My computer is a 1.25 G4 eMac, 1GB Ram, 80 GB HD (29 GB free), 32 mb radeon 9200.

The movie isn't overly complicated either, I have 3 motion menus (main, plus 2 chapter menus), 1 slideshow containing 57 pictures with transitions, and my main movie is 40 min 30 seconds. The movie was made in iMovie and is a combination of pictures, DV, transitions, effects, music, yadda yadda yadda.

What do you think is taking it soo long?

 

[Applespider]

You could check in Activity Monitor to see whether iDVD is still using CPU cycles?

14 hours does seem overly long - have you been doing other things at the same time? I burned an iDVD disc last week which had 30 minutes of a main movie plus 4 shorter movies (a couple of minutes each) with 4 motion menus and one standard one. My Powerbook is 1.25Ghz too but with a better graphics card. Using iDVD5 on Best Quality, it took about 4 1/2 hours to process and burn.

 

[Sean7512]

Nope, I haven't used the eMac since I started the whole process. According to Activity Monitor, iDVD is using 66% CPU. I don't know what to do, because I NEED this movie tonight by 6pm. I'd hate to stop it if it really is doing its job.

 

[Sean7512]

I got a buffer underrun error or whatever they are. It just told me, now at 2:40. This is terrible!!! How long would it take to do at "best performance"? Would it be done by say 6?? Someone, please help!!! I really need this, any suggestions?

 

[Applespider]

Have a quick swizz through the iDVD support boards on Apple for suggestions on what to do with that error mesage. I know they advise not having chapter markers through transitions for one problem but can't recall if it's that one.

Mine on Best Performance took just over 2 hours to burn (but it was choppy over a few transitions)

 

[Sean7512]

Thanks soo much. I took out all of my chapter markers (they weren't really needed), I think I found 2 that were in transitions. I have changed my settings to "Best Performance" Hopefully it will be done in time *crosses fingers*

 

[kwajaln]

Update? Good luck!

 

[Sean7512]

I have about an hour and 15 minutes until it needs to be done. It is just about done doing the Background encoding. I actually toke out all of the extras I originally had (like multiple menus, auto play before menu, slideshows, menu transitions). I made it so it is just a menu and a movie. Once this background encoding is done, I assume not much more encoding needs to take place, just menu encoding probably. I think it will be done

 

[Sean7512]

It never finished
This is terrible!! It is now 10:28 pm, and is still "Asset Encoding." Why has it been asset encoding since 5, when the "Background Encoding" said DONE?????? I'm starting to think that something is wrong with my mac, any suggestions? Normally, movies take about 3, maybe 4 hours max to complete. This is absolute NONSENE!

 

[Applespider]

Oh dear... I'm sorry you never got it done.

It does sound like something is wrong. Do have a read through the Apple support boards and try their suggestions like deleting preferences files, reinstalling Quicktime. One regular poster over there thinks these problems sometimes come to light with dodgy RAM - that might behave fine most of the time but dies under heavy loads? Good luck!