[MacDV] Can't render/encode my iDVD project - Can't burn project to DVD

[Robert L. Vaessen]

Help!

I'm at the end of my rope. I can't seem to get any further...

First a little background. I'll try to keep it short.

Friends and I made a movie (Direct to VHS) back in 1984. It's been 
floating around on VHS (quality keeps getting worse) since then. 
Recently we converted it to VIDEO_TS (It's not the best quality, but we 
all love that little movie). I imported the data with iMovie, created a 
project (32:27 NTSC), and sent it to iDVD for menus, transitions, etc.

The iMovie assets folder is 7.22GB in size.
The iDVD project is 13.14Gb when archived.

I've got menus, transitions, chapter selections, etc built in iDVD. 
Everything plays fine in Preview mode. When I go to burn the project to 
DVD, it gets stuck at stage 2 (rendering and encoding menus and 
slideshows). It seems to run forever, with no indication that it will 
ever complete the rendering and encoding. I've waited for over 12 hours 
and still there's no indication that it will ever finish (It shouldn't 
take this long to complete stage 2 should it?). I've had to abort 
several times (had to force quit as cancel and quit had no effect).

I've disabled all possible interfering software (FYI: None of them 
(Norton, APE, FirewalkX, Stuffit seem to be the culprit) seem to be 
causing any problems), disabled screen savers and energy savers. 
Running only iDVD, the processors are nowhere near maxed out (running 
from 15 - 25% on average), but still it sits at stage 2, seemingly 
doing nothing?

I've tried using Best Quality encoding and Best Performance encoding 
(with/without Background rendering enabled). Nothing seems to work. 
I've got a nice little production on my computer, but I can't seem to 
get it off the desktop.

The iDVD status reveals the following information: (with motion on)
-------------
Project size:
DVD capacity: 2.6GB of 4.1GB
Motion menus: 12:30 of 15:00
Tracks: 1 of 99
Menus: 6 of 99
Background Encoding:
Asset - ninjamovie_original.mov
Status - During background encoding, the status bar never gets further 
than about 4% across.

 From Project info: (with motion on)
-------------
Space free on rvaessen - 82.782GB
Video Standard - NTSC
Project Duration -  44:02
Assets:
ninjamovie_original.mov  type:video   status:check
Ninjamovie_original.mov  type:audio   status:check
Wild Ride.m4a            type:audio   status:check
idvdphoto1.jpeg          type:picture status:check
First Round Knockout.m4a type:audio   status:check
idvdphot2.jpeg           type:picture status:check
Texan 60.m4a             type:audio   status:check
scenes9-16.jpeg          type:picture status:check
Repeater.m4a             type:audio   status:check
idvdphoto4.jpeg          type:picture status:check
Red Sky 60.m4a           type:audio   status:check
Scenes17-18.jpeg         type:picture status:check

I have the same problem when I try to burn the tutorial to DVD. It 
begins stage 2, but never finishes. The activity at first seems 
consistent with active processes, but the level of activity (audible 
disk/processor sounds) soon levels off to a consistent lack of apparent 
activity.

If I turn off the motion menus (for my movie), iDVD crashes during 
stage 3.

Should I find an alternate way to put my project on a DVD? Is there an 
alternate way? What can I burn to DVD (what file/file format/resource) 
without using iDVD? (I have a copy of Dragon Burn) Should I start over 
from scratch? What could be stopping iDVD from completing the rendering 
process?

Where should I look for the cause of my problems? Is there a log file 
somewhere? Will the log file provide any valuable information (for me), 
or will it be a totally incomprehensible pile of technical gibberish?

I would hate to have no menus (iDVD's motion menus are sweet, but...), 
but I'd be willing to burn .dv (I exported the iMovie project to .dv 
using the share function) or the iMovie project directly to DVD without 
iDVD. Can I do that?

How long should it take to burn the iDVD tutorial on my DP 1.8Ghz G5? 
(with/without motion menus).

Help please:

- Robert


My system:
My Mac: As of 22 Oct 2004
Hardware/System/Software
Hardware: 64bit 1.8Ghz dual processor PowerMac G5 w/2.5Gb DDR SDRAM, 
87GB free space on boot drive
System: Panther OS 10.3.5 (7M34)
Software: iMovie 4.0, iDVD 4.0.1