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

[Robert L. Vaessen]

On Oct 27, 2004, at 19:17, Gerhard Kuhn wrote:

> On Oct 27, 2004, at 8:03 PM, Robert L. Vaessen wrote:
>
>> Gerhard -
>>
>> I've left it for 20 hours at one time (with power management/screen 
>> savers off). About 30% of the time it crashes, when it crashes, it 
>> usually crashes within 30 minutes or so. If it doesn't crash, it 
>> experiences what I call a "freewheel" symptom. I was recently able to 
>> complete a burn (of the iDVD tutorial), but the quality was so bad it 
>> was unusable. The burn that completed took about 5 minutes to 
>> complete stages 1 - 3, and another 5 minutes to complete stage 4. 
>> That project had a menu, a transition, motion graphics, some music, 
>> and 5 seconds worth of video.
>>
>> I'm begining to think that the codec used by iDVD for video/audio 
>> rendering and encoding is not compatible with my processor. ffmpegx 
>> uses two different codec's. I've been trying both, with limited 
>> success.
>>
>> I'm still tinkering with ffmpegx. I have suceeded in producing a 
>> VIDEO_TS folder with the components required for a DVD burn. 
>> Unfortunately, there's no aduio yet. I'm going to try to produce the 
>> audio and video separately, and then mux them together using one of 
>> ffmpegx's post processing capabilities.
>>
>> - Robert
>
> Did you view the DVD on your computer or on TV.  Generally they look 
> much better on a TV.
> The Audio_TS folder should be empty as the audio is part of the mpeg2 
> file.
>
> Gerhard

Gerhard -

I viewed the DVD on the TV. It looked absolutely horrible. The AUDIO_TS 
folder was empty.

Good news. Working with ffmpegX (version 0.0.9p) I have been able to 
author/encode my iMovie project to valid DVD data folders (VIDEO_TS and 
AUDIO_TS). I previewed the data on my G5, and the .VOB file contained 
multiplexed video and audio.

I used DragonBurn to burn the data to DVD. I now have an autoplay 
version of my iMovie file. I used iMovie to edit the movie, output it 
as .DV and used that as my input to ffmpegX.

ffmepgX settings were:

File settings:
Open: ninjamovie_imovieedit.dv
Save as: ninjamovie_imovieedit.dv
(info:  dvvideo, 720x480, 29.97 fps, 25000 kb/s. AUDIO:  pcm_s16le, 
48000 Hz, stereo, 1536 kb/s)

Video settings:
Video codec: MPEG2[.MPG](mpeg2enc) - encode video checked
Bitrate calculator:
Video bit rate: 3742 kbit/s
36 min keep in: 1 CDs of DVD 4GB 3997MB
Video parameters:
Video size: 720 x 480
Autosize: DVD
Framerate: NTSC (29.97)
Title 1

Audio parameters:
Audio codec: .MP2 encode - encode audio checked
Audio bitrate: 128 kbit/s
Sampling: 48000 hz
Channels: Stereo
Mode: CBR
Audio track: 0
Audio gain: +0

Filters:
Subtitles: not used
Image filters: denoise checked - 100 luminance, 100 saturation, 125 
sharpness
Crop: not used

Options:
mpeg2enc options: Bicubic and Decode with Quicktime checked
Profile: DVD
Q Matrix: Standard
Interlace: Not interlaced
Thread: Dual CPU
VBV size: 460 kb
Sync: 0 ms
Q Min: 7

Tools:
Post-processing: Author as DVD (VIDEO_TS) checked
Open Terminal window and Keep elementary streams checked
Video Tools: Mux as... DVD


In the end, it is my opinion, through observation, trial and error and 
deduction, that the codec used by iDVD 4.0.1 in order to encode digital 
video/audio is incompatible with my 1.8Ghz DP G5. I can only speculate 
as to why it has worked for some and not others. I was able to find a 
solution to my problems, and in the end that is all that really 
matters. iDVD encoding/rendering is the only thing that I have really 
had a problem with on my G5. After reading literally thousands of 
similar posts (in Apple's iDVD forum), it is apparent that there is 
some sort of compilation/compatibility issue with iDVD's codec. Maybe 
Apple will address the problem at some point. Until then, I'll use 
ffmpegX and DragonBurn to author and burn iMovie projects to DVD.

The video looks better on the DVD than it did on the VHS. Thanks for 
all the help.

- Robert