[osxrules]

Is this one of the iapps being a dumbass again? I'm trying to make a DVD with 4.2GB of data with a fancy menu. So I have the theme set and try to add the dvd file only to be told that 4.2GB of data + a menu won't fit on a DVD. Someone perhaps forgot to tell it that a DVD holds 4.4GB of data. At the side, it just says I have 4GB that I can use for a DVD.

I wouldn't mind if it would let me proceed and let me do my own thing but as always, Apple knows best and it just stops me making the DVD at all. Are there any other DVD authoring apps that make nice menus like idvd but let me make a 4.4GB disc? I tried sizzle but it's hard to line up menu buttons and DVD Studio Pro isn't free.

[mduell]

Perhaps your fancy menu is more than 0.2GB?

[osxrules]

Nope, I know the limit is 4GB because it shows the limit on the left hand side. Even if I use a basic theme and it's at default settings, idvd won't let me add anything above 4GB. Other people have noted a similar problem:

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum...fm/433365.html
http://www.macworld.com/forums/ubbth...o=&fpart=1

I've read somewhere that idvd doesn't support vob files either so it wpuld be useless anyway. That seems a bit stupid to me considering it's the format that every DVD uses.

I just tried Toast and I got it to author ok with a pre-made menu and chapters, which was handy. However, it took ages, the menu didn't look that nice and the audio was missing.

I'll give sizzle another go.

[harrisjamieh]

Just to be a pedant; single layer DVD's have a capacity of 4.7 GB, not 4.4 as you stated

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by harrisjamieh

Just to be a pedant; single layer DVD's have a capacity of 4.7 GB, not 4.4 as you stated

No, it is actually ~4.4 GB. It would be 4.7 GB if 1 GB equaled 1,000,000,000 bytes, which it does not. It's the same discrepency that causes a "100 GB" hard drive to actually give you ~93 GB.

[osxrules]

Originally Posted by harrisjamieh

Just to be a pedant; single layer DVD's have a capacity of 4.7 GB, not 4.4 as you stated

DVD manufacturers use a decimal system to measure DVD capacity, whereas computers use a binary system:

In computer terms: 1GB = 1 gigabyte = 1,073,741,824 bytes (2^30)
In DVD terms: 1GB = 1 gigabyte = 1,000,000,000 bytes

therefore the actual computer data a DVD can store is (4.7*1,000,000,000)/1,073,741,824 = 4.38 GB or so.

I tried sizzle and it works but the menus look horrible. Plus, the authoring apps keep wanting to demux and remux my dvd video, which takes a while and a lot of space.

[osxrules]

OK, I ended up using DVD Imager. I made a video_ts folder and it just turned it into a dvd image that I could burn with toast. It has no menus or chapters but it doesn't try to demux/remux my video stream so it was fairly quick.

If they added menu building to that app, it would be great.

idvd sux. What is the point in making a DVD authoring application limited to 4GB with no VOB support? It seems like they are trying to encourage you to buy DVD Studio Pro or something. iapps = crippleware.

[Thinine]

Why would it have VOB support? It's for turning your home videos into DVDs, not pirating commercial movies.

[harrisjamieh]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey

No, it is actually ~4.4 GB. It would be 4.7 GB if 1 GB equaled 1,000,000,000 bytes, which it does not. It's the same discrepency that causes a "100 GB" hard drive to actually give you ~93 GB.

Oh cool, I didnt know that, you learn something new everyday

[osxrules]

Originally Posted by Thinine

Why would it have VOB support? It's for turning your home videos into DVDs, not pirating commercial movies.

When you say pirating, I presume you're talking about the pre-owned DVD I BOUGHT, which was scratched but I was able to extract on my Mac after some effort?

Anyway, idvd didn't seem to support any mpeg-2 format, whether it was vob or m2v+ac3 or video_ts. I know that DVD Studio supports these formats so to say that such a feature is only for pirating DVDs is BS unless you're implying that Apple encourage you to do that as long as you pay for their more expensive software packages.

[Thinine]

That's Not What The Software Is For So Complaining About It Is Retarded.

[Thinine]

Why were my all caps changed to just capitals at the beginning of words?

[SpaceMonkey]

Originally Posted by Thinine

Why were my all caps changed to just capitals at the beginning of words?

I think it's a feature of the forum software--can't have a post that's all caps.

[osxrules]

Originally Posted by Thinine

That's Not What The Software Is For So Complaining About It Is Retarded.

Well if you make a home movie and use idvd to author it to dvd and delete the original, which you would as DV takes up a lot of space then how do you edit it again? You can't copy the video_ts off the DVD, edit it or add a nicer menu and re-author it back to DVD. You'd have to convert the DVD back to DV or something and start again.

Anyway, whether or not that is how idvd should be used, it still has a 4GB limit, which it shouldn't.

Why were my all caps changed to just capitals at the beginning of words?

The forum admins obviously anticipated children using the forum.

[BeyondtheMacintosh]

I've had problems with iDVD aswell. All of the files I burn are AVI files, it does burn, but it works soooo slowly!

[msuper69]

Originally Posted by osxrules

Well if you make a home movie and use idvd to author it to dvd and delete the original, which you would as DV takes up a lot of space then how do you edit it again? You can't copy the video_ts off the DVD, edit it or add a nicer menu and re-author it back to DVD. You'd have to convert the DVD back to DV or something and start again.

iDVD is not an editing application.

If you want to edit it again, you have to save the source.

I've made nearly 100 DVDs via iDVD and it's worked flawlessly.

[msuper69]

Originally Posted by BeyondtheMacintosh

... All of the files I burn are AVI files, it does burn, but it works soooo slowly!

Encoding in software is slow. Encoding 12 gb of DV down to 4 gb of MPEG-2 is going to take hours. Now if there was a hardware encoder, that would be lickity-split.

[osxrules]

Originally Posted by msuper69

iDVD is not an editing application.

If you want to edit it again, you have to save the source.

I know that idvd is an authoring program but other editing software lets you edit mpeg-2 files even if that just involves cutting the movie but when you need to re-author the DVD, which idvd is for, you can't. Also, when you say save the source, how are you supposed to do that? DV source files are absolutely huge and would take maybe 5 DVDs if you're lucky.

They have DVD Studio Pro where I work and it looks like it supports mpeg-2 files but it's pretty complicated so I'll have to play around with it a bit. That was part of my point though. DVD Studio Pro is an authoring app too but it seems Apple have deliberately left out some features from idvd that are really useful for making DVDs. I don't suppose I should expect any different given that if they provided the same functionality in idvd, they wouldn't make the sale on DVD SP Pro.

I was just looking for a solution to my problem and hoping I could overcome it using idvd, which for the most part is better than other authoring apps.

I've made nearly 100 DVDs via iDVD and it's worked flawlessly.

Were you able to get more than 4GB on a DVD? If so, how did you get round it?

[JLL]

Originally Posted by osxrules

I know that idvd is an authoring program but other editing software lets you edit mpeg-2 files even if that just involves cutting the movie but when you need to re-author the DVD, which idvd is for, you can't.

iDVD is not for editing - iMovie is.

Originally Posted by osxrules

Also, when you say save the source, how are you supposed to do that? DV source files are absolutely huge and would take maybe 5 DVDs if you're lucky.

On the tape it's recorded onto. If you edit from a DVD source and author that again, you will witness a loss in quality.

Originally Posted by osxrules

DVD Studio Pro is an authoring app too but it seems Apple have deliberately left out some features from idvd that are really useful for making DVDs. I don't suppose I should expect any different given that if they provided the same functionality in idvd, they wouldn't make the sale on DVD SP Pro.

iDVD is for making DVDs of your home made iMovies.

[msuper69]

Originally Posted by JLL

iDVD is not for editing - iMovie is.




On the tape it's recorded onto. If you edit from a DVD source and author that again, you will witness a loss in quality.




iDVD is for making DVDs of your home made iMovies.

What he/she said!

[JLL]

He

[Uncle Skeleton]

Originally Posted by osxrules

...but other editing software lets you edit mpeg-2 files...

No. What other software does is re-render the MPEG-2 files in the background without telling you, then re-encode back to MPEG-2 for you when you're finished. Not only does that involve a lot of processor power and (a little) loss in quality, implementing that feature is really hard, and you have to pay a lot more for it. This is because MPEG (1 and 2) were designed specifically to be delivery formats and not editing formats (I assume you're talking about FCP type apps. There are exceptions like MPEG StreamClip, and for the same reason, these apps ONLY support simple cut operations (and not frame accurate!), which if you really think about it would be laughed out of town if that was presented as an "editing" app)

They have DVD Studio Pro where I work and it looks like it supports mpeg-2 files

DVDSP doesn't support editing either. Basically, you have to encode your media before going to DVDSP. The reason DVDSP supports already encoded media and iDVD doesn't is because iDVD does you the favor of rolling media encoding into the same app. If anything, iDVD has MORE features than DVDSP (regarding media encoding, not disc authoring). For example, try using your DV (or any other codec besides MPEG) media in DVDSP. Won't work. Media encoding is hard and complicated, and iDVD is designed for people who won't be able to do it.

You do have a point, if you make the argument that some video cameras now store original content in MPEG-2, and it would be grand if iApps supported using that content. On the other hand, MPEG-2 is still not an editing format, and if you want anything greater than or equal to frame-accurate cut operations, you have to encode the whole thing into something like DV anyway.

[zerostar]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton

try using your DV (or any other codec besides MPEG) media in DVDSP. Won't work. Media encoding is hard and complicated, and iDVD is designed for people who won't be able to do it.

I Use DVDSP 4 every day, it will in-fact take a dv stream and encode it before it burns the DVD, I use this method out of FCP all the time.

[osxrules]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton

There are exceptions like MPEG StreamClip, and for the same reason, these apps ONLY support simple cut operations (and not frame accurate!), which if you really think about it would be laughed out of town if that was presented as an "editing" app)

That was the sort of editing I meant. I see where you are coming from with those apps being frame inaccurate but keyframes tend not to be very far apart in mpeg-1 and -2, which is why you can scrub through them quickly so the editing is fairly accurate. Given that home movies aren't of the best quality anyway, a couple of seconds innaccuracy is not that bad considering how much easier it would make things.

DVDSP doesn't support editing either.

Sorry, when I said that it supports mpeg-2 files, I didn't mean for editing. I meant that DVDSP will let you re-author an mpeg-2 stream without starting with DV, like imovie makes you do.

You do have a point, if you make the argument that some video cameras now store original content in MPEG-2, and it would be grand if iApps supported using that content. On the other hand, MPEG-2 is still not an editing format, and if you want anything greater than or equal to frame-accurate cut operations, you have to encode the whole thing into something like DV anyway.

Yes, I actually had the video cameras that record straight to DVD in mind when posting the thread. Again, you are right on the frame accurate editing but it would make quick edits so much easier.

The thing is, it's possible with tools like MPEG StreamClip to edit mpeg-2 streams but you'd still need to convert to DV for idvd to author them, which IMO wastes a lot of time and drive space for a quick edit.

[Uncle Skeleton]

The point is that iDVD's selling point is simplicity. The whole advantage is that you hide the intermediate MPEG-2 encoding steps along with the intermediate DVD authoring steps, and all the user sees is capture->edit->burn (and wait. and wait). If you're the kind of person that wants to fiddle with settings, the app that's concentrating on simplicity is not for you. iDVD is not an all-purpose DVD editing toolbox, nor should you expect it to be since all of the other iApps are exactly the opposite of that. They don't have unnecessary options because unnecessary options just let grandma get herself in trouble.

In your case, I think the problem is simply that you refuse to re-encode. A big part of the simplicity stragety is that all (video) iApps use the same native codec, DV, and the first thing is to transfer to the native codec, for consistency (of code, features, behavior, etc). Consistency is much more important to Apple than the minor quality loss or even the cpu time loss of re-encoding, and rightly so in the case of iApps.

Have you tried Sizzle? That might be more what you're looking for.

[BeyondtheMacintosh]

I also wanted to know, howcome iDVD only burns DVD-R ? It WILL NOT burn DVD-RW or DVD+RW OR DVD+R. It's very strange, I have tried it with them before and the only kind that plays on my TV is DVD-R.

[JLL]

Originally Posted by BeyondtheMacintosh

I also wanted to know, howcome iDVD only burns DVD-R ? It WILL NOT burn DVD-RW or DVD+RW OR DVD+R. It's very strange, I have tried it with them before and the only kind that plays on my TV is DVD-R.

You didn't consider that it's your player that can't handle them? Many older players can't handle DVD+R/RW