# Problems with iMovie and iDVD



## Virtuoso80 (Feb 9, 2008)

Hey all. I am having some trouble taking an .avi file and burning it to a DVD-R for playing on my stand alone DVD player. I feel like an idiot because it seems like something that should be simple with what I have but is causing me endless frustration.

My G5 is a few years old. It originally came with 10.3 but I upgraded to 10.5 recently. Anyway, to do what I said I wanted to do, I imported the fine into iMovie, which worked fine. Then, when I go and click on the iDVD window in iMovie, the button 'create iDVD project doesn't light up at all, IOW I can't press it. I also tried selecting 'share with iDVD from the menu for the movie clip, but iDVD opens and doesn't do anything but play some cheesy intro video. In fact I would guess the problem is there because I can't seem to import anything to iDVD at all. Is there something really simple and stupid I am missing here?

Well since that didn't work, I tried downloading a couple of programs for DVD burning. One by a company named Xilisoft and another that looked almost exactly like it. They both had the same problem: They start creating the DVD menu I guess it is and then get stuck, never burning anything or progressing from there. Also, if you're wondering, the DVD player is a SONY DVD RW DW-U21A, which is a Mac superdrive, capable of burning DVD's, right? 

Anyway that's the jist. Let me know if you have any questions or want me to try something. Any help woul dbe GREATLY appreciated. Thanks.


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## sinclair_tm (Mar 11, 2005)

can you burn files from the finder? this won't help with the video, but it tell us if the drive is bad. as for idvd and imovie, what versions are they? are they from the same ilife package? but for imovie not to talk to idvd, and with the problems you seem to have with idvd, i'd guess that there is something wrong with idvd, and a reinstall of it may help there.


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## ShosMeister (Jan 19, 2008)

If you've never done this before, it may seem strange - also, not sure if it's different in the latest versions:

When you import the file, it's not actually a movie yet. It's just a video clip on the clipboard. You need to drag it down to the timeline to actually tell iMovie that it's part of the movie. Then, when you go to iDVD, it should light up.


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## Virtuoso80 (Feb 9, 2008)

Update: Yes, dragging into the timeline was part of it. But I also realized I can just drag and drop the .avi directly into iDVD without importing to iMovie first, is there anything wrong with that. Either way...I tried both, but I encountered another problem both times:

After iDVD is done encoding and goes to burn the disk, I get a message that says 'there were flaws found during the burning process'. I didn't hear the DVD drive speed up like it was burning, so I'm not sure it started the burning process at all. Also, the computer still reads the DVD as blank. Also, the first time it happened, iDVD froze up entirely, wouldn't even let me restart the computer (had to use the manual button). The second time I also got another error message saying there was another problem don't remember exactly what. 

aaaaand one more important thing: I just tried to burn data from iTunes onto a DVD and that didn't work either. 'The device failed to respond properly'. CD's burn just fine. I guess that would have to be part of the problem then...where do I go form here?


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## ShosMeister (Jan 19, 2008)

Do you have Toast or anything similar to try to burn the DVD outside of Apple's software? If that doesn't work, I think it's safe to say the drive may be bad.


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