imovie DVD will not play on TV dvd player « Videomaker Community Forums

heather8
Member

Hello Everyone
In my sad and sorry past I used to pull out my hair trying to edit video on a PC. When I downgraded to Pinnacle software at least the poor old PC was able to edit dv camcorder footage and write to DVD (-R) that would play on all TV DVD players I tried. Getting to that stage using a PC was more painful than I care to remember.
At last - I have a Powermac G4. My honeymoon period with this beautiful creature is in danger of coming to an abrupt end. Currently i am just using imovie and idvd as this G4 just has 768mb RAM - I will get Final Cut Pro when I upgrade to 2gb RAM.
I did a simple test and burned a dvd (using the same -R brand i used successfully in the past) of some video i captured in imovie - only about 40 seconds for a quick test. There is no internal superdrive so i am using an external rewriter. The written dvd will not play on my TV DVD player (as it would have done in the bad old 'PC' days). I have searched the help menus in imovie3 and idvd3 and i followed the export 'expert settings' instructions exactly as the help menu advised. The dvd wil play on the mac but not on my tv dvd player (that played them in the past).
I am very disheartened to have come to this standstill with mac. I have searched numerous forums on the topic but i can't get any further advice to suggest doing things a different way to how I am . I have a suspicion that it is to do with how the file is being saved - I seem to remember saving in mpeg2 which is not available in QT export in imovie. The project is a .mov file and i chose DV PAL in the settings as prompted by imovie help.
I need to do a lot of video editing and burn to dvd in the very best image quality possible. This is why I bought a mac. Is there anyone out there burning dvd's (without an internal superdrive)?
Below is my mac spec if that's of any use.
Also below is a copy of the help menu instruction i followed.
i would really appreciate any ideas on this. Thank you.

My G4 spec
Power Mac G4 MDD M8570.
Single 1.25ghz CPU
1 cache (per CPU) 256kb
1 cache (per CPU) 1mb
Bus Speed 167mhz
OS X 10.4.9
768 mb DDR SD RAM
Main Drive 74.53gb.
Back up drive 38.17gb
(I also have an external 160 gb HD...)
ATI Radeon 9000 Pro
Chip set ATY, RV250
Bus Type AGP
VRAM 64mb

Instruction from Imovie To export a movie in NTSC or PAL format:

1 Choose File > Export.
2 Choose To QuickTime from the Export pop-up menu.
3 Choose Expert Settings from the Formats pop-up menu and click Export.
4 Type a name for your movie and choose where you want to save it.
5 Choose "Movie to QuickTime Movie" from the Export pop-up menu and click Options.
6 In the Video pane, click Settings to open the Compression Settings window.
7 Choose a format from the pop-up menu (DV-PAL or DVCPRO-PAL for Europe, DV-NTSC or DVCPRO-NTSC for North America and Japan).
8 Drag the Quality slider to the desired quality. Best is recommended.
9 Type a value in the "Frames per second" field (25 for PAL and 29.97 for NTSC), and then click OK.
10 Click Size to open the Export Size Settings window, and then click "Use custom size."
11 Type a value in the Width field (720 for both PAL and NTSC) and in the Height field (576 for PAL and 480 for NTSC), and click OK.
12 Click Settings in the Sound pane. Leave Compressor set at None.
13 Choose 48.000 from the kHz pop-up menu in the Sound Settings window.
14 Select "16 bit" and "Stereo," and then click OK.
15 Click OK in the Movie Settings window.
16 Click Save.

Posted 5 years ago #
;0)
Member

don't burn from idvd (unless you have an internal superdrive, ( http://www.australian.macusersgroup.org/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=53 ) is a hack to work around i used to use.). export to quicktime, then use something like roxio toast to burn.
buy Ilife 06 if it'll run on your machine.

Posted 5 years ago #
heather8
Member

Hello there ;o)
Thanks for your reply - i will investigate your link more fully as soon as i have written this - on first impressions it looks a bit beyond my technical know-how (but i won't be beaten on this!).

I am sorry i wasn't as clear as i could have been.
I couldn't use idvd to burn my project as the burn button is only active with an internal superdrive - your link might shed some light on changing this...
Anyway - i dragged the project into the blank dvd icon on my desk top which appeared as soon as i put a disc into my rewriter. Then i clicked 'file' and then 'burn dvd' and off it went!

Hope this provides more clarity for others reading this thread!
Thanks again.

heather.

Posted 5 years ago #
jetson
Member

Try this link also if you need more assistance: it's a Mac Help Forum

http://www.maclife.com/forums/forum/5

Yes, as mentioned earlier, there are definitely some compatibility with older G4's using external DVD burners (in fact it wasn't even supported by Mac for awhile.)

Adding RAM would be a great thing, max it out if you can. I was successfully burning DVD's on my G4 867 with superdrive and playing them just fine on almost any TV.

Good luck!

Posted 5 years ago #
heather8
Member

Thanks for your reply. That is a great mac forum link - loads of things of interest.

Yep - i will be maximising the RAM to 2gb.
Just on that point - any ideas where to get good RAM at a reasonable price?
I used to use Crucial for PC RAM.

Any other upgrades i should be considering for video editing - e.g CPU?

Glad to hear you were successful with this in the past on a similar machine!
It won't beat me - i will post my success story (but don't hold yer breath!)

All the best.
heather.

Posted 5 years ago #
jetson
Member

Crucial is where I buy my Mac RAM as well. I wouldn't buy it anywhere else. They have awesome service and a great return policy.

Posted 5 years ago #