Burning Your DVD Disc

Once your DVD project is ready, it’s time to transfer it to a DVD. This is a two-step process: encoding your menus, movies and photo slideshows, then burning the encoded files to your DVD. The time required to burn a disc depends on the number and the size of the movies and photos used, as well as on the speed of your computer.

Once your DVD has been created you can insert the DVD into a DVD player connected to a television, and watch your DVD on the big screen (or of course, insert into your Mac and watch it using the included DVD Player, or most any PC computer with DVD playback software).

Tips

Watching your new DVD on your Mac or TV

After you’ve created your DVD, you’ll want to watch it. Try it out on your Mac using the DVD Player program. DVD Player opens automatically when you insert a viewable DVD.Or use most any PC computer with DVD playback software. If the final viewing will be on a TV, also test your DVD on a DVD player connected to your TV. TVs can display slightly less of the overall image than computer monitors due to a process called overscanning. You should preview your DVD on a TV just to be safe, before considering it final.

If you plan to create multiple discs

When iDVD finishes burning a disc, it ejects the disc and prompts you to insert another blank DVD if you want to burn another copy. iDVD burns subsequent discs more quickly than the first one because the video has already been converted to the proper format for copying.

Using third party DVD burners

In addition to Apple SuperDrives, iDVD 6 allows you to use compatible third party burners.

Consider rewritable media when creating your DVDs

When testing your DVDs, consider using rewritable media (DVD-RW, DVD+RW) if your Apple SuperDrive or third party burner supports it. If you find an error after burning your DVD, such as a typo in a menu, or the wrong slides for a slideshow, you can fix the iDVD project and reburn it to the same disc. After you’ve previewed your DVD on your TV and consider it finished, you may wish to burn it to read-only media (DVD-R, DVD+R) to share copies with others.

Making sure you have enough free space on your hard disk

Before burning your DVD, be sure you have at least twice as much space available on your hard disk as your project’s total size, to allow for encoding and burning. Check the size of your project by selecting Project Info from the Project menu. The DVD capacity meter will show the size of your DVD. For example, if your project takes up 4 GB of hard disk space, you’ll need at least 8 GB of free space on your hard disk to burn the DVD.

Steps

Burn a DVD

Start with an iDVD project that you want to burn to a DVD.
In the iDVD window, click the Burn button.
When prompted, insert a blank DVD.
Watch as iDVD encodes your menus, movies, and slideshows, and burns the encoded project to the DVD.
When your DVD has been created, iDVD ejects the DVD.