Disk Burning Help

[pilotsR4pimps 0]

Shot two tandems today and, being it is a small DZ, I took everything home to edit video using iMovie and then burn it using iDvd after I created menus and whatnot. For some reason it is taking FOREVER.... over an hour now and it used to burn in 5-15 minutes. Can anybody help. Also, is there a way I can simplify the editing/burning process so I am not spending an hour on each one?

[stratostar 5]

1. You can make a disk image and then burn it 2. burn it in toast 3. if your going to use imovie and do a lot of videos, it would best for speed to get you a cheap dvd recorder unit and use your camera as a pass thru unit, in other words export the video back out of imovie and into the camera that is wired to your recorder, just lock your tape so it won't record the signal and it pass thru to the recorder.

While that way will not have the joe cool menu and all that like idvd, it will speed up the burn because you don't render anything, the rendering of everything is what takes so long if you don't make a disk image first.

Should you decide to try that and like it, you can find a cheap and or broken camera that will still power up and work for pass thru so you can keep it in line fulltime and not fool around locking and unlocking your tapes, or get you a working unit and go ahead and record each video your burning, that way you have each video in an edited copy should you need another one, however it adds a lot to your media storage.

I might also add that if your going to use imovie for tandem production fulltime, you should set up a templet of canned shots like ,intro, taxi, takeoff, climb etc, then all you need to shoot is your interview, couple short shots in flight of their smiling face or looking out the window, the jump, post jump interview and that will speed up things a great deal because your only importing less then 5 mins of video and dragging and dropping those select shots, make your audio adjustments and change the name in your opening title and your done ready to export in real time to your recorder.

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

[faulknerwn 38]

Occasionally I'll get some weird setting in IDVD that will make it take forever. Usually I somehow got footage in the background of the IDVD menus and that takes forever to burn.

I have a default header/trailer that I use in all the videos so that saves time on import. Once I import the video (if you upgrade to a CX100 and record on memory cards in DV - the import only takes about 30 seconds.)
I turn the volume down en masse on all the clips (select all) and then drag them up to the new project. Then I only turn the volume up, and ducking on, on the 3 clips or so which need it. Slow-mo the exit and opening, drop in some music and share. I can do the editing part in less than 2 minutes typically. Its normally about 5 minutes to share and 10 minutes to burn.

You can have it do transitions and such automatically as well to save time.

I have noticed that when my main hard drive starts getting full that things slow down so I clean it up regularly. Also reboot occasionally if things start slowing down - sometimes webbrowsing and flash and stuff can be residual memory hogs..