Digital Commons at Penn State

Creating a New Project
After editing your iMovie 6 project, and setting chapter markers your project is ready for iDVD.
(Note: If you want a blank screen to start with, choose the reflection Chapters theme and you will get a blank gray background with no drop zones.)

A. Select Share > iDVD Project. B. Click the Share button. (Make sure that the Share selected clips only checkbox is not selected.) C. iDVD will open with your new project loaded into the default theme. Note: It’s a good idea to save your project immediately. To do so, go to File > Save As… and enter a name and location. Click Save.

Choosing a Theme

A. Click the Themes button in the lower right side of the iDVD window. The Themes panel will open with a choice of themes from the current and previous versions of iDVD. B. To apply a theme, click on one that suits the format of the video you are using. Note: If a window pops up asking “Change the Project Aspect Ratio?” Click Reply, “Keep the project as standard.”

C. Choose Advanced > Apply Theme to Project in order to give your project a consistent look.

Customizing a Theme

A. Adding Photos or Videos to Drop Zones
In many of the themes in iDVD, you can customize your menus by adding images and video clips from your project by using Drop Zones. To add video clips from your iMovie project:

1. In iMovie, choose a video clip.

2. Switch to iDVD and position its window so you can see the Drop Zone you are trying to fill while iMovie is in the foreground.

3. Back in iMovie, click on the desired clip and drag it to the Drop Zone.

Note: If a clip has been split, the entire, unsplit clip will play in the DVD menu since iDVD pulls from the original footage. It may be necessary to make specific DV clips using QuickTime Pro.

4. If there is more than one Drop Zone, use the playhead at the bottom of the iDVD window to advance to and to change the next Drop Zone once the first has been filled.

Note: To make this process easier, you may find it useful to disengage Motion by clicking on the Motion button, or going to View > Motion and making sure that Motion is not checked. Be sure to re-engage Motion before burning or your menus will no longer be animated.

B. Changing Titles

1. Carefully, click once on the title. Do not double click, especially if working with submenu titles, as it will open the submenu, causing you to have to back track to the menu and start over.

2. When the boundary box appears, click a second time on the title text. The text will highlight blue.

3. Type the name you would prefer for the title and then click outside the title area to accept the change.

4. Selecting the Menu button, you can define title size, position, font, color, and drop shadowing for the title.

5. In some cases you will need to edit and arrange the submenu text. To do so, you will first need to select the Buttons button, then select the radio button Arrangement: Free positioning. This is where you can define subtitle size position, font, color, and drop shadowing for the subtitle.

C. Importing Background Audio

1. To add a soundtrack to a menu, first open the menu where you want to add the audio. 2. Next, select the Media button to open the Media Pane, and then select the Audio button. 3. Select a song and click the Apply button at the bottom of the pane. (Song must be in AAC, MP3, or AIFF format.) 4. Click the Menu button and drag the Loop Duration slider to the duration you want the audio file to play. The duration applies to both the audio file and any background movies. (The maximum duration is 15 minutes.)

Note: You can add different audio tracks to each submenu, by following the directions above.

Previewing and Burning
After your iDVD project is completed, save the project one final time.

A. Previewing the project

1. To get an idea of what the project will look like on a standard DVD player, click the Preview button at the bottom of the iDVD window. The project will load as though it is burnt to a disc that has been inserted into your DVD player.

2. Use the on screen “remote control” to navigate DVD menus and control playback.

3. Click Preview a second time to go back to edit your project, if needed.

B. Burning the project

1. When you are finished with the DVD project, click the Burn this iDVD project to a disc button. iDVD will prompt you to insert a blank DVD. 2. iDVD will show each step of the burning process in the progress indicator. When finished, test the disc in a standard DVD player before selecting Cancel in the iDVD window.

Note: iDVD 6, can use several different types of DVD Media,.
• DVD-R (Best for playback on old DVD players),
• DVD+R
• DVD+RW (2 hour )