Mac Help Articles
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iDVD HACK/EASTER EGG FAQs:
| Please Read this FAQ before emailing me. If nothing on this FAQ page helps (please try all the tips), then email me and I'll see what I can do. |
- Q. I've downloaded the file, put it in my home folder, and tried holding down the 'control' key, but nothing happens (i.e. it asks me to put in a disc or tells me I don't have the proper hardware to burn a DVD). What's wrong?
A. Make sure you have expanded the file you downloaded, opened the disk image, and copied two files (named 'Hurz' and 'Pfurz') DIRECTLY into your home folder (illustration below). You cannot place the files inside any other folder in your home folder - both files must be in your home folder. If you wish for more than one user to use this hack, you must place a copy of each file in each user's home folder.
Make sure the 'Hurz' and 'Pfurz' files are DIRECTLY in your home folder.
- Q. Everything seems to go well, and the dialog box shows up, but iDVD won't burn to my external drive. What's wrong?
A. There could be a few causes for this problem. Sometimes iDVD just won't burn to a certain manufacturer's drive (I find Sony, Panasonic, Matsushita or LaCie drives work best). Other times, the drive you have may be either (a) incompatible with Mac OS X, or (b) not a DVD-R drive (i.e. a DVD+R drive).
If either of these problems occurs, there are two workarounds: 1) buy a new drive (pretty impractical, though), and 2) use the hack to burn a Disk Image, then use Disk Utility (OS 10.3.x), Disc Copy (OS 10.2.x) or Toast to burn to your drive (see #3 to see how to do this).
Also, if you view your drive information in Apple’s System Profiler, and it says that ‘Disc Burning’ is ‘not supported’, you can try downloading PatchBurn and see if installing it will let your drive work with OSX.
- Q. I am unable to burn a DVD, even though I can burn DVDs to my external drive in the Finder OR I can only burn a Disk Image, but not directly to a DVD - how do I burn a DVD from the disk image made from iDVD?
A. Burn a disk image to a DVD using Disk Utility (OS 10.3.x):
1. Open Disk Utility, located in Applications/Utilities.
2. Drag the disk image you created from iDVD to use to the Disk Utility window if the disk image doesn't appear in the list.
3. Select the disk image (in Disk Utility) and click Burn.
4. Insert a CD or DVD disc into the optical drive of your computer and follow the prompts.
ALTERNATE OPTION: If you have Toast or another disc-burning program, you can use it to burn the DVD – read your program’s help for instructions.
NOTE: If you are using Mac OS 10.2.x or earlier, you will have to use Disk Copy instead. See Disk Copy's help for more information.
- Q. I have a PC with a DVD burner, but I don't have a burner on my Mac (or the one on my PC is way faster, so I'd like to use it instead). Is there any way I could use the Disk Image file (.dmg or .img) created by iDVD to burn the DVD on my Windows PC instead?
A. (found here) You will have to convert the disk image file created by iDVD to the .iso image format (making it compatible with almost any PC disk burning application, such as Nero or Roxio). To do this, follow these steps:
1. After iDVD has finished creating the DVD disk image, open Disk Utility (located in Applications>Utilities folder).
2. Drag the disk image created by iDVD into the left-hand pane (where all your drives are listed) of Disk Utility.
3. Click on the file you just dragged into Disk Utility (should appear in the left-hand column).
4. Click on the 'Images' menu, then choose 'Convert...'
5. When the 'Convert Image' dialog pops up, select 'DVD/CD Master' from the 'Image Format' pop-up menu.
6. Name your file, with '.cdr' at the end of the filename, then click 'Save.'
7. Disk Utility will convert the file to an ISO image. After this finishes, replace the 'cdr' at the end of the filename (in the Finder) to 'iso'.
8. Now, the disk should be burnable on a Windows PC (simply copy the file to your PC by either copying it across a network or using some other means of transferring the data).
Note: This also works to burn any Mac .dmg or .img files on a PC.
Note 2: For those of you who may be command-line junkies, there's an alternative method (and another).
- Q. If I burn a Disk Image file instead of burning directly to a DVD, will all my menus, transitions, and other features look the same?
A. If you burn a Disk Image file using this easter egg, there will be absolutely no difference between a disc burned from the disk image and a disc burned directly from iDVD. To test this and make sure, open the Disk Image (by double-clicking on it), and Use Apple's DVD Player to view the disk image.
Open DVD Player (in the Applications folder), choose 'Open VIDEO_TS folder...' from the File menu, and navigate to the mounted disk image's VIDEO_TS folder to open it. Now, test your DVD.
- Q. I still can't get the easter egg to work! I've tried all the other FAQ suggestions and deleted iDVD's preferences, but the egg still won't work. What should I try now?
A. If nothing else works, try creating a new user account (click here for directions); try running iDVD and using the easter egg from within this user account.
If that doesn't seem to work, make sure you have followed all the directions precisely, and make sure you're not in the 'Map' view of your DVD. Also, click the 'Burn' shutter to open it if nothing else helps, then hold down the Control key and select 'Burn...' from the File menu.
- Q. Everything is going fine, I've started the burn, and suddenly iDVD pops up an error message during 'Stage 4: Multiplexing and Burning' or 'Stage 2: Menu Rendering and Encoding'. Why won't the DVD burn?
A. This seems to be a problem with certain G4 & G5 desktop Macs under iDVD 4.0 and 4.0.1 that puzzles many users. There are a few things (possible solutions included) that might be causing this:
- Bad hardware (i.e. a bad processor, motherboard, etc.).
Solution: Get your hardware serviced and check it with the 'Apple Hardware Test CD' that came with your computer.
- Bad source video (i.e. the video material you're burning)
Solution: If you imported the video from an Analog-to-Digital Video Converter, the VCR you use can sometimes corrupt the timecode data included with the DV video that you are burning, which can cause problems in the burning process. Or, the video camera you use might have timecode problems. Either way, one solution is to export your whole movie file (at full-quality NTSC DV) from iMovie or FCX (whatever app you created it in), then import that file into a new project, and try burning that. This may not always work...
- Corrupt software.
Solution: Your Mac OS X installation may be bad, or you could have problems with your iDVD program. First try doing routine maintenance, then try trashing the iDVD preference file(s) (located in Users>yourusername>Library>Preferences), then try reinstalling iDVD (after throwing away the original), and finally, if all else fails, try reinstalling OSX (only if you know how).
- Something else.
Solution: Try some of the steps below:
- Try burning a disk image, then using that disk image to burn the DVD using Disk Utility (see above FAQ answers for instructions)
- Make sure you have two times the space required for your DVD free on the hard drive your project is on.
- Run regular maintenance on your computer, especially repairing disk permissions.
- Play the whole project (slideshows, videos, etc.) in Preview mode and make sure there aren't any problems.
- Startup your computer holding down the 'Shift' key (this loads only Apple startup extensions), then only open iDVD once the computer is started (and nothing else).
- Try changing themes in iDVD (especially try original iDVD themes - they seem to work best).
- If you are running any anti-virus software, background 'helper' programs, etc., turn them off or disable them (check Activity Monitor to see what's running).
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