Systems Labs: iDVD/DVD Studio Pro
In order to successfully encode and burn a DVD project
with DVD Studio Pro, you must save the project file in a specific location.
If your project file is saved in your Macintosh account, you will not be
able to encode or burn your project.
DVD
Studio Pro is part of the Apple
Final Cut Pro Suite, which is installed
in the Fine Arts, King,
and Young (Macintosh)
Labs and in the Journalism and Young Macintosh video editing bays.
For more specific information, please see our software
list or ask a lab helpdesk consultant.
Primary support for the FCP Suite is provided
by the instructor(s) who requested it. Support by Student
Computing Services consultants is limited to opening, saving, printing, and the information
on this page. Questions should be directed to your instructor. Additional
support is provided through use of the electronic manuals accessible through
the applications' Help menus and on Apple's
FCP Support webpage.
You are welcome to ask the lab consultant
on duty for assistance, but please recognize that s/he has not been trained
on this application and may not be able to adequately answer your question
or solve your problem.
It is important to save your project
files in the correct location before you begin to encode your video or burn
your DVD or you may experience serious problems during editing or burning.
DVD Studio Pro uses large amounts of scratch disk space to create temporary
files needed to burn a DVD. These temporary files are created on the same
volume as the project files, so if your files are stored in your account,
the program may be unable to burn your disk.
When you launch DVDSP, a new untitled project
is automatically created. You should immediately
save this project on the Temporary_Storage volume of the lab computer you
are using, or on a personal external hard drive.
In the Save window, click the 
button
beside the name field to expand the window options and navigate to your preferred
storage location. This location should have at least
5-10 GB free, depending on the size of your project. If you are using Temporary_Storage
and you do not already have a personal folder created there, create
one now and title it with your name or login ID. Save your project file in
this folder. The media files you plan to use with your DVD project should
be stored in the same location.
It is possible, although not recommended,
to select an alternate locations for the scratch disks in DVDSP. To do this,
choose Destinations from the DVDSP Preferences window. From the Show menu,
you can choose new settings or specify locations for the Encoding, Image
Encoding, MPEG Parsing, and Build/Format scratch disks.
Digital video
files can often take up several gigabytes of storage space, much more than
the amount allotted to each user account. Although we offer some storage
space on the hard drive of each computer in our lab, we strongly recommend
that users purchase personal FireWire drives. For more information, read
our digital video storage documentation.