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Saving an iDVD project

There are several ways to save your iDVD project, and which you use depends on what you plan to do with your project.

Saving: As you work on your DVD project, save it periodically to safeguard your work.

Archiving: When you want to move or back up your finished project to another computer, you should archive it.

Archiving creates a copy of your project, keeping all of its elements together and linked within the project file. It can take a while to archive a large project, but after you do, you can move the file to another computer or hard disk, and then open it at any time for further editing or burning to a DVD.

Saving as a disc image: When you save a disc image of your project, a file is created that is formatted just like a finished DVD, except that it’s not actually burned on a disc. All the media is compressed into the format used on a DVD, and you can play it on your computer by double-clicking the disc image icon. You can move the disc image to another computer or hard disk, but you cannot edit it. When you’re ready to burn the disc image to a DVD, use Disk Utility in Mac OS X.

Note: If you burn your project to a double-layer disc, you should burn directly from iDVD rather than from a disc image. Burning from a disc image may cause the DVD to freeze on some DVD players.

Saving as VIDEO_TS folder: Saving a project as a VIDEO_TS folder allows you to play it back, on your computer, using software such as VLC media player. Saving as a VIDEO_TS folder is similar to saving as a disc image: the output quality is the same, and both methods take about the same amount of time to complete. You can’t burn a disc from a VIDEO_TS folder.

Here are ways to save your project:

To save your project, choose File > Save.

To save your project with a different name, choose File > Save As.

This creates another copy of your project with the new name. If you do not want both copies, delete the one you don’t want.

To archive your project, choose File > Archive Project.

To create a disc image, choose File > “Save as Disc Image.”

To save your project to a VIDEO_TS folder, choose File > “Save as VIDEO_TS folder.”

Related Topics

Undoing changes to a project

Archiving an iDVD project to back it up or transfer it to another computer

Creating a disc image of a project

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