Adding Movies to an Existing iDVD Project

With your movie exported as a DV-format QuickTime file, you have two ways to add it to an existing iDVD project.

To add a movie to an existing iDVD project (option 1):

1. Choose Import from iDVD's File menu, then select Video from the submenu that appears.

2. Locate the QuickTime file you exported from iMovie and click Open. The new movie appears in the iDVD window.

To add a movie to an existing iDVD project (option 2):

• Drag and drop the QuickTime file from iDVD's Movies pane or from the Finder onto the iDVD window. Make sure you don't drag the file onto a drop zone (marked with the words "Drag photos or movies here"), or else the movie will appear only as an interface element (Figure 16.7).

  Figure 16.7. Simply drag a project's reference movie to iDVD to add it to an iDVD project. Avoid the drop zone unless your movie is meant as an interface addition.

  

Tip

• Here's another reason to use an iMovie project's reference movie (see tip on previous page) instead of exporting a self-contained QuickTime movie: dragging a reference movie to iDVD creates a new folder for that movie, including any chapter markers that have been defined. But more important, this is the only way to be able to include a Play Movie option that can play through the entire movie, in addition to keeping the chapters intact.

How to Add Chapters to an Existing iDVD Project

My wife and I worked on a vacation video using two different Macs, which meant that we had multiple iMovie projects one for each day of the vacation. When it came time to create a DVD, I hit a stumbling block: once you've created an iDVD project, any new movies you import aren't included when you select the Play Movie option. So, our multi-part movie could only be accessed one day at a time. Ick.

The solution is to combine the separate iMovie projects into one, then use the combo movie as the basis for the iDVD project. Unfortunately, you'll have to redefine any iDVD chapter markers that were set up separately.

Open a new iMovie project, then drag the other projects' reference movies to the Clips pane or directly to the Timeline. Set up chapter markers, switch to the iDVD pane, and click the Create iDVD Project button.