Troubleshoot Burning

Check your DVD media. Sometimes a failed burn operation is the fault of the disc. This can happen with generic discs bought in bulk, but also occurs with more reputable vendors' discs. Try a new brand of disc, starting with the ones Apple sells (since presumably they've been vetted by the company).

Clean your SuperDrive. Accumulated dust can disrupt the laser used to burn data to a disc. Spray a little compressed air into the SuperDrive's slot to blow the dust away.

Set Energy Saver settings. Since it can take hours to burn a disc, your computer may think you've left it and go into a power-saving mode. In Mac OS X's System Preferences, set the processor performance to Highest and the hard drive to never spin down. Also turn off the option to put the computer to sleep automatically after a period of inactivity.

Burn during the day. Many people do their disc burning at night while they sleep (computers are meant to do work while we rest, aren't they?). If you're waking up to burn failures, try burning during the dayMac OS X performs some nightly maintenance operations around 3 a.m., which could be interfering with the burning operation.

Change audio quality. iMovie and iDVD use audio set to 48.000 kHz (16-bit). However, some audio sources may record at 44.100 kHz, which has been known to cause burning problems. Take these steps to change a movie's audio quality:

1.	Export your movie from iMovie to a QuickTime file using Expert Settings.
2.	In the Movie Settings dialog, under Sound options, click the Settings button.
3.	Click the Rate popup menu and choose 48.000.
4.	Export the clip, then import it into iDVD.