iMovie won't add chapters to your movie. Who needs a DVD without chapters? Here's how to fix that.
[robg adds: Note that if you upgrade to iLife '09, this hint shouldn't be necessary -- iMovie '09 adds back the ability to set chapter markers via drag-and-drop. I haven't tested this hint.]
- Do the homework. Go to your movie, play it in any player, and write down the following:
- The total duration of the movie, in minutes (T)
- The number of chapters you'll need (N)
- The starting point for every chapter (HH:MM:SS)
- Convert the starting points to seconds (HH*3600 + MM*60 + SS); write them down for each chapter, too.
- Calculate the average chapter length in minutes, by dividing the total number of minutes in your entire movie by number of chapters you need. t = T(min) รท (N-1).
- Create a new iDVD project. Add a movie asset which has no chapters.
- In iDVD, go to Advanced » Create Chapters for Selected Movies. Choose 'Create chapter every XXX minutes.' Make XXX = t, where t is your average calculated time from step two.
- Save the iDVD project, close iDVD. Back up the project, just in case.
- Open the iDVD project in the Finder by Control-clicking and choosing Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu. Under Contents » Resources, find the ProjectData file. Open it with any text editor.
- In the file, find the following section:
Once found, delete it.<key>iDVD Generated Chapter Duration</key> <integer>???</integer> - This is the key step. In that file, every chapter that you've created has two entries -- one is for the thumbnail, and one for the actual location to start playing. Look for the string Chapter X, where X=2...N. (It starts with Chapter 2, because Chapter 1 is the beginning). For each chapter, find the following keys:
Replace both instances of ??? with the number of seconds at which you want your custom chapter to start, based on the homework you did.<key>Button Thumbnail StartTime</key> <real>???</real> <key>TrackMarker Timestamp</key> <real>???</real> - Save the text file, quit the editor, and reopen your iDVD project. Your chapters are now as you like them! If you have more chapters than you need, you can now delete them.
[robg adds: Note that if you upgrade to iLife '09, this hint shouldn't be necessary -- iMovie '09 adds back the ability to set chapter markers via drag-and-drop. I haven't tested this hint.]
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