Hi everyone,
question- I'm trying to make marks on the timeline and export the video from FCP 4.0 and burn a DVD with iDVD. My understanding was that this would make chapters on the DVD and allow one to FF to the next marker on the video. All I get is a white stripe at the top with the marker number on the final DVD video.

I exported as a QT movie and set to export marks as chapters.

What did I miss? Not seeing a lot of info about this, so I seek guidance from someone more knowledgable than me (pretty much everyone else out there. HA!).

Info appreciated!!! Thanks,

Jeff Patnaude

I rarely use iDVD, but I'm under the impression it does not read the chapter markers. DVD Studio Pro does, but its not free, of course.

I don't have it in front of me, but in iDVD4 you can now import chapter markers. I had to try a couple different ways of exporting the markers and then iDVD was a bit finicky about them, but it does work with FCP and iMovie. When you export your video as a FCP movie, look at the bottom where there are drop-downs... one of them has to do with chapter markers and it took me awhile to figure out which one worked (of course, I don't remember it now!)

First ensure that all the markers actually are Chapter Markers. You can do this by pressing shift up and down arrow to navigate to each Marker. In your canvas, check to make sure it says the marker name then <CHAPTER> underneath. If it doesn't, while on the Marker, press M to edit Marker and click the "Add Chapter Marker" button.

When exporting Chapter Markers, make sure to choose "Chapter Markers" from the Markers Dialog Box.
Do not choose "All Markers" or iDVD will not recognize the chapter markers.

In iDVD, go to Preferences>Movies> and click "Ask each time"
This way, right when you drop a movie into iDVD you will be prompted with a dialogue box asking if you would like to import chapter markers.

Cheers,

Thanks everyone.
I ordered the newer version of iDVD 4, and hope it arrives soon.

Appreciate the info.

Jeff Patnaude

Hi Mark---I also had difficulty with chapter markers. Actually found the answer in the iDVD tutorial, under the help menu. It walks you through making a DVD, and includes the chapter markers section. I wrote down all the instructions, tried it out, and got beautiful results.

It was a better answer than I was able to find among three books, and three posts to discussion lists. Wish I'd looked there first.

Its funny, these days we look everywhere but the help!

If you are using FCE 1.x, export as self contained Final Cut Express movie. Your chapter markers will be recognized by iDVD. I am not familiar with FCX 2.x, but know the export selection is different.