[nancy_rathke]

This is the first time I've tried to burn a multi-act video using Toast 7. I have never liked using iDVD to burn, and I really detest its "themes". Can I burn my iMovie presentation so that it will have a menu of chapters, without using the even-less-satisfactory menu options in Toast 7?

I tried "no menus" but the acts just ran together with no way of listing them for individual access.
I am using iDVD and iMovie from iLife 4.0.1 and am not anxious to upgrade to 5 or 6, or whatever they are selling now.

Using a G4 flat-panel iMac with something like 45 GB of usable memory and 768 MB of RAM.

[tsantee]

As you've seen, Toast has a very simple menu. Your iMovie appears as a title in the main menu. There is an option to "Include scene menus for videos". This creates a second-level menu that has thumbnails where each chapter appears. To activate this option click on the thumbnail of the menu design (next to "Menu Style") and the Disc Settings window appears with that and other options.

What you'll see when you insert the disc (unless you have Auto-play disc on insert checked) is the Main title menu which has both a thumbnail and text. When you click on that thumbnail you'll get another window with smaller thumbnails and no text to select which chapter you want to play. This probably is not all that you hoped for.

Since you are using iMovie, you simply can drag the iMovie Project file to Toast or choose your iMovie using the Movies button in the Media Browser (assuming the iMovie Project is in your Movies folder). If you wanted you could drag it there three times. Then click the Edit button next to a title and choose the Video tab. Here you can select the start and end point of the video to be included in that title. By marking each of the three titles' start and end points where the different acts begin and end you can have three separate titles show in the main menu from the one movie. Choosing "Play all times continuously" will cause the three titles to play as one, although you can always access the menu to choose to play any of the three titles. The advantage of this over the scene menus is that you can have text as well as thumbnails and you don't have to go to a second menu screen before playing the movie. You probably don't want the scene menu option activated if you do it this way.

If you choose Auto-play disc on insert then viewers won't see the Toast menu unless they press the menu button. You could provide instructions on the disc label that states "Press the menu button on your remote control to access individual Acts on this DVD."

[nancy_rathke]

As you've seen, Toast has a very simple menu. Your iMovie appears as a title in the main menu. There is an option to "Include scene menus for videos". This creates a second-level menu that has thumbnails where each chapter appears. To activate this option click on the thumbnail of the menu design (next to "Menu Style") and the Disc Settings window appears with that and other options.

What you'll see when you insert the disc (unless you have Auto-play disc on insert checked) is the Main title menu which has both a thumbnail and text. When you click on that thumbnail you'll get another window with smaller thumbnails and no text to select which chapter you want to play. This probably is not all that you hoped for.

Since you are using iMovie, you simply can drag the iMovie Project file to Toast or choose your iMovie using the Movies button in the Media Browser (assuming the iMovie Project is in your Movies folder). If you wanted you could drag it there three times. Then click the Edit button next to a title and choose the Video tab. Here you can select the start and end point of the video to be included in that title. By marking each of the three titles' start and end points where the different acts begin and end you can have three separate titles show in the main menu from the one movie. Choosing "Play all times continuously" will cause the three titles to play as one, although you can always access the menu to choose to play any of the three titles. The advantage of this over the scene menus is that you can have text as well as thumbnails and you don't have to go to a second menu screen before playing the movie. You probably don't want the scene menu option activated if you do it this way.

If you choose Auto-play disc on insert then viewers won't see the Toast menu unless they press the menu button. You could provide instructions on the disc label that states "Press the menu button on your remote control to access individual Acts on this DVD."

Thank you. I have copied your advice, and next time I will do it that way. I finally got my video burned in iDVD, although it had to run all night, so now it's just a matter of copying that disk.