Thanks xstep. I’m going crazy because, after a lot of experimentation, I seem to have had some success but I don’t know how, and therefore I don’t know what my original problem was. Since having one good result, I have done about 18-20 further tests, and still on two occasions it failed.
In case you are interested, I will document my progress:
There is no AVI (I had to look this term up..... I’m very much a novice you know), and I have not altered any iMovie settings away from default. My input is from a Sony miniDV camcorder. I have not altered any sampling rates, or anything else relating to sound.
I wondered whether limited space on my hard disk was a problem, since one series of tests involved just deleting clips to make the project smaller and smaller, and eventually I performed a ‘share to iDVD’ successfully (ie with sound). However, I created about 50Gb of space and it has had no difference, my various tests failed.
Note that I have a series of projects. One of these has consistently produced sound with ‘share to iDVD’ and 2 others have been consistently failing. One of these two is just over 1 hour long (this was the one I am most keen to get working), and another is only 29 seconds long (which has become my main test project).
I used my test file using Quicktime “sound to AAIF” and “sound to MPEG4” and both produced no sound. Interestingly I then ran it again with the movie file and it worked OK, so I ran it again “sharing with iDVD” and it worked ok! (The only settings that I had changed in between times were the Quicktime video and audio settings, but I am convinced that I reset them all to their original values before performing the Quicktime tests. I have definitely not changed any settings other than the Quicktime ones referred to)
Following the success with the short test file, I then “shared to DVD” my 1 hour project and this was successful. I have since “shared to DVD” my other projects and they all seem to work ok, most but not all of the time. So, I conclude, I am able to move forward but I don’t understand what has changed.
Since I have not been forced to go further down the Quicktime path, I do not know how I could have proceeded to the stage to create a DVD. Also, from what I have read, my DVD would have been of lesser quality, but perhaps I am wrong in that respect.
I have been most diligent during my testing, keeping good records and varying things like having other programs running or not, rebooting or not, order of projects tested, etc and I cannot spot a likely cause. Since having had some success, I have definitely not changed any settings.
In my latest series of tests, I:
1. Rebooted, then “shared test file to iDVD”, success
2. Reran, failed
3. Reran 3 times, successfully
4. Rebooted, then “shared test file to iDVD”, failed
5. Reran 3 times, successfully
What do you do? What do you say?