trouble burning to DVD

You guys have been so helpful with other problems. I wonder if you can suggest a solution to this. I have a completed doc which has two versions a 23 minute and a 45 min. They need to be duplicated to be sold. What do I send to the duplicating business that gets me the best quality of DVD copies? That's the easy question. Here's my big problem .
I am running FCP 3 on a G4 with OSX. I have IDVD2. I am trying to burn DVDs for these two projects so I can get them off my hard drives and get on to the next project.
If I try to save the file as a high quality quicktime file the result is very pixilated. I choose these options: QT MOvie - compression video,no filter, keyframe rate 24, sound -no compressor, 22 Hz, 16 bit mono, and no prep for internet streaming. The burn either fails due to "multiplexor error", or burns and looks very pixilated, or tells me there is no space on the disc. Sigh
If I try to burn it as a FCP movie the quality is great but the burn dies part way and I get a message of multiplexor error. The options I use are FCP movie-current settings, high resolution, audio/video, no markers, make movie self contained.
In desperation I tryed to save the project as a DV stream file with the options of NTSC and audio of 32 KHz. That usually just dies and comes back as a no space on disc message. I have cleaned stuff off my disc and have lots of gigs to spare. I always take these files and click and drag them into IDVD. Everything seems fine as they start to burn.
I don't know what I would do without you guys to help. Anything you could suggest would be greatly appreciated! Thanks so much, Fran

In FCP 3 you want to use the FCP movie option, not the Quicktime movie option. Your FCP movie settings are correct, as long as you've been working in full quality on your timeline. Setting it to 'current settings' will make an exact copy of your timeline settings.

The error message is happening in iDVD, right? Not when you're making the FCP movie? The problem is more about iDVD than your output from FCP. One thing I've heard - if you're using a 'theme' in iDVD, do a test with a different theme, preferably a version 4 or lower one.

Also, try a differnet brand of dvds, and make sure they are dvd-r. Given that you are on FCP 3, its possible that unless you have upgraded your dvd burner, you need to be careful about the speed of the burn as well? Not sure what you've got installed here..

Thanks for your reply Jude. I have a IDVD2 ver 2.1 and I have a pioneer DVR -s201. I'v been able to burn material before with this system so its not new. I can't find the burn speed anywhere but it has been taking about 85 minutes to burn a 23 minute video. How would I upgrade my DVD burner? Do you mean just buy a new one?
Fran

Oh OK. sorry, I thought for some reason you were on a later version. You can just buy a new burner and install it, it's very easy to do. I think I recall that on iDVD 2 and the original burner it did seem to take about three times the length of the movie to encode. Agonising!

The Multiplexing error is a kind of broad sweep error. It basically means that something went wrong, which, really.. Duh! We can see that something went wrong already.

Try deleting the whole idvd project and all the assets, starting a whole new project and choosing a different menu theme. That at least should knock out a couple of possibilities.

It's also very important that you have enough space on your hard drive to do the encoding in. I'm talking more than 10 gig free ... I think on your main hard drive, as this is where the build happens. Don't quote me on that though. Try to have 10 gig free on all connected drives. So delete all the failed attempts, all the quicktime conversion movies that are wrong, and any other junk you don't need lying around before you try again.

Hope this helps. These kind of problems are such a pain. And you know I'm actually thinking of a much stronger word there...

Thanks so much for the advice Jude! I occasionally think of that stronger word too but then I think of how much fun it was doing analog editing many years ago and I feel much much better!
Fran