Anyone ever used Apple's DVD authoring stuff? (1 Viewer)

[Tim Kline]

Dunno what forum this should go in, so I'll put it here
Anyway, a friend of mine is a wannabe Kevin Smith. He's got some movie plans and is right now in the process of really checking out the new Macintoshes because of how easy it is to author DVDs, and there doesn't seem to be anything nearly as good & easy on the PC side.
So, I'm wondering.. has anyone used iDVD or their DVD Studio Pro? Lets say he shot everything with a high quality digital camera, and did all his editing and all with some other package.. once it's all ready to go, does the DVDs it produces come out looking good when it's played in your HT? Is it worth going this route, or would he be better off shooting everything the "old fashoned" way, instead of all digital?
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Tim Kline
HT Newbie Extraordinaire!
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[Joseph S]

I only had a quick chance to play around with DVDStudio Pro (If he's a student, he gets a 50% discount.(i.e. $500 vs $1000) DVDStudio Pro Offers more features and a new version was released recently.
iDVD(free) is very easy to use. You can choose themes for menus/backgrounds and just import stuff like .mov files and .dv files. Just choose burn and you're done. The OS X version demoed(due in Sept) has animated menu options and more. DVD Studio Pro I believe offers anamorphic and DD options that are not available in the iDVD app. He should see if he can try it out first. Is there a non-CompUSA nearby. Try stores like Microcenter or an Apple Store if you can. They should give you a chance to play around a lot more than CompUSA. iDVD also works with my DVD-RAM drive although it is not listed in any specs.
Note: Apple owns all consumer DVD burning apps as they recently purchased Spruce Technology and their NT app.

 

[Tim Kline]

thanks for the info I'll pass it along He's not a student though so he'd hafta pay full price :/

Apple owns all consumer DVD burning apps as they recently purchased Spruce Technology and their NT app.

Cool But, did they do that so they can be the only ones.. or to use their technology to one day make iDVD for PCs?
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Tim Kline
HT Newbie Extraordinaire!
[email protected]
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My DVD List
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[Travis Hedger]

did they do that so they can be the only ones.. or to use their technology to one day make iDVD for PCs?

I sure as hell hope that tehy are doing it to port over a PC version. The full blown authoring suite seems pretty impressive to me. I have yet to see a program that seems to be as intuitive and refined for Windows yet. And since I have hefty investments in my PC hardware and no Mac knowledge I would hope again that a PC version comes out!!!
When I was checking things out when a DVD-R drive came out from Pioneer their drive was going for $999, they are now $619! Couple that with the fact that it can also burn DVD-RW and CD-R/RW, you would have a pretty fine combo drive!