Chapter 3. Introduction to Making DVDs

Now for the moment you've been waiting for making a DVD with iDVD. After the traditional brief introduction, we'll look at what it takes to create a DVD, but this time we'll do it tutorial-style.

Like the Apple iDVD tutorial that comes with iDVD (you did go through it, didn't you?), this chapter merely serves as an introduction to the program. But we'll actually roll up our sleeves and dig into iDVD itself, looking at the steps it takes to go from opening the program to clicking the Burn button. Chapter 4, "Shooting and Editing Tips for Great Video," hardly talks about iDVD at all it focuses on the things that happen before you even fire up iDVD like shooting and editing. After that, we'll get back to iDVD, and look more closely at importing files, creating menus and buttons, adding and managing audio, creating your own artwork, compression, and lots more.

There's a method to my madness. At least in theory, by the time we get to Chapter 5, "Getting Your Stuff into iDVD," (where we go back to iDVD the program) and chapters beyond, you'll know just how all the pieces go together, and should have ideas about how you want to assemble and present them with iDVD.