iDVD

With iDVD and an Apple SuperDrive, you can design and create your own video DVDs, which can be played on any commercial DVD player or DVD-compatible optical drive. iDVD offers DVD authoring made easy.

For content, you can use movies you created with iMovie or any other editing application that can export to a QuickTime file. You can also put a slideshow of digital pictures from iPhoto or elsewhere onto your DVD. You can use music from iTunes to play during the slideshow.

iDVD does not allow you to work with these files, only add them to the DVD project. iDVD does allow you to set up the interactive interface a DVD needs so viewers can navigate them. To this end, iDVD features a variety of built-in themes that allow you to design the backgrounds, menus, and buttons that make up the interface.

When you have designed your DVD, iDVD burns the disc in your SuperDrive. Note that iDVD can only be used with an Apple SuperDrive, and not a third party DVD burner. iDVD comes free with Macs that have SuperDrives, and otherwise it the only one of the iLife apps that you cannot get for free. When Apple sells the iLife suite, it is really selling you iDVD, in a package with the other apps for convenience. The intended customer is the user of an older Mac that has a SuperDrive that came with an earlier version of iDVD, and who wants to upgrade to version 3, as well as the versions of the other iLife applications that work with it.

iDVD is the easiest to use of the iLife apps, and it attains a simplicity in its interface design that makes it an aiming point for software developers. It is possible to pretty much fly it by the seat of one’s pants, with just a few hints; here they are.

When you launch iDVD, you see the splash screen shown in Figure 20-35.

Figure 20-35: The splash screen you see when you launch iDVD.

Notice the buttons. Open Tutorial is the one to click if this is your first time, and if you have a little time on your hands to learn iDVD the right way. Click Open Project to do some more work on a project you already began, and New Project to create a new project.

If you open the tutorial, you will see the interface open to an animated red curtain with the title “IDVD Tutorial,” and iDVD Help will open to the first page of the Tutorial instructions, as seen in Figure 20-36.

Figure 20-36: The iDVD tutorial.

The Tutorial takes you through the process of designing a DVD, and sample movies and pictures are provided for you to use. Figure 20-37 shows the Settings panel in the Customize drawer.

Figure 20-37: The iDVD interface, with the Settings panel showing in the Customize drawer.

Follow these steps to start and complete an iDVD project.

1. Assemble your content. You should first gather and organize all the media will need to do the project. If you are following the Tutorial, its movie and picture files are all gathered in the Media folder inside the Tutorial folder inside the iTunes folder, and you should do the same for your project’s files. Remember, these movies and pictures should need no more work and be finalized. Any QuickTime movie can be added to your DVD, except for MPEG files, QuickTime VR, and Sprites; they will not work.

2. Choose a theme to determine the look of your DVD interface. Click the Customize button to make the Customize drawer slide out, and click the Themes button to see the built-in themes. Choose category of themes from the pop-up menu (see Figure 20-38). Some themes have motion (indicated by the walking man icon), music, and Drop Zones (areas you can drag a movie, stills, or a slideshow by dragging it). If you want to see the theme’s motion, click the Motion button (with the walking man icon) under the main window; but keep if off as much as possible to conserve performance.

   
   Figure 20-38: The iDVD themes panel.

3. To add media, click on the button the top of the Customize drawer that matches the media’s type. For example, for a Movie, click the Movie button to be taken to the Movies folder in your home folder. You can also choose Photos (takes you to iPhoto 2) or Audio (takes you to iTunes 3; see Figure 20-39). When you drag the files to the DVD menu, buttons that link to the files are created. In Drop Zone themes they appears as text; in other themes, they appear as a still or moving image.

   
   Figure 20-39: The iDVD Audio panel, showing information from iTunes.

4. To customize a motion button, if you don’t like the first frame it shows by default, click it once to select it, and drag the slider until you see a frame you like. In the Customize drawer, click Settings, and set the Motion Duration slider to the time period you want the movie to loop.

5. To add a custom button image, drag a photo or a movie to the button.

6. Enter the name of your buttons by clicking on their label and typing. Also change the title of the menus by clicking on it.

7. Rearrange the positions of the buttons by clicking Settings in the Customize drawer, and then click Free Position. Choose Advanced Show TV Safe area to see the outer boundary of TV screens; position everything so it lies within this boundary so it can be seen.

8. To add a submenu, click the Folder button, and a new button appears on the menu. When the viewer clicks on this button, they will see another menu that can hold more media or buttons, with a back button for viewers to return the previous menu. Keep this limitation in mind: a menu can only have six buttons.

9. To create a scene selection menu, add a movie that already has Chapter markers added to it during editing. Two buttons are created: one with the title of the movie, and one linking to a scene selection submenu. When viewers click the title button, the whole movie will play. When they click the scene selection button, they can click on a scene to play it. The submenu has a Back and Next Scenes button to link to the next scenes submenu, if any.

10. Pick a new background for your menu if you don’t like the one in the theme. In the Customize drawer, click the Settings button, and drag a movie or image to the Background Image/Movie well. If it is a movie, set the Motion Duration slider to the time period you want the movie to loop. To get rid of the image or movie, drag it from the well to outside the iDVD window and drop it there; it disappears in a puff of smoke, and the menu reverts to its default.

11. Pick an audio file to play while the viewer sees the menu. Drag it to the Audio well.

12. Use the Settings pane to change the look of your titles and buttons. Click and hold the From Theme pop-up menu to pick a new button style.

13. If you like your theme, save it with the Save as Favorite button at the bottom of the Settings pane. After you name it, it will be displayed in the Themes list.

14. To create a slideshow on your DVD, drag the pictures you want to the Slideshow button. A slideshow button appears on the menu; double-click it to see the Slideshow editor. You can also create the slideshow and double-click the button; after you are in the editor, go to the Customize drawer’s Photos pane. If you have iPhoto running, you can see the list of Libraries and Albums, and can pick and drag photos to the main window (see Figure 20-40). Use the controls beneath the window to show navigation arrows, add the files to the DVD so they can be copied by the viewers to their hard disks, set the Slide Duration and size of the thumbnails, drag an audio file to play during the slideshow. Click the Preview button to view the slideshow; click it again to return to the editor. When done, click Return to go back to the DVD menu.

    
    Figure 20-40: The iDVD Slideshow editor, showing in the drawer the list of Libraries and Albums from iPhoto, as well as thumbnails of the photos in an album.

15. Click the Motion button at any time to preview motion menus and buttons.

    See how the project will appear to the viewer anytime you want by pressing the Preview button. In preview mode, navigate your DVD menus with the onscreen remote control (see Figure 20-41).

    
    Figure 20-41: The onscreen remote used to test the navigation of your DVD project before you burn it to a disc.

16. To burn the project to a blank DVD disc, first turn on the motion button if you want the DVD to have motion. Click the burn button once, then again to begin the process. Follow the onscreen instructions. It takes an average of 2 to 3 minutes to encode and write a minute of video to the disc. You can watch the progress in the Status panel of the drawer.