iDVD: Create DVDs with Your Mac, Play Them On Your TV

3:00 PM EST, Jan. 8th, 2001 · by John F. Braun · Macworld/iWorld Expo

Todayis keynote brought a number of multimedia surprises. One of the more welcome surprises helps answer the question that many current owners of DVD-RAM drives have, namely, "but can I record DVD movies with it?". Unfortunately, the answer for DVD-RAM owners was no. But with the introduction of the new iDVD and DVD Studio Pro software, combined with the new SuperDrive, making DVD movies will now be as easy as creating an iMovie. According to their press release:

iDVD
iDVD makes it incredibly easy for Mac® users to turn their iMovies, QuickTime™ files and pictures into DVDs that can be played on consumer DVD players. iDVD shields users from the complexity of DVD authoring by offering built-in professionally designed themes and drag-and-drop simplicity. With iDVD, users can:

Convert iMovies, QuickTime files and pictures into the format required for DVD using iDVD’s fast MPEG encoder;
Drag-and-drop iMovies and pictures into their DVD project;
Create menus, buttons and backgrounds using their own personal images, or choose from among more than a dozen beautiful themes with professionally designed background images and coordinated fonts and typefaces;
Preview the project to test navigation and flow; and
Record DVDs with a single click on the Power Mac G4’s revolutionary new combination CD-RW/DVD-R SuperDrive.

DVD Studio Pro
The perfect complement to Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro lets users encode video, conduct complex authoring tasks, preview the finished product in real-time, and burn DVDs using the Power Mac G4’s new SuperDrive.

With DVD Studio Pro, users can:

Encode video in MPEG-2 and encode audio in Dolby Digital, the two formats preferred for professionally mastered DVDs;
Author the DVD, working with up to 99 video tracks and multiple language tracks. DVDs can also be customized to include slide shows, still or motion menus from layered PhotoShop files or video clips, and interactive links directly to the web;
Preview the finished project in real-time without the need for a disk image or multiplexing; and burn DVDs using Power Mac G4’s new SuperDrive for playback on consumer DVD players. In addition to burning DVDs, users can also choose to output to DLT tape for mass duplication or DVD-RAM to inexpensively test projects.