New iDVD 5

On Jan 12, 2005, at 2:58 AM, Kevin van Haaren wrote:

> Is there any indication if iDVD supports non-Apple purchased DVD
> drives? I
> bought my Powerbook before DVD writers were available as an option. I
> feel
> left out.

Not sure I'd rely on this, but during the keynote, Steve Jobs introed
iDVD saying "we support all the formats now, so if have a drive, it
writes them". The slide on the screen was hard to read but, looked like
+R, -R, -RW, +RW.

58min into the keynote, if you want to listen.

Steve

Kevin van Haaren:
>Also, is there an upgrade price to go from iLife '04 to iLife '05? The
>store only seems to list a price of $80 for the whole package.

Upgrade till March for $19.95:
http://www.apple.com/ilife/uptodate/

I haven't seen an indication of whether iDVD 5 will work with other drives, but I'll try to find out today when I'm on the show floor.

BTW, Jim Heid got the iLife scoop this year (last year it was Pogue; the year before it was Jim), so he's been using iLife '05 for several weeks or maybe even months. You can download a preview of the next edition of his iLife book, which covers highlights of the new versions.

<http://www.macilife.com/2005/01/say-hello-to-ilife-05-and-get-your.html>

--On 1/12/2005 7:37 AM -0800 Keith Dawson <kadawsonmac.com> wrote:

> Kevin van Haaren:
>> Also, is there an upgrade price to go from iLife '04 to iLife '05? The
>> store only seems to list a price of $80 for the whole package.
>
> Upgrade till March for $19.95:
> http://www.apple.com/ilife/uptodate/

This is _only_ for people who purchasee iLife '04 or a new Mac after
yesterday (the announcement of iLife '05).

As far as I can tell, anyone who purchased iLife '04 (or got it with a Mac)
last year will have to pay the full $80 upgrade price.

Dave

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 07:40:42 -0800, Jeff Carlson <jeffctidbits.com> wrote:
> I haven't seen an indication of whether iDVD 5 will work with other drives,
> but I'll try to find out today when I'm on the show floor.

According to the iLife page at Apple's on-line store, an Apple
SuperDrive is indeed still required to burn DVDs. The real question
is, does the little hack-workaround still work? With it, I've had zero
trouble burning DVDs with my LaCie drive and iLife '04.

When I saw the rather large price jump (which I was surprised to hear
accompanied by applause), I was hoping that the increase was partially
to cover licensing fees for *all* burners. Alas, it appear Apple
simply wants more money, <sigh>

--
Robert E. Williams, Jr.
President and Master Spinner
TriVectus, LC - Specialists in high-return web solutions
E-mail: <bobtrivectus.com>
Phone: (602) 357-3296 x111
Web site: <http://www.trivectus.com/>

One feature that I feel many have overlooked (probably because it wasn't mentioned in the keynote) is that with iDVD 5 you can 'finally' save/archive iDVD projects as DVD images. This gives you the ability to burn additional copies of a completed project at a later date without having to go through the tedious encoding process all over again.

chris_kohuch wrote:
> One feature that I feel many have overlooked (probably because it wasn't
> mentioned in the keynote) is that with iDVD 5 you can 'finally'
> save/archive iDVD projects as DVD images. This gives you the ability to
> burn additional copies of a completed project at a later date without
> having to go through the tedious encoding process all over again.

You currently don't have to encode again if you have a copy of the DVD
you made. You just use Disk Utility to make an image of the DVD you
already have, then use the image to burn copies.

--
Paul Schinder
schinderpobox.com

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 00:33:02 -0800, chris_kohuch
<chris_kohuchdccnet.com> wrote:
> One feature that I feel many have overlooked (probably because it wasn't
> mentioned in the keynote) is that with iDVD 5 you can 'finally' save/archive
> iDVD projects as DVD images. This gives you the ability to burn additional
> copies of a completed project at a later date without having to go through
> the tedious encoding process all over again.

If this is true, then it is A Good Thing. However, if that DVD image
is one of those standard Apple disk images, then it is an Even Better
Thing. Because Toast, or many freeware/shareware CD/DVD burning
applications can burn those images to DVD.

Which means that any 3rd party DVD writer can burn output from iDVD 5,
and direct support of 3rd party burners by iDVD 5 is unnecessary.
Having the intermediary step of saving to a Disk image doesn't
increase overall burning time, although it requires human intervention
to actually burn the image. And leaves the user with a backup image
too, for burning additional copies.

Incidentally, iDVD 4 has such a feature, although it requires
downloading 2 small files that stay in the user's Home folder. I use
it all the time.

--
Chik fcchuangmail.com

And apparently, according to Jim Heid on a Macworld discussion forum, this means you can circumvent the SuperDrive-only situation by saving a disc image, then burning on an external drive using Toast or Finder.

:-)

I use iDVD 4 to burn to an external pioneer drive that I put in a firewire box. I use this little utility that uses iDVD's built-in (but crippled) ability to burn to an external drive.

Look here:

http://homepage.mac.com/geerlingguy/mac_support/mac_help/pages/15-burn_idvd_other.html

On Jan 14, 2005, at 3:33 AM, chris_kohuch wrote:

> One feature that I feel many have overlooked (probably because it
> wasn't mentioned in the keynote) is that with iDVD 5 you can 'finally'
> save/archive iDVD projects as DVD images. This gives you the ability
> to burn additional copies of a completed project at a later date
> without having to go through the tedious encoding process all over
> again.

This is a great feature unless you wish to create an image larger than
what a single layer DVD will hold (4.7gb). iDVD prevents such an image
from being created. They should just have made it a warning, allowing
the user to continue on. This affects people who wish to burn to an
external dual-layer burner or someone like me who would like to do some
additional compression in Roxio's Popcorn in order to fit a project
that is a little too large onto a single layer 4.7gb DVD.

-James

This is a great feature unless you wish to create an image larger than what a single layer DVD will hold (4.7gb). iDVD prevents such an image from being created. They should just have made it a warning, allowing the user to continue on. This affects people who wish to burn to an external dual-layer burner or someone like me who would like to do some additional compression in Roxio's Popcorn in order to fit a project that is a little too large onto a single layer 4.7gb DVD.

According to a contact at Apple, the iDVD 5.0.1 update adds dual-layer disc burning support to iDVD (since the new Power Macs and iMacs now include dual-layer burners).

Jeff

> According to a contact at Apple, the iDVD 5.0.1 update adds dual-layer
> disc burning support to iDVD (since the new Power Macs and iMacs now
> include dual-layer burners).

Based on what I read on Apple's iDVD discussion forums, you must have a
dual burner drive in your system in order to access this feature. That
would be consistent with my own experiences.

Hmm... I wonder if Final Cut Express can deal with this problem...