The ultimate outcome of most iDVD projects is, obviously, a DVD that you can play on your computer or your home theater system. This chapter walks you through the final steps needed to “burn” your project onto a DVD, such as previewing the contents so that you can catch any mistakes before they are permanently written to a DVD. We’ll also talk about options for having your DVDs professionally manufactured. But first, let’s start by taking a closer look at DVD discs themselves and various types of DVD discs, including the kind that you use with iDVD and the built-in SuperDrive.
There are many DVD formats and options out there, and the new variety of recordable disc formats could lead to some confusion when you’re at a store trying to figure out which kind of blank disc to purchase. This potentially frustrating situation with DVD formats has been brought about by competition among the makers of DVD players who are pitting DVD-R against DVD+RW and so on. But a simple review of what DVD discs are, and what kinds are compatible with your Mac, will prepare you to avoid the confusion and get on with having fun.
Recordable DVDs (DVD-R) enable you to write data a single time to a disc. They’re much like the CD-R discs that are so popular these days. Much like the phenomena of dropping prices with CD burners and recordable CDs, the price of making your own DVDs will continue to drop.
The kind of recordable DVDs that you can use with the built-in SuperDrive on your Mac are known as DVD-R media, which technically speaking, is called DVD-R General media. In most cases, when people refer to recordable discs, they don’t specify DVD-R General media—they drop the word “general” (see Figure 32.1).
DVD-R compatibility is an important factor to take into account when you’re considering distribution of a DVD project on DVD-R media. Theoretically, if you make a DVD project and burn a DVD-R disc, that DVD-R disc should play in the majority of DVD players. The newer the player is, the more likely it is to be compatible with DVD-R media. And, vice versa, the older a player is, the less likely it is to accept DVD-R media.
Compatibility lists are available online at a variety of sources, including www.apple.com/_dvd/compatibility/, where companies and individuals have tested DVD-R media with a wide range of players. The questions to ask are what kind of project are you going to share? and what kind of audience is it?
The development of the SuperDrive was a joint effort between Apple and Pioneer, and in addition to recording to CD-Rs, CD-RWs, and DVD-Rs, the mechanism used in the SuperDrive has the capability to record to DVD-RW discs (see Figure 32.2).
You can record to a DVD-R disc only once. At the time of writing, the best price you can get for DVD-R media is $3.00 (U.S.) each, so blank DVDs are still fairly pricey. So, if you’re just testing your project, and essentially use the DVD-R disc only once, you’re out a few bucks.
By the Way
At the time of writing, $3.00 U.S. is a common price that can be found when doing a price search on a Web site such as cnet.com.
This makes the idea of using a DVD-RW disc even more appealing. It’s a great way to back up video files and to move DVD-related files from one place to another. DVD-RW discs are twice as expensive, but you can use them over and over again.
Unless you plan to include computer files on your DVD, as discussed in Chapter 31, “Designing DVDs in iDVD,” the best way to think of DVD storage capacity with iDVD is in terms of how many minutes of video you can fit on the disc. The amount of video you can fit on a disc is determined by how much the video is compressed. Because iDVD does the encoding automatically, the limit is about 90 minutes of video on the disc.
If you’re talking about the disc in terms of bytes and megabytes, however, you might be familiar with the often-quoted measurement of 4.7 gigabytes (GB)—that is, the claim that you can store up to 4.7 gigabytes of data on a single-layer DVD disc.
This is only partially true. If you were putting data files on a DVD and had 4.7 gigabytes’ worth of files on your computer, you’d find that you can fit only about 4.37GB on the DVD—this has to do with the difference between the way data is stored on a computer hard drive and the way it’s stored on a DVD. Essentially, you can store 4.7 billion bytes of data on a DVD, but only about 4.37GB.
Regardless of how you look at it, DVD is an incredible medium. The CD format typically allows only 650MB of data on a disc, whereas the DVD format enables you to put up to 4,370MB on a disc! To put this in perspective, consider that many computers you see on the shelves in stores are likely to have 3.5-inch floppy disk drives. Each of these plastic floppies holds about 1MB of data, so a DVD disc holds the equivalent of about 4,370 floppy disks see Figure 32.3).
The easiest thing to do when you need to purchase blank discs is to get them directly from Apple, which ensures compatibility and has always had good pricing.
But if you want to get blank DVDS on your own, make sure that you’re purchasing DVD-R General media. If the product packaging or salesperson says that the disc is DVD-R, but there’s no indication of whether it’s General, chances are that you’re fine. You’ll occasionally come across DVD-R Authoring media, which won’t work in the SuperDrive.
Another thing to look out for if you’re shopping for blank discs is that you’re purchasing DVD-R (minus R) media and not DVD+R (plus R) or DVD+RW (plus RW) discs. The plus discs are designed for other kinds of DVD burners.
To get a better sense of things, glance through Table 32.1, which gives a good indication of the situation consumers face as a result of the Format Wars. (It’s sort of like the VHS versus Betamax competition when VCRs first came out. But, in a nutshell, DVD-R is better and more compatible with DVD players, and that’s what you have in the Mac, so get DVD-R media.)
Table 32.1. DVD Recordable Media
Format | Features | Compatibility with SuperDrive |
|---|---|---|
DVD-R (General) | Can be recorded to once | Yes |
DVD-R (Authoring) | Designed for older DVD burners; easy to confuse with DVD-R General media | No |
DVD-RW | Can be recorded to many times (up to 1,000 times) | Yes (Note: Projects burned to DVD-RW discs are compatible with only about 70% of DVD players) |
DVD+R (plus R) | Similar to DVD-R | No |
DVD+RW (plus RW) | Similar to DVD-RW | No |
Burning a DVD is really as simple as clicking a button and waiting for your masterpiece to be created. There are, however, several steps you should take to be sure that the DVD really is ready to go: Previewing the contents, preparing your computer, and, finally, burning the DVD. We’ll cover these steps in detail now.
Before you burn your finished DVD to disc, you should preview it to make sure that everything is exactly as you want it. Although it’s tempting to skip this step when your project is so close to being completed, you will have to burn the project all over again, and end up waiting twice as long to view it, if you made any mistakes.
To preview your project, click the Preview button.
In the remote control that appears on your screen, click the arrow buttons to select a menu button, as shown in Figure 32.4. When you press Enter, the content linked to the selected button plays.
Repeat step 2 until you’ve tried all the elements in your project, even those in submenus, to make sure that you finished all the portions of your project.
When you have tested everything, click the Preview button or click the Exit button on the remote control to return to edit mode.
After you’ve tested your DVD project and are certain everything is as you want it in the final version, you’re almost ready to burn your project to DVD disc. Before you do so, however, there are a couple of things you need to do to make the process go smoothly.
First, you should quit out of any other applications you have running, such as iMovie or an email program. Burning DVDs is a resource-intensive process, and it’s best to let your computer focus all its processing power on iDVD.
Next, make sure that your Mac doesn’t go to sleep in the middle of burning. (This doesn’t seem to affect all Macs, but it’s better to be safe than to waste a DVD-R.) To do this, go to the Apple menu at the upper left, and open the System Preferences panel. Choose Energy Saver from the Hardware section, and set the slider that controls the length of inactivity before the computer sleeps to Never (see Figure 32.5).
After you’ve tested your project and prepared your computer, burning the actual disc is simple. Just check the Status pane to see that all encoding is completed, and be sure that you don’t want to add anything else to your project. Remember, after you burn a DVD-R it can’t be reused.
By the Way
As you learned earlier in this chapter, there are many kinds of DVD media. Make sure that you are using 2.0 General DVD-R discs. Also, some brands of discs—even the right kind—don’t seem to work in iDVD. For that reason, it’s best to test a single disc before buying DVDs in bulk from one manufacturer.
Click the Burn button. When clicked, the gray button retracts to reveal a pulsing button in its place.
Click the pulsing button to confirm that you are ready to burn your project to DVD.
You are prompted to insert a blank DVD-R disc into the drive, as shown in Figure 32.6.
Insert your disc and wait for iDVD to do its thing.
Watch Out!
If your DVD project is large or uses very high-quality video, it might take hours for your DVD to be written. Be careful not to press the Eject key while burning is in progress. This may interrupt burning and result in an unusable disc.
It takes a while for your computer to create the disc. Exactly how much time depends on your computer’s processor and how much content is on the disc. Generally, it takes two to three times the length of the video on the disc for that video to be encoded and written.
After your DVD is written, there’s one step yet remaining—make sure that the disc works! To find out whether the disc has been created correctly, the best option is to try it in the computer that wrote it. If the DVD works in your computer, chances are good that it will play in most newer DVD players and DVD-drive equipped computers. (See www.apple.com/dvd/compatibility/ for a list of compatible players.)
The only way to guarantee 100% compatibility with all DVD players is to manufacture a DVD. This means sending the project off to be manufactured by automated machinery. There are companies such as EMVUSA (www.emvusa.com) that are aggressively going after the do-it-yourself DVD market by offering attractive pricing and accepting DVD-R media as a master disc. Accepting DVD-R media as a master disc is a break from the tradition of requiring a DVD project to be submitted on a special format known as DLT, or digital linear tape.
In addition to compatibility, other things you gain are the ability to have more professional packaging and a better-looking disc. When a DVD is manufactured, a design is imprinted directly on the DVD itself instead of a label being applied.
More and more local video production-type companies are offering the service of duplicating DVDs, which basically means that they can take your DVD and make copies of it, put labels on, and probably even have some options for packaging. This is basically another way of burning your own DVDs; it’s just that someone else is burning them, onto the same discs you would, and is probably saving you a lot of time.
As there is still less than 100% compatibility for discs burned in iDVD, the only real way to ensure that your project will play in all players is to send it off to be manufactured. Fortunately, DVD manufacturers increasingly accept DVD-R discs as masters, and if you have the need, you can use a DVD you burned on your Mac and have small or large quantities reproduced.
To get a DVD manufactured
Go online and investigate your options, see Figure 32.7. Call a manufacturer or two and ask questions. One to try is EMVUSA, online at www.emvusa.com.
Be sure to get enough information that you understand what you need to provide to them in terms of files, and so on, and so you can get a sense of the options and prices.
As your project is developing, think about the art that will appear on the disc. If you are not a designer, you may want to hire someone to make a nice-looking design. Templates are usually available for download, such as the one shown in Figure 32.8, which is for a small-sized 3-inch DVD that places like EMVUSA are capable of making.
After you’ve sent in your master disc, be patient as your DVD is being put together and prepare for the pleasure of receiving the finished product.
In this chapter you learned all about DVD discs—essential to the success of every iDVD project. You also learned the steps you should follow when burning a DVD: Previewing the contents, preparing your computer, and burning the DVD. iDVD makes it simple to burn a DVD, and it is often tempting to just click the Burn button as soon you’ve finished your creation. Unfortunately, this can sometimes lead to DVDs that don’t burn properly or aren’t exactly what you expected. Following the steps presented here will make sure that your project turns out as close to perfect as possible on the first try. Finally, you learned about having a DVD manufactured for maximum compatibility with DVD players and a more professional appearance.