NewEnglandFilm.com

The new fruit on Apple’s tree is DVD Studio Pro, the first harvest from Apple’s acquisition of Astarte more than a year ago. DVD Studio Pro (or DVDSP for lovers of abbreviations) is a full-featured DVD authoring and encoding application. Previously only available in expensive hardware and software products, Apple has made professional DVD authoring affordable and practical.

Unlike Apple’s free iDVD and similar low-cost, PC-based applications, DVDSP provides total control over the many features available in the DVD specification. Motion menus, chapter markers, subtitles, multiple audio tracks, video angles and Dolby digital audio can be added, as well as CSS and Macrovision copy protection.

There can be up to 99 video tracks, each with up to nine different angles, and up to eight audio streams per track. Web links can be added to the DVDs for play on computers. Both DVD-5 and DVD-9 projects can be created, with the finished files output to tape or DVD-RAM to send to a duplication facility, or directly burned into a DVD-R on Apple’s G4 with SuperDrive.

In other words, this program means business.

This isn’t an application you’ll sit down in front of and master without the manual (fortunately, the manual is very well written). And it isn’t a "creative" application where you’ll make menus and add effects to graphics or movies. It’s an application where you put all the pieces together in preparation for output to the DVD format.

To author a DVD, you need to prepare all your files before importing into DVDSP. Menus must be previously created in Photoshop or QuickTime; video encoded into MPEG with QuickTime Pro or Final Cut Pro; and audio files encoded with QuickTime to PCM or A.Pack to Dolby Digital AC-3. You’ll need Photoshop or an application that outputs in layered Photoshop format. And it’s important to layer the menu buttons in the proper hierarchy and naming scheme for DVDSP.

Once you have all your files (or assets in DVDSpeak), import them into DVDSP and begin the authoring process. The palettes are set up in a clean interface. You can’t get lost in DVDSP, even if sometimes you don’t know where you’re going.

Basic DVD authoring consists of creating the hot links for the menu choices, setting up menus and submenus, identifying chapter markers and linking the video and audio files. DVDSP allows authors to create interactive projects, such as slide shows and DVDs with built-in links to Web sites.

DVDSP helps in the menu authoring by automatically incorporating the Photoshop layers into menu buttons. This is an awesome achievement and a real time-saver.

I found DVD Studio Pro to be an outstanding and versatile DVD authoring application. The authoring process has a learning curve, but Apple’s manual and tutorials made it easy to get through.

While Apple touts DVDSP as a product for creative professionals and not technicians, be prepared to learn a lot of technology before burning your first DVD. Creating the MPEG files in QuickTime Pro took some time to render, and creating the various media assets such as menu graphics means a lot of planning is required before starting the authoring process.

And note that while DVD Studio Pro can output to any DVD format, including DVD-R General and Authoring media and DVD-RAM, as well as DLT tape, Apple’s G4 SuperDrive only burns to DVD General media. The general discs will play in most consumer and computer DVD players, but can’t be used as a master for duplication. For that you’ll need to burn to DVD-R Authoring media, which is only supported on external disc burners costing about $5,000 or more.

DVD Studio Pro ships with the QuickTime MPEG encoder, DVD@CCESS, A.Pack Dolby Digital encoding, and Subtitle Editor software.

While Apple has put the word Pro at the end of its QuickTime, Final Cut and DVD Studio applications, some people are surprised at the depth and scale of the features in these products. Other reviews often use phrases such as "contains features usually found only in professional applications."

Make no mistake. Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro are pro products. That they’re designed in such a way that non-pros and hobbyists can use them too is a testament to Apple’s user interface design achievements. Their tight integration with the hardware and operating system means few conflicts or crashes and no third-party cards or drivers to muck with. Apple rightly claims that every Mac they ship is a digital video editing system. They truly sell "systems," not merely components.

I get calls and e-mails all the time from people wanting my advice on what system or application to buy for digital editing. I tell these people what I’ve said to others for years: Get a Mac. Get Final Cut Pro. And now, also, Get DVD Studio Pro. If you don’t, don’t call me with your system problems. If you do, you won’t have to call me — there won’t be any problems.