Ok!

Hi, all. I'm about to begin my long term dvd authoring and burning adventure.
I know next to nothing, have begun reading up, and have questions great and small.

Within the next few months, I'm going to begin creating training video dvd products. I'll will probably need to utilise semi-complex or numerous menus for this.
DVDSP seems to be the way to go (rather than idvd).

My work computer:

POWERMAC G4
OSX 10.2.8
MEMORY 512MB
PROCESSOR 1.25GHZ
BUS SPEED 167MHZ
L2 CACHE SIZE 256K
L3 CACHE SIZE 1MB
BOOT ROM INFO 4.4.8f2

CD-RW/DVD-R (Not sure if this is a COMBO DRIVE or a SUPERDRIVE. DVDSP requires a SUPERDRIVE, yes?)

Final Cut Express 1.0.1

DSR PDX10 (some of what I do is definitely in 16:9)



Any other useful info I can offer about my setup?

I've read that it's better to burn with somehting like TOAST, rather than with DVDSP. Correct?

Does the computer need to beefed up in some way in order to successfully create reliable dvds? (DVDSP, TOAST, ?...)

Not a huge budget here, but will do/get what it takes over next few months to make it all fly straight.

I'm not a savvy systems tech, by any stretch. What do I need?
Thank you very very much!

Shawn

I've found out that it is indeed a SuperDrive...

How many menus? While dvdsp is amazing it might not be what you want if you've got a large project! How many buttons per menu?

With the 16:9 content do you want 16:9 menus or not?

When using Toast the best thing to do is write with dvdsp then use the build off of that disc with Toast.(Cause of a regions being flagged wrong issue). If you don't care about the compatibility issue this may cause and use a HD build or .img file from dvdsp then make sure you delete the .layout and .LAY files from the VIDEO_TS folder. You can do that in Toast.

If you're going to be doing a lot of units get a DLT drive, you can get them cheap on ebay or lots of other places. DLT4000 will be fine (even a DLT2000 to be honest). Thats the best for submitting for replication if you are going to have your project pressed.

Ok gotta run,

Jake

Don't yet know how many menus, only that idvd is not going to cut it.

I don't think that 16:9 menus will matter so much.

I've actually gone for Bitvice instead of Toast, thanks though.

Will look into DLT drives.

In case anyone is interested, here is my posting of the same basic question and the responses I'm getting, over at the COW:

http://www.creativecow.net/index.php?forumid=155

Thanks for the response, Jake.

Apples and Oranges. Well Apples and iPods. Although Toast 6 has some encoding ability it hurts me to say it in the same sentence as BitVice. They are very different apps and BitVice is a great encoder but it doesn't have lots of features that Toast does. You should be able to gather that from the websites. eg. you can choose the burn speed when writing dvd±r. It lets you master to lots of formats. It supports ±RW.

Basically you need both! BitVice is a great 2-pass VBR encoder and worth every penny. Encodes will take some time so be prepared to have your system tied up for double figure hours at a time.

Jake

Oh. Ok. Thanks!

Any excellent handbooks for DVDSP I should know about?

Shawn

Also, can you confirm whether FCE and DVDSP are or are not perfectly suited for working together? I would love it if the upgrade to FCP were to be unnecessary, for now.

DVD Studio Pro 2 Visual QuickPro Guide. I'm mentioned in it so I have to mention it :-) but it's very good. The manual is much better than the version 1 manual and worth reading for sure.

There are quite afew sites about with tut's but this is a new one which is growing all the time:

http://www.osxworld.com/

Jake

Thanks!

Also pick up a copy of DVD Demystified from Jim Taylor.

Thanks for the resource tip, Jason. I need all the help I can get in certain areas of production, particularly after the editing process.

I use Adobe Encore 1.0 for Windows. I would assume it works for the Mac as well. I love it.

DVD Demystified is a excellent book without question and a updated version is soon to released. But it may take some authors in a bit too deep!

No Encore isn't a mac app and is very buggy! but they all!

Jake