What is DVD Studio Pro 1.x (1.0, 1.1, 1.2)?

Looking to create professional DVDs? While iDVD (the DVD authoring package included with SuperDrive-equipped G4s) might be a great program for the novice or hobbyist, DVD Studio Pro is a worthy competitor for any of the professional-level DVD authoring packages available (as of this writing, most are on the PC side) if motion pictures are your bag. In true Apple fashion, DVD Studio Pro is graphically driven, fast, and simple to use, but it has some limitations.

It's important to understand how a commercial DVD “behaves” before you start a DVD authoring project. If youVe ever watched a DVD video, you’re familiar with features like navigable menus, alternate audio tracks, multiple angles, and subtitles. It’s also important to know what DVDs are capable of — how many video streams you can use for each track, for example, or the maximum number of subtitles you can include in a track. So don’t skip the “Getting Started” section of the manual — this program is easy to use, but it isn’t intuitive.

The main screen consists of four logically arranged windows: the Graphical View, Project View, Assets Container, and context-sensitive Property Inspector. You can get an overview of your project by looking at the Graphical View, which houses the different video, audio, and scripting components in a DVD, displaying them as tiles you can arrange with interlinking arrows.

The Assets Container holds all the video, audio, and graphic elements that make up the DVD’s footage and menus. However, you must prep all of your media prior to importing them into DVD Studio Pro. This means you’ll have to edit video in a package like Final Cut Pro and compress it with the appropriate encoders (included with DVD Studio Pro). It also means that you’ll have to invest some money in a video-editing package if you don’t already have one.

To create graphical menus and menu items (buttons), DVD Studio Pro requires that you use either the PICT format or PSD (Photoshop). Photoshop is preferable because DVD Studio Pro makes excellent use of Photoshop layers. For example, in Photoshop you can start with a background image with the buttons in their inactive state (not highlighted). Then you can create a layer for each button in its selected state (highlighted), and another layerfor each button in its activated state (when a user presses the button). DVD Studio Pro displays these layers as individual elements and makes menu creation both visually pleasing and easy to manage.

There is little you can’t do in DVD Studio Pro when it comes to authoring fully professional DVDs. However, hardware limitations mean you can’t master a full-length motion picture in full-quality mode using the SuperDrive in Apple computers. (This is because the DVD-R format in the SuperDrive is currently limited to a 4.7GB capacity...) For larger-capacity DVDs (DVD-9s), you have to save your completed files to DLT (Digital LinearTape) and rely on DVD pressing services to master a commercial-level DVD.

For a first release, DVD Studio Pro is a mature program — and it’s handy (fun, even!) for folks in the multimedia industry who want to add another level of service to their business.

Tokuda, Andrew. (June 2001). DVD Studio Pro 1.0. MacAddict. (pg. 56).

Download DVD Studio Pro 1.x (1.0, 1.1, 1.2) for Mac

Architecture

IBM PowerPC

System Requirements

From Mac OS 9.0

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: SheepShaver