iDVD

iDVD

iDVD 7
Developer(s) Apple Inc.
Stable release 7.1.2 / July 11, 2011
Development status Discontinued
Operating system OS X
Type DVD creation software
License Proprietary
Website iDVD

iDVD is a discontinued [1] DVD-creation application for OS X produced by Apple Inc. iDVD allows the user to burn QuickTime Movies, MP3 music, and digital photos to a DVD that was then played on a commercial DVD player. It is comparable to Windows DVD Maker,[2] and was often considered the last step of Apple's iLife suite, bringing together the results of all of the other iLife apps onto a removable medium.

Availability

While initially available only for Macs with a SuperDrive, it was included until 2011 with all new Macs; from iDVD 6 onwards, Apple supports the ability to burn projects with third-party optical drives. iDVD was no longer preinstalled on Macs shipping with OS X 10.7 Lion, and was not available on the Mac App Store with all of the other iLife apps. It was, however, still available in the boxed copy of iLife '11 until iLife '13.[3]

Description

iDVD includes over 100 Apple-designed themes for DVD menus and submenus, allowing for the easy creation of DVD menu systems. Each theme includes "drop zones," onto which movies or photographs may be placed, some of which can be animated automatically. Any theme can be applied to each of the menus in an iDVD project.[4]

iDVD integrated tightly with the rest of the iLife suite, as well as with Final Cut Express and Final Cut Pro. iMovie projects and iPhoto slideshows can be exported directly to iDVD. In the case of iMovie projects, scene selection menus were automatically created in accordance with chapter markers that are set within iMovie. The application also had a Media panel that provides access to the user's iTunes library, iPhoto library and Movies folder at any time. It also provided a map view, which shows a flow chart of the project's menu system.[5] Another feature was the ability to hide or show an approximation of the 'TV-safe area' (as old televisions often cut off some of a video's outer areas). iDVD also incorporated a 'One Step DVD' function, which will automatically rewind the currently connected DV camcorder and burn a DVD of the video footage stored on the tape.

iDVD ships with fonts (located at /Applications/iDVD.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts) that are not installed, to prevent them from being available to other applications by default.

Version history

iLife Version Release date New Features Notes
iLife iDVD January 9, 2001
iLife iDVD 2 July 18, 2001 Motion menus
iLife iDVD 3 January 7, 2003
  • Themes from iDVD 1 omitted
  • Drop zones (the user can customize indicated areas with pictures and videos)
Bundled as part of iLife '03
iLife '04 iDVD 4 January 6, 2004
  • Themes from iDVD 2 omitted
  • 30-second menu loop limit omitted (the user can set the menu loop for longer than 30 seconds)
Bundled as part of iLife '04
iLife '05 iDVD 5 January 11, 2005
  • Drop zones are numbered
  • Drop zone editor (the user can edit all drop zones in a menu at once)
  • Motion playhead (the user can go to a specific point in the menu)
Bundled as part of iLife '05.

Incompatible with later versions of Mac OS X 10.5

iLife '06 iDVD 6 January 10, 2006 Change of aspect ratio (the user can choose to create a widescreen project) Bundled as part of iLife '06.

First Universal binary version. Refined look based on iTunes 5 and 6.

iLife '08 iDVD 7.0 August 7, 2007 Themes from iDVD 1 and iDVD 2 restored Bundled as part of iLife '08
iLife '09 iDVD 7.0.3 January 27, 2009 None Bundled as part of iLife '09
iLife '11 iDVD 7.1 October 20, 2010 None Bundled as part of iLife '11

References