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iDVD2
Authored by: YoramIH on Nov 25, '02 06:36:21AM

I was VERY disappointed in the image quality of the DVD's created in PAL format. It is much less than the original DV or when encoded with QT Pro and multiplexed with DVD Studio Pro. Is there a difference in quality between NTSC and PAL? Will the quality improve with iDVD3. I certainly hope so, because a an iApp I like it very much.



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iDVD2
Authored by: gboy on Nov 25, '02 06:54:02AM

There was a company selling the external AO4 drive that included a patch to make iDVD work on external drives. Anyone know anything more abut this?



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Cease and decist...
Authored by: robg on Nov 25, '02 07:51:12AM

Apple asked them to stop shipping the patch, and they did so. I can't remember the name of the company involved, though...

-rob.



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Cease and decist...
Authored by: smv on Nov 25, '02 09:25:58AM

The company was formac. Now they just ship proprietary burning software that (from the looks of their web site) can only support a single movie on a DVD.

-smv



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Cease and decist...
Authored by: Fofer on Nov 25, '02 10:07:13AM

Nope - Formac has always sold their own proprietary software with their Devideon DVD-R. The "other" company that sold a patch to let iDVD work with their external DVD-R's was Other World Computing. They have since pulled the patch, due to Apple's demands. Apple wants people who desire to burn DVD's easily with iDVD to buy a whole new computer from APPLE, not a $300 peripheral from OWC.



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Cease and decist...
Authored by: jfaughnan on Nov 25, '02 11:16:58PM

I'd thought this was pretty rotten of Apple too. I don't mind paying a modest premium for their hardware as a surrogate for paying for software, but you can't BUY an external DVD burner from Apple!

I'm told that the story behind this is more intricate than it seems. Apple licenses the compression software used in iDVD. If you buy their hardware then you're covered under the license. If you buy someone else's hardware then you're not covered. It MAY be that the owner of the compression algorithm pressured Apple to put out the cease and desist.

This doesn't get Apple off the hook though. They would serve their customers best by selling an Apple labeled DVD burner that iDVD supported. One wonders why they don't.

john



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Cease and decist...NOT TRUE
Authored by: turkchgo on Nov 26, '02 10:04:11AM

What's being said here and one post above isn't entirely true. You can buy a Pioneer A04 DVD drive and iDVD will work with it just fine. No patch required. I've been doing it for a year on my dual 450 G4.

Getting a copy of iDVD is the hard part. If your Apple didn't ship with a super drive, you can't just go and download iDVD.

However, if you can find a copy of iDVD you can also pay Apple $20 to get the iDVD 2.0 upgrade and viaola, you have a superdrive equipped PowerMac with iDVD for about $330, oh, yeah, plus the original purchase price of your older power mac.



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iDVD2
Authored by: mdzorn on Nov 25, '02 11:35:05AM

It depends on the length of the movie. In NTSC iDVD can put 60 minutes (4.7Gb) of video on the disc or 90 minutes (~7.5Gb). The difference in video quality is quite noticeable and due to the different rates of compression. The disc itself holds the same amount of data since iDVD can only burn one side of the disc. Professional DVD software includes other compression schemes that deliver better quality at high rates of compression.
With 60 minutes, iDVD provides very good video quality.



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