[Rickalotta]

I saw the article, but now I am having trouble finding it. I have an 800 Mhz Powerbook and am really dissapointed that I can't use iDVD. I want to buy an external 4x DVD-RW. Can anyone help?

[Adam Betts]

Do you ever read those little rules you see before registering?

They have the answer there

[icruise]

It was apparently keyed to the serial number of the drive you bought in any case, so it won't work even if you bought a new drive from the same company.

[Rickalotta]

That's a little too vague for me. Not a hardcore forum warrior. Could you elaborate



[QUOTE]Originally posted by Adam Betts:
[B]Do you ever read those little rules you see before registering?

They have the answer there

[brachiator]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rickalotta:
[B]That's a little too vague for me. Not a hardcore forum warrior. Could you elaborate

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
Do you ever read those little rules you see before registering?

They have the answer there

I think Adam was answering your question "Can anyone help?" -- implying that no, no one can help you find the patch, because the forum rules prohibit things like how to pirate s/w or what not, or how to hack, crack, and otherwise violate the godawful DMCA...

If I recall, the patch was being provided by Other World Computing, and they "ceased and desisted" distributing it after Apple got after them. Talk about bundling!

Anyway, if it was as customized as lcruise says, it probably won't even be floating around the hacker/pirate channels, I'd guess.

[juanvaldes]

just pirate DVD Studio Pro instead, it will be easier.

[CharlesS]

I think it's absolutely ridiculous that iDVD is blocked from running on external DVD-RW drives. It really sucks that it's not possible to upgrade to a 4x DVD burner, and it really sucks that it's not possible to use iDVD on Macs that are a few years old and thus didn't come with a SuperDrive built-in.

[brachiator]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rickalotta:
[B]That's a little too vague for me. Not a hardcore forum warrior. Could you elaborate

Originally posted by Adam Betts:
Do you ever read those little rules you see before registering?

They have the answer there

I think Adam was answering your question "Can anyone help?" -- implying that no, no one can help you find the patch, because the forum rules prohibit things like how to pirate s/w or what not, or how to hack, crack, and otherwise violate the godawful DMCA...

If I recall, the patch was being provided by Other World Computing, and they "ceased and desisted" distributing it after Apple got after them. Talk about bundling!

Anyway, if it was as customized as lcruise says, it probably won't even be floating around the hacker/pirate channels, I'd guess.

[icruise]

I actually have a copy of it, but,

A) It doesn't work with 10.2
B) As I said it will only work with drives that were originally sold with it. Whether it is a serial number based thing or not I don't really know, but I found this out when my original drive that came with the software was defective and I got the drive replaced. When the new drive came, iDVD stopped working. When I asked Other World about this they said they weren't allowed to sell the enabler anymore and I was SOL -- they couldn't help me, even though I had bought their drive specifically because it supported iDVD

DVD Studio Pro was the answer. If you are a student, you can get it at a big discount, or just pirate it. No, I don't really condone piracy, but this situation really pissed me off. Apple is essentially trying to force us to buy new computers with superdrives just to use iDVD.

[Eug]

Apple is essentially trying to force us to buy new computers with superdrives just to use iDVD.

And it worked on me, sorta. I ordered (current status) a PB SD partially for this reason. Mind you I had to get a new machine anyway since using a G3 to encode video is like getting your teeth pulled.

It would be easier on my pocketbook if I didn't have to though, especially since I already own an external DVD writer and I like the form factor of the iBook more than I do the TiBook.

[issa]

I may be digressing here, but for one heartbeat when I took deliver of my 1GHz/1GB/60GB/Combo PowerBook G4 and found iDVD factory installed on the hard drive, I thought I might actually be able to create something in iDVD and then burn it elsewhere later. Had the software not been on there, I never would have given it a thought. It was more than a little disheartening when I clicked on iDVD's icon in the Dock only to have it quit on launch while displaying a message that I lacked the necessary hardware to run iDVD. Rats.

Once provoked, I even reinstalled iDVD along with the fresh OS X install I did after partitioning. Same result. Double rats.

[Big Mac]

I don't understand why Apple doesn't give into demand and sell a cheaper version of DVD Studio Pro. Call it DVD Studio Standard or something. I'm sure Apple could price it high enough to justify the extra DVD encoding license yet cheap enough not to make it unreasonable. Perhaps Apple doesn't want to risk any sales of Studio Pro; if so, that's unfortunate because they're missing out on lower end sales. If the PC world can produce cheap DVD authoring solutions, why can't Apple do the same?

[icruise]

DVD Studio Pro is a good program, but not fantastic -- the user has to do almost everything manually, from the creation of menus in Photoshop to the encoding of video and audio. Everything has to be done in other programs, making it even more expensive and hard to learn, since you have to buy and learn a bunch of other programs as well. iDVD is very easy to use, but is too limited in its current incarnation. If they added chapter stops to iDVD it would suffice for almost everything, though. What I would really like to see is something that has the ease of use and automatic features of iDVD with the more advanced features of DVDSP.

[Eug]

Originally posted by Icruise:
DVD Studio Pro is a good program, but not fantastic -- the user has to do almost everything manually, from the creation of menus in Photoshop to the encoding of video and audio. Everything has to be done in other programs, making it even more expensive and hard to learn, since you have to buy and learn a bunch of other programs as well. iDVD is very easy to use, but is too limited in its current incarnation. If they added chapter stops to iDVD it would suffice for almost everything, though. What I would really like to see is something that has the ease of use and automatic features of iDVD with the more advanced features of DVDSP.

I'm no multimedia pro, but it would seem very odd to me to see any sort of iDVD templates, etc. in DVD Studio Pro. DVDSP is just that, a pro program.

It would make sense to spruce up iDVD though.

[mitchell_pgh]

Why doesn't apple just sell a $100 version of iDVD that works with other DVD-R drives? (but then everyone would just pirate it...)

[GORDYmac]

Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Why doesn't apple just sell a $100 version of iDVD that works with other DVD-R drives?

Because then Apple would have to jump through the hoops you all put them through with 3rd party CDRW support in iTunes and Disc Burner. It's less of a headache to support one model, their model. Yeah, the Pioneer drives should work 3rd party, but what about others?

[icruise]

Originally posted by Eug:

I'm no multimedia pro, but it would seem very odd to me to see any sort of iDVD templates, etc. in DVD Studio Pro. DVDSP is just that, a pro program.

It would make sense to spruce up iDVD though.

I'm not referring to something like the templates in iDVD that include premade graphics and sound and animation, etc. What I mean is that it would be nice if you didn't have to create every menu from scratch in another program.

For example, just try to create a simple menu with motion video previews like in iDVD. Unless I am missing something big, it takes quite a long time since it necessitates using something like Final Cut Pro to create a video clip with miniaturized versions of the clips you want to use. Why can't DVD Studio Pro have functions to help you making common menus like this?

The main thing I was trying to get across, though, was that Apple shouldn't make a consumer version of DVDSP, but rather a better version (or perhaps a seperate "pro" version) of iDVD. iDVD as it is very good. You can actually get pretty good results by creating your own resources, etc, but it lacks some features (chapter marks, mostly) that keep it from being an option for many kinds of DVD creation.

[Eug]

Originally posted by Icruise:


I'm not referring to something like the templates in iDVD that include premade graphics and sound and animation, etc. What I mean is that it would be nice if you didn't have to create every menu from scratch in another program.

For example, just try to create a simple menu with motion video previews like in iDVD. Unless I am missing something big, it takes quite a long time since it necessitates using something like Final Cut Pro to create a video clip with miniaturized versions of the clips you want to use. Why can't DVD Studio Pro have functions to help you making common menus like this?

The main thing I was trying to get across, though, was that Apple shouldn't make a consumer version of DVDSP, but rather a better version (or perhaps a seperate "pro" version) of iDVD. iDVD as it is very good. You can actually get pretty good results by creating your own resources, etc, but it lacks some features (chapter marks, mostly) that keep it from being an option for many kinds of DVD creation.

It seems to be a common theme with Apple iApps. Simplify them to the extent that they become aggravating. I find iMovie sorely lacking - doesn't seem to even handle third party JPEGs correctly, and in some ways iPhoto is just about useless because you can't save your projects separately.

[twieland]

Here's another Superdrive/iDVD question ...

I currently have a G4 tower with the Apple SuperDrive - works great.
I just ordered a new Powerbook (867 without Superdrive).

Any chance I could take the SuperDrive out of the tower, put it in an external firewire enclosure, and have iDVD on the Powerbook burn to DVD-R?

In other words, I wonder if iDVD is specifically just checking the Firmware in the drive to see if is a genuine Apple Superdrive, or does it also check to see if the drive is physically connected to the IDE bus internally on the tower?

Any ideas on this ??? Thanks in advance ...

- Tim

[GORDYmac]

No. iDVD doesn't support FireWire bus DVD-R's.