iDVD Getting Started Get to know the iDVD window and controls, and learn how to create your own DVD.
1 2 Chapter 1 3 3 4 4 5 Chapter 2 6 6 8 8 10 12 13 14 15 16 18 20 22 22 23 25 26 27 28 28 30 30 31 31 32 33 34 Contents Welcome to iDVD What You’ll Learn Before You Begin What You Need The iDVD Interface Learn iDVD Step 1: Locate the Movies, Photos, and Audio Files to Use in This Tutorial Step 2: Create a New Project Setting the Encoding Quality Step 3: Choose a Theme for Your DVD Step 4: Add a Movie Editing the Menu Title Step 5: Add a Slideshow Adding a Transition Between Images Adding a Soundtrack
1 Welcome to iDVD 1 iDVD gives you the tools to create Hollywood-style DVDs that incorporate your own movies, photos, and music. Sharing your memories has never been easier. You can play the discs you burn using iDVD in most DVD players, including computers with DVD drives. To learn how to use iDVD and make your first basic DVD using your own movie and photos, follow this easy tutorial.
Before You Begin To make it easier to complete this tutorial, print this document before you start. In many tasks shown in this tutorial and in iDVD Help, you need to choose menu commands, which look like this: Choose Edit > Copy. The first term after Choose is the name of a menu in the iDVD menu bar. The next term (or terms) are the items you choose from that menu. You don’t have to complete the tutorial in one sitting. You can save your work at any point and return to it later.
The iDVD Interface As you go through the tutorial, you’ll learn about the various controls and menus in iDVD. The main window, shown below, is your console for creating your DVD. From here, you can access almost every feature for creating and editing menus, and adding movies, photos, and music to create a dazzling DVD. Drop zone Drag video clips, slideshows, or still photos to each drop zone to customize your menu.
2 Learn iDVD 2 Get started now creating a dazzling DVD project using your own movies, photos, and music. When you’ve finished this tutorial, you’ll have a complete project, which you can continue to edit on your own or burn to a DVD. And you’ll have a taste for all the creative things you can do in iDVD to make sharing your movies and photos better than ever.
In the Media pane of iDVD, shown below, you can access songs and photos in your iTunes and iPhoto libraries. If you have audio and image files in folders outside of iTunes and iPhoto, you can drag those folders to the list of photos or audio files in the Media pane after you open a project in iDVD. Click these buttons to access specific media files. Click the Media button to access your movies, photos, and music. Movies stored in the Movies folder on your hard disk appear automatically in the Media pane.
Step 2: Create a New Project With your music, movies, and photos in the correct format and in locations where you can easily access them, you’re ready to get started. To start a new iDVD project: Â If iDVD isn’t open, click the iDVD application icon in the Dock. Click the “Create a New Project” button in the opening dialog, shown below. Â If the opening dialog isn’t showing, choose File > New. Select a location to store your new project, and then click Create.
To set the encoding quality: m Choose iDVD > Preferences, and then click Projects. Then choose one of the encoding settings. By default, iDVD is set to the correct mode for your region. NTSC format is used in North America. Choose an encoding setting before you add a movie to your project. When you select Best Performance, iDVD encodes your video in the background as you’re working on your project instead of waiting until you burn your project.
Step 3: Choose a Theme for Your DVD The overall look of a DVD menu and its buttons is called a theme. The theme is defined by the colors and graphic elements in the menu, the font style and size of text, the menu button shape, and much more. A theme family is a collection of menu designs that work together, providing a unified appearance to submenus. You can use one of the professional-quality themes that come with iDVD.
The Soft Frame theme, like many iDVD themes, defaults to the widescreen format (16:9). To switch to standard format (4:3), choose Project > “Switch to Standard (4:3).” Choose a set of themes using this pop-up menu. Click the disclosure triangle to see all the menu templates in the theme family. Note: After you modify a menu, you can save it as a custom theme. A custom theme appears in the Themes pane, listed below Favorites. You can use it for future projects, just as you would any other theme.
Step 4: Add a Movie After you choose your theme, you can add one or more movies and other content to your iDVD project. In this step, you’ll add a movie. When you drag a movie to a menu, iDVD automatically adds a button to the menu that users click to play the movie. The button’s label is the name of the movie you added, but you can change this. To add a movie: 1 Click the Media button. 2 Click the Movies button at the top of the Media pane, shown below.
Note: If dotted lines appear on the menu when you drag your movie to it, move the pointer until the dotted lines disappear, and then drop the movie. Dotted lines indicate a drop zone, an area of a menu to which you can add video clips and photos. Video clips added to a drop zone become part of the menu background rather than featured movies on the DVD. If you haven’t saved changes to your project, you can delete a movie you’ve added by choosing Edit > Undo Add Movie.
Step 5: Add a Slideshow Adding a slideshow to your iDVD project is a great way to enhance your DVD and show your photographs. You can use a slideshow already created in iPhoto, or you can use iDVD to create a slideshow from a group of pictures. You can even create a DVD that has no movies at all but rather showcases your photos in one or more slideshows. Depending on the amount of other content included and the size of your photos, your DVD can hold up to 9801 images.
The slideshow editor, shown below, is a blank screen with the words “Drag images here.” Access the Photos pane to add photos to your slideshow. 4 Drag photos one at a time or in groups from the Photos pane to the slideshow editor. You can even drag a whole album to the slideshow editor. If you haven’t imported photos into iPhoto, you won’t see photos in this list.
To preview the transition, click the Preview button, shown below. The iDVD remote control appears. It operates just like a standard remote control, and you can use its controls to click buttons and navigate to all the menus in your project. Click the Transition pop-up menu to choose a transition style. Click the Preview button to see the various transitions.
To quickly locate a particular song, you can type its name in the search field. Access the Audio pane to add a soundtrack to your slideshow. Audio well Volume slider Preview button 3 When you find a song you want to use, drag it from the song list to the audio well in the slideshow editor, shown above. After you drag the song to the audio well, notice that the Slide Duration pop-up menu automatically changes to Fit To Audio. This ensures that your slideshow and music begin and end together.
Step 6: Add Media to Drop Zones iDVD themes can include no drop zones, multiple drop zones, and even dynamic drop zones that move in the background of a menu. A drop zone isn’t a button; it’s an area where you can place media that adds interest to the menu background. You can place a single image, a slideshow, or a movie in a drop zone. You can add any combination of images, video clips, or slideshows to the drop zones in your project.
3 Drag a video clip from the Movies pane to the first drop zone well in the drop zone editor. Unlike with photos, the video clip is not resized to fit into the drop zone, so some of it will likely be cut off in the drop zone. Note: It’s not recommended to add a long movie to a drop zone because a movie can use a lot of space. Also, a viewer is unlikely to stay on a menu enough time to view a long movie. 4 Click the Drop Zone button again to return to the main menu.
This opens the drop zone slideshow editor, which looks like the slideshow editor you used to create your DVD slideshow in “Step 5: Add a Slideshow.” You’ll see thumbnails of all the images you added. 11 Drag the images into the order in which you want them to appear and delete any you don’t want to keep. You can also drag other images, from the Photos pane or elsewhere on your computer, to the drop zone photo editor.
To customize the text: 1 Make sure that the project’s main menu is open, and then choose Project > Add Text. New placeholder text that says “Click to edit” appears on the menu. 2 Drag the text into position below the title. If you need to reposition the main title to fit the subtitle below it, click the title once to select it, and then drag it to a new location. You can select and drag any text object on the menu to reposition it.
The menu below shows the new title and subtitle. Some television screens may not be able to display everything on your menu. You can overlay an outline on the menu so that you can see what will be visible on these TVs. This is called the TV safe area. For more information, search for “TV safe area” in iDVD Help. Step 8: Change the Appearance of Buttons Button styles are designed to fit the theme, but you can change them to suit your content or your own design vision.
4 To change the color of the text, press Command (x)-I while the button is selected. This opens the Button Info window, shown below. It has the same controls as the inplace editor, plus additional ones. Click the color control to select a new color for the selected text. 5 Click the color control (its default color is white) to open the Colors window, and then try out different color selections in the Colors window. As you click colors, the button label changes to the color you selected.
2 Click Buttons to open the Buttons pane, shown below. Select a category of button shapes using this pop-up menu. Click this icon to change a button to text only. 3 From the pop-up menu at the top of the pane, choose Rounded. The three button options at the top of the pop-up menu—Text, Bullets, and Shapes— add a graphical element to your buttons that in most cases appears only when the button is highlighted.
6 If the buttons are still overlapping, click the menu, but not a drop zone or text object. The Menu Info window, shown below, appears. 7 Select “Free positioning” in the Buttons section of the window. This allows you to move the buttons around the menu 8 Close the window, and then drag your buttons where you want them on the menu. Yellow alignment guides appear as you drag to help you place your buttons. 9 To save your work, choose File > Save.
To change the image on a movie button: 1 Slowly double-click the shape portion of your movie button. A Movie pane, shown below, appears above the button. 2 Move the slider to the left or right to select which frame of your movie you want to appear on the button. If you want the buttons to show only the frame you selected instead of moving video, select the Still Image checkbox. Your menu should now look similar to the one shown below. 3 To save your work, choose File > Save.
2 Press Command (x)-I to open the Button Info window. 3 Choose Push from the Transition pop-up menu, shown below. You’ll notice that the second pop-up menu changes to read “Right to Left.” This indicates that you can set the direction for the transition’s movement. 4 Choose a different direction from the second pop-up menu, if you want. 5 Click the Preview button and use the DVD remote control to select the menu buttons one by one to view the results. When you’re done, click Exit on the DVD remote control.
Note: The map view image below does not reflect the map view for your current project. The image below shows a different project to give you an idea of what map view looks like for more complex projects. Disclosure triangle for the scene selection menu View buttons Zoom slider Changing Map View Layout You can change between vertical and horizontal orientation of map view with the click of a button.
An autoplay movie can be video or a slideshow. For example, you could create slides with introductory information or credits that play before the DVD menu appears. For the purposes of an autoplay movie, a slideshow can consist of a single image. Project icon Disclosure triangle To add an autoplay movie: 1 Locate the gray project icon at the top of the map. 2 Click the Media button, and click Photos or Movies to select the content you want to add.
Step 11: Burn Your DVD Now that your iDVD project is finished, you’re almost ready to take the final step and burn it to a DVD disc. There are still a few steps to take to ensure a good outcome. In this step, you’ll check the project size in the Project Info window, check for errors using the DVD map, and check the encoding quality and status. Checking the Project Info Window DVD projects can take up a lot of space on your hard disk, and it’s useful to know when you need to make more room.
DVD-ROM refers to the content you’ve specified to be added to the DVD-ROM portion of your burned DVD. The running time and size figures that appear below Menus reflect the total duration of all the menus in the project. You can have a total of 15 minutes of motion, such as video on buttons or in the background, in all menus. A project can include up to 99 menus.
3 Move the pointer over the symbol to see an explanation of the error. 4 Make the necessary correction and return to map view to see if the warning symbol is gone. 5 To save your work, choose File > Save. Burning Your Project to DVD When you’re finished with your iDVD project, you can burn it to a DVD for viewing on a TV or on a computer equipped with a DVD-reading drive. Burn a disc only when you’re sure that you’re finished with your project.
While your iDVD project is burning, a progress dialog shows which of the five burn stages is in process: Prepare, Process Menus, Process Slideshows, Process Movies, and Burn. If you can’t burn a disc right away, or if you want to back up or move your project to another computer, you can archive it or save it as a disc image. For more information, search for “Archiving a project” and “Saving a project as a disc image” in iDVD Help.
Getting More Help There are several resources you can consult for additional help using iDVD: Â Onscreen help: iDVD comes with a built-in help system. When iDVD is open, choose Help > iDVD Help. When the help page opens, type a word or phrase into the search field at the top of the page, or click one of the topic areas to get detailed instructions for completing specific tasks. Â Video tutorials: These short video tutorials demonstrate how to complete common tasks in iDVD.
www.apple.com/ilife/idvd © 2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Final Cut, Final Cut Pro, iDVD, iLife, iMovie, iPhoto, iSight, iTunes, QuickTime, and SuperDrive are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. GarageBand is a trademark of Apple Inc.
