Apple DVD Studio Pro: use growing, despite pains; most agree that for its price point this very affordable software has its benefits - DVD Report - Product/Service Evaluation

Post, March, 2003 by Mark R. Smith

With the early 2001 release of Apple's DVD Studio Pro at a low price point of $ 1,000, the masses got access to their first full-featured authoring tool, which allowed them to create professional looking DVDs. Or did they?

As is often the case with new technologies, a few quirks arose. That raised some eyebrows, as well as questions, like: "Are frustrated users justified in their complaints about DVD Studio Pro's limitations?" And, "Are users expecting more than Apple promised to deliver with a budget-friendly tool in the first place?"

The answers depend on the user. Some who accept the product as a "prosumer" tool are still venting for various reasons. Others simply look toward more capable authoring tools for higher-end work.

INFORMED POINTS OF VIEW

When DVD Studio Pro was unveiled for this industry it was billed as offering professional-quality DVD encoding, authoring and writing, and as the perfect complement to Apple's Final Cut Pro editing system.

While DVD Studio Pro has its critics, those who spoke to us for this story are mostly complimentary of the product and Apple (www.apple.com) in general, even while pointing out its imperfections. One or these pros is Ralph LaBarge, president of Alpha DVD (www.alphadvd.com) in Crofton, MD, (who uses DVD Studio Pro for OS X, Version 1.5.2). First off, I think it's a wonderful product at that price point It delivers many of the features included in DVD systems that run from $5,000 to $20,000. That's a very big positive."

Then comes the flip side. "There are a few bugs," he continues. "If the user is creating a dual-layer project, DVD Studio Pro puts the layer break in the wrong place, which can cause playback problems. And the subtitle editor crashes intermittently."

LaBarge adds that Apple is aware of these problems and is working on them. "People who develop DVD titles for the consumer market are not using it," LaBarge continues. "But lower-end, small runners of 1000 copies or less are."

Kent Hodder took LaBarge's observations a few steps further, Hodder (who opted not to purchase DVD Studio Pro after test runs on OS 9, Version 1.5) is CEO at Digital Bucket (www.digitalbucket.com) in Minneapolis and also segued into his comments by offering a disclaimer: "We love Apple. Our entire creative services backbone is built on Apple's back," he explains. "Our graphics and animation facilities basically use After Effects on the Mac. Our Pro Tools audio suite and all of our Avid edit facilities exist only because of Apple and the affordability the corporation allows."

Then came his assessment of DVD Studio Pro. "We've tried it and basically set it aside, instead opting to use our Sonic Solutions Creator software. We've found that when we work on what I would call the more professional' projects, the benefits of using the expensive equipment outweighs the cost savings of DVD Studio Pro."

Hodder points to DVD Studio Pro's inability to manipulate the subtleties of shadowing and the nuances of shades of black or flashes of white. "The fact is that Apple's offering has limitations in taking full advantage of the DVD feature set When you employ people who know how to perform those functions well, its kind of a shame if the tool they're tying to work with is underpowered."

The bugaboo here concerns compatibility. Hodder says, "There is also a concern about compatibility of the DVD you spit out of a system like Apple's. Will it play in consumer decks? Windows-based computers?"

But, all told, he thinks the gist of this article could be completely different in three years. "To make DVD Studio Pro easier to use, they have purged certain concepts. This is a tool for the masses, in my mind. It's excellent for transferring home video to DVD, storage and possibly for the one-man band who needs to deliver on budget. So, DVD Studio Pro is a bargain for $1,000. But, at the end of the day, we feel we've shortchanged our product if we don't allow our people to use a tool that maximizes their efforts. So the additional benefit of Sonic is worth the extra expenditure."

Hodder's colleague at Digital Bucket, digital media developer Mark Sheldon, offered that most of its clients "go to great lengths to shoot on the highest quality format and expect the DVD to look as good as the master. Once it's on Digital Betacam, the Sonic will handle that straight off tape, without having to make it into a QuickTime movie,"

With DVD Studio Pro, Sheldon continues, users can choose the bit rate, aspect ratio and field dominance, which is basically all the average consumer needs. "But once you get to the professional level, you need the ability to go in and analyze your streams and do re-encodes in certain areas of the video. Is there smoke in a scene? Lots of motion? Water? The issue is that in a pro system, you can tweak all of the nuances of the encoder to create a DVD that mirrors the master."

Jon Wenger (OS 9.2.2. V.1.51), DVD technical specialist with Zomax (www. zomax.com) in Fremont, CA, says the biggest downside of DVD Studio Pro is simply the lack of a good bundled MPEG encoder. "What they did was modify QuickTime to produce MPEG-2 encoded files, but the quality of the video suffers at lower bit rates."