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

And Chip Eberhart (OS X.V.1.5), director of DVD operations with Avenue Edit (www.avenue-edit.com) in Chicago, offers his take: "My opinion on the MPEG encoder is that it's good enough for entry-level users shooting on DV. If people are shooting on more professional standards like Beta, Digi Beta and HD, they need to invest in better encoding hardware, like what Sonic Solutions offers."

Overall, though, Eberhart pronounced DVD Studio Pro software up to scratch. The biggest feature I'd like to see in the next version would be support for the industry standard subtitle format. I've got some customers, like ABC News, that send me subtitles. If I wanted to put them in DVD Studio Pro, I'd have to re-create them, I'm not going to spend time doing that, since I'd have to retype and reformat all of the subtitles into its subtitle editor."

HERE'S THE LOVE

Those observations not withstanding, others speak glowingly of the product. Bruce Nazarian (OS 9 and X,V.1.5.2) is president of Gnome Digital Media (www.gnomedigital.com) in Burbank, a multi-faceted DV company, and also serves as an Apple trainer. He likes DVD Studio Pro.

He calls it 'an extremely affordable, professional DVD authoring tool for the mass market" and is quick to point out that Apple has never maintained that this product was designed to go head-to-head with a $100,000 authoring system (or similar models that can cost up to $500,000). "What they have maintained is that DVD Studio Pro is extremely powerful and simple to learn to use. It's supposed to provide a thorough and reasonably complete DVD authoring environment with tremendous control, while nicely tying into Apple's video editorial workflow"

Typical users, he continues, would include major healthcare providers, nationally known public broadcasting organizations and countless independent companies that now embrace DVD Studio Pro as their technology of choice.

What he thinks is really needed is a clearer understanding of what DVD Studio Pro is -- and isn't. "I hope beginning DVD authors understand that there is a learning curve, no matter what technology you use. Learning what DVD is before you try to build one is the best advice I can give."

That's why every class Nazarian teaches starts with two hours of DVD indoctrination. "I think the biggest mistake people make is that they don't understand the nature of the beast before they make a DVD," he says.

Comparisons between DVD Studio Pro and Sonic's DVD Creator or Sonic Scenarist are, "unfair, given the significant differences between the products," he says. "Apple creates a lot of their sales promos on DVD Studio Pro. That's called eating your own dog food, isn't it? What better verification does the product need than that?"

Shane Ross (OS X.V.1.5.2), operations manager of Technicolor Sound Services Hollywood (www.technicolor.com), says, "Considering what's available on the market for authoring, I think DVD Studio Pro represents the best value for the investment"

Considering what the user gets for $1,000 is impressive to Ross, as he reels off the bullet points. "You get access to a large portion of the DVD spec, including multi-angle video, subtitles, AC-3 Dolby Digital encoding, authoring for DVD-9 discs with the Macrovision and Content Scrambling System. It also masters to Disc Descriptor Protocol (DDP) and CMF Cutting Master Format, as well as writes to a disc image, DVD-R or Digital Linear Tape (DLT, the standard format replicators expect).