iDVD '05 export and +-R/RW?

[beaster]

Hi Folks-

First post here, so please forgive my noob status. I'm looking at purchasing a Powerbook 12" soon (trying to hold out for whatever sort of update seems imminent). If it doesn't ship with iLife '05 I intend to upgrade to it asap. I'd like to use it for iDVD, amongst other apps. But I can't think of any scenario in which I'd need to burn a DVD while travelling, so I'd like to save the $200 on the SuperDrive and put it towards some more RAM. So the question then becomes - can I create my DVD in iDVD and export it as *.vob's to burn with Nero on my PC?

With iDVD 4 the answer seems to be "no." But according to this page:

http://www.apple.com/ilife/idvd/featureoverview.html

iDVD 5 has a new export feature "Save as Disk Image". Anybody know if this is what I'm after?

Also, according to this page:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300665

iLife '05 seems to somehow "unlock" DVD+R/RW capabilities latent in existing Superdrives. I suppose it's possible that the Superdrives shipped in iMacs and eMacs and PB's and iBooks have long had +R/RW capabilities that Apple never advertised since their software couldn't take advantage of them, and that iLife '05 flips whatever bits are needed to burn to +R/RW media, but.... seems kinda odd. Am I reading that right?

Thanks,
Sean

[JeffTL]

Disk image export would give you something better even than VOBs -- a bit-for-bit exact digital representation of a DVD, basically an ISO, except that DVDs use UDF instead of ISO9660.

I suppose you can then take the image and burn it with whatever you want to use that supports burning an image to a disc -- Toast, Nero, the Finder, a Windows PC, you name it.

[beaster]

Disk image export would give you something better even than VOBs -- a bit-for-bit exact digital representation of a DVD, basically an ISO, except that DVDs use UDF instead of ISO9660.

I suppose you can then take the image and burn it with whatever you want to use that supports burning an image to a disc -- Toast, Nero, the Finder, a Windows PC, you name it.


That's even better news. Thanks Jeff.

So anybody have info on that page describing the new +R/RW capabilities of existing Superdrives?

-Sean

[gopher]

That's even better news. Thanks Jeff.

So anybody have info on that page describing the new +R/RW capabilities of existing Superdrives?

-Sean

That was in the first post:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article2.html?artnum=300665

Please read it again.

[beaster]

That was in the first post:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article2.html?artnum=300665

Please read it again.

That was my post gopher. Please read it again. :D

I'm asking whether anyone can actually confirm what that Apple article says. The article seems kinda odd to me - odd that Apple has been shipping +R/RW drives all this time, but only now, and very quietly I might add, added the +R/RW support to their software.

-Sean

[Bear]

That was my post gopher. Please read it again. :D

I'm asking whether anyone can actually confirm what that Apple article says. The article seems kinda odd to me - odd that Apple has been shipping +R/RW drives all this time, but only now, and very quietly I might add, added the +R/RW support to their software.

-SeanApple would not say something like that if it weren't true. And if you had bothered searching the forums, you would've found confirmation of this probably on a post a few months old.

[beaster]

Apple would not say something like that if it weren't true. And if you had bothered searching the forums, you would've found confirmation of this probably on a post a few months old.

Thanks Bear. For what little it's worth, I did search before posting. Searching on the above article # yielded zero results. Searching on DVD+R yielded 500+ results. Next time I'll try to do a more intelligent search, but I do appreciate the confirmation on this go-round.

-Sean

[gopher]

Apple has had DVD+ support on its machines for several months now, but none of its applications or drivers have been able to support that driver till iLife '05. Before this article was released many found they could burn to DVD+ media, but only by using third party software like Roxio Toast. This only confirms on Apple's part which machines had that capability.

[beaster]

Apple has had DVD+ support on its machines for several months now, but none of its applications or drivers have been able to support that driver till iLife '05. Before this article was released many found they could burn to DVD+ media, but only by using third party software like Roxio Toast. This only confirms on Apple's part which machines had that capability.

Awesome, thanks Gopher. Surprising that Apple wouldn't advertise this new feature a little more I guess. I would think they'd want to change the Powerbook/iMac/iMac/eMac tech spec pages to say "now with +R/RW support!*" and explain that iLife '05 is required in a footnote. Esp. since they're offering iLife '05 for a $20 upgrade to new machines. But hey, I'm not in advertising - they seem to be doing just fine without my advice. ;)

Thanks again,
Sean