While I'm glad Apple updated iDVD for iLife '09 users as well (finally, makes sense since there was nothing new added) I'm still upset about the bugs and glitches in iDVD though. I love using this program to make DVDs of home videos from either VHS tapes or even 8mm film. It's simple to use, it's easy to configure, and it gives a great presentation. Other programs can't compare, especially when you consider how simple it is to make a DVD from an iMovie project.
However as
I've mentioned before iDVD is broken. Some older menus or themes don't let you edit simple things like text - at all! So if iMovie named my chapters 1, 2, 3, 4. I can't change them to 'Chapter 1, 'Chapter 2', 'Start', 'End', etc. A fix is to just switch to a theme and then edit the titles and switch back, but in this process you lose your preview style, your layout, your colors, and all other personal customizations you've made. You can use some QuickTime plug-ins and scripts to edit the chapters or create new titles, but still this is a large pain for something simple that should "just work".
Another thing that iMovie needs is a template feature. I've burned over a dozen VHS home videos to DVD. I like using a certain menu theme with certain colors, music and fonts, it would be great just to remove the main video file and replace it with a new one. In theory this should work (maybe), but when I delete the main movie iDVD just hangs and crashes. I'd vow to never use iDVD again, but it's hard to replace.
DVDs are still great for sending to family and friends. Not everyone's Grandma or cousins have a high-speed internet connection available to them, or know how to use a computer. DVD players have been everywhere for the past 10 years or so, computers, cars, video game systems and even TVs have them built-in. So there's still a market for burning videos onto DVD. Maybe when Apple finally adopts Blu-Ray drives in their Macs we'll have a DVD/Blu-Ray creator built into iMovie. But until then I hope iDVD is here to stay (and gets updated again)... some of us still use it quite frequently. It would be a shame to let it go to waste.
Products like Toast or Adobe Encore offer DVD creation too, but I've found their menus are either too simple and plain, or too complicated and stylized. I want to simply be able to create a DVD from iMovie without worrying about complicated details or loose ends. I hear the DVD Studio app in Final Cut is nice (and complex) too bad I can't afford to try that out, would be nice to give it a try.
I just restored old family movies from VHS to DVD. Its for grand parents and their children generations that don't get the concept of the "cloud". I would not have been able to restore their old VHS to YouTube or Mobile Me. If they could figure out how to watch it they certainly would't understand how to download or share that media with others from the cloud.
This is a good point. I've been doing the same, I've converted dozens of VHS home video tapes to DVDs and it's perfect for sharing with grandparents and others. You put the disc in and press play, it's pretty simple. MobileMe & YouTube are great options, but for someone without a computer or the internet it's not an option. A DVD is still very handy and easily played in many devices.
