iDVD with external burners...?

[suarkttam]

I have a 700MHz iMac without the superdrive. I am looking to get an external DVD Burner and would like to know what the story is with using iDVD.

I have of course heard that you cannot use iDVD with anything but a superdrive...but I have also heard that there is a patch to do so.

Does anyone know the full story on this, and what my options are. (besides using DVD Studio Pro)?

Thank you for your help...whoever you are?

 

[AmbitiousLemon]

owc <otherworldcomputing.com> (the creators of expostfacto) created a patch which they bundled with their external dvd bruners that would allow iDVD to work with external burners...

however Apple sued owc using the DMCA and thus have prevented any further distribution of the patch through legal channels.

Although I have not yet checked, i would suspect you could still find a copy if you know eher to look, however, it could be consider illegal.

(illegal ≠ immoral)

[EDIT] the patch was called "iDVD enabler" [/EDIT]

 

[suarkttam]

Unfortunately, I don't really know where to look for something like that...any help in that area would be greatly appreciated. If it is illegal, then I would only use it for "demo" purposes.

 

[rainman::|:|]

Even for "demo" purposes it's illegal... We're not even supposed to talk about specifics of doing things like this. BUT if someone were going to break the law, and do something immoral, that someone would probably find a good Hotline tutorial, or learn how to use Limewire or some other file-sharing program. Even searching the web might turn up some results, tho Apple's lawyers probably pounce on these sites when they find 'em...


pnw

 

[FattyMembrane]

illegal does not always mean immoral. you bought osx (or a computer with it insalled), which means that you paid for idvd. it was illegal for owc to distribute a piece of software of which apple did not approve, but anything that you do to your own software is really another issue (it's kind of like changing the icons in a program, you've modified it, but is that illegal?). apple is a really cool company but everything concerning dvd playing/burning seems to freak them out (there is a hint on www.macosxhints.com to allow external dvd players to work with apple "dvdplayer" if you are so inclined to look at that).

 

[suarkttam]

Thank you for the heads-up...

If DVDPlayer works with an external does that mean that iDVD will work?

 

[FattyMembrane]

do allow dvdplayer to work with external drives, you have to open up the program with hexedit (or another hex editor) and change a few numbers. i really have no idea how hex works, but it does not look that difficult. here is the hint
(http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2002121704462629)
i'm assuming that all the owc "enabler" did was swap around some hex values that trick the software into thinking the dvd burner is an internal apple-branded one, but as i said, i have no idea how hex works, and there are a hell of a lot of numbers in there...