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MillimeterAlternative Methods
Jul 1, 2003 12:00 PM, By Steve Mullen
Sidebars
Creating a Widescreen DVD
No-Cost Workarounds for Apple iDVD 3.0
At last winter's DV Expo in New York City, I attended a DVD Studio Pro 1.0 micro-training session given by Apple. After an hour, most of us had a working button or two. At that point, I decided two things: DVD Studio Pro 1.0 did not fit my concept of an Apple product, and I wanted a widescreen iMac like the one I used at the session.
 iDVD is a great application for making DVDs—especially when used with Final Cut Pro. However, there are a few tips and tricks for making it do what you want. |
After maxing out my credit card, I was soon happily exploring Apple's iLife suite on my new 17in. 1GHz wonder. The iLife suite contains iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and iDVD. Since I saw no likelihood that I would use DVD Studio Pro 1.0, I began learning more about what iDVD can and can't do.
Soon after, at NAB 2003, Apple introduced DVD Studio Pro 2.0, which is more powerful and easier to use than 1.0. Since DVD Studio Pro 2.0 was not yet available, I continued to work with iDVD. I quickly discovered that it is a great application for creating DVDs — especially when used with Final Cut Pro. It accepts DV movies generated by FCP, as well as DV streams generated by iMovie. All the discs I burned looked great.
Once I was sure iDVD worked as expected, I made a list of its limitations. Of course, compared to set-top DVD burners that encode in realtime, iDVD is much slower. (Thankfully, after importing each DV file, the encoder processes it in the background while you work.)
While using iDVD, I was frustrated that the very tiny slider, which should allow you to pick the beginning of a button's video loop, jumped in units of tens of seconds. There is no way to choose the loop start-point with even second accuracy. Unfortunately, Apple does not support arrow keys for frame-by-frame movement within a movie.
Apart from these considerations, iDVD obviously lacks the enormous power of DVD Studio Pro. However, the vast majority of DVDs do not require an intricate menu structure. Nor do buttons always need to sing and dance.
iDVD supports six buttons on a menu. Up to six secondary buttons can be linked to a button on the primary menu. Thus, you can have up to 36 movies per DVD. So what can't iDVD do? My list of limitations focused on three problems, which I set out to solve.
The Limitations
First, I found what I considered aesthetic problems with certain themes' menu button highlight colors. For example, the use of bright yellow to highlight buttons on brushed metal themes. Unfortunately, iDVD does not allow you to select a different color for a button's highlight. This ability really needs to be added. Theme designers' aesthetic lapses are compounded by a bug in a few theme definitions that forces the button text to remain yellow — no matter how many times you try to change it.
Second, only DVD-R optical media are specifically mentioned in the online Help files Apple provides for iMovie. If you have one of the more recent set-top DVD players that plays DVD-RW discs, rewriteable discs can save you money.
Third, iDVD does not support widescreen movies. That doesn't mean you can't burn a file that contains anamorphic video. Of course you can. But iDVD doesn't create anamorphically squeezed menu graphics and text. Nor does it set the “Wide” flag for a DVD. That means a computer-based DVD player (such as Apple's DVD Player) and widescreen monitors will not auto-switch to the right aspect ratio.
The Workarounds
After browsing the Web, I found several proposed solutions to iDVD's limitations. Some didn't work at all. Some worked only with iDVD 2. Some worked fine, but were so inadequately documented that they were of no practical value. Nevertheless, a few did help. So here are three no-cost solutions that should help you obtain “pro” results from iDVD — with a little work.
Theme problems can be fully solved only by Apple enhancing iDVD. You can, however, avoid the yellow highlight and text problem. First, make a list of static backgrounds you like. For example, I like Brushed Metal. Then locate the iDVD application within the OS X Application folder. Right-click (or Control+click) the application and select Show Package Contents. Open the Contents folder and then the Resources folder. Now right-click the appropriate theme (e.g., Brushed_Metal.theme) and select Show Package Contents. Open the Contents folder and then the Resources folder. In it, you will find a 640×480 file such as Background.tif. Copy and Paste it to your Desktop. Now close all Package folders. Lastly, back in iDVD choose a theme whose highlight color you like. For example, red is used by Portfolio Color while blue is used by Brushed Metal Two. Now simply drag the background file from your Desktop to the menu “well” (under Settings) and make the customized theme a Favorite.
iDVD 3.0 does support DVD-RW — if you trick it. To use rewriteable media, follow these steps. First, set CDs & DVDs System Preferences to: Open iDVD when a blank DVD is inserted. Second, after creating your DVD, confirm that all media has been encoded. Now Quit iDVD. Then, insert a blank DVD-RW into the SuperDrive. iDVD will now automatically start. Next, click the Burn button twice. To erase a DVD-RW, start the Disk Utility application in the OS X Utilities folder. Click Erase and choose the SuperDrive. Now click the Erase button.
Final Cut Pro will correctly capture and edit anamorphic video. To make a widescreen movie to burn to DVD, you do not want to letterbox your production. For video release, however, you will likely want to rescale the anamorphic video to 16:9 and apply a letterbox mask. Please see the “Creating a Widescreen DVD” sidebar for detailed information that will allow you to create widescreen DVDs using FCP and iDVD.
When you load your burned DVD into the SuperDrive, Apple's DVD Player will auto-start. Menus will be displayed in 4:3. When you click a button to choose a movie, the movie will begin playing in a 16:9 window. At the end, the menu will re-appear in a 4:3 window. Depending on the widescreen monitor used for viewing your DVD, iDVD menus will appear with a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. Likewise, the monitor may or may not automatically switch to 16:9 when your movie plays. My Sony projector, for example, requires a Full Zoom setting to force-stretch the input to widescreen.
I recommend iDVD highly. When a “free” application works so well, it sets a new high in price vs. performance.
Sidebar
Creating a Widescreen DVD
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Download HexEdit 1.85 (http://hexedit.sourceforge.net) and VLC 0.5.3 (www.videolan.org) and install them. (VLC is a great MPEG player. It even plays MPEG-2 TS files from the JVC prosumer HD camcorders.)
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Set CDs & DVDs System Preferences to Open iDVD when a blank DVD is inserted, as well as Open DVD Player when a video DVD is inserted.
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Export from Final Cut Pro as an FCP Movie, with Make Self Contained unchecked. If you placed Chapter Marks, select Markers and Chapter Markers.
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Start iDVD. Choose or create a theme. Depending on the widescreen monitor used for viewing your DVD, iDVD menus will appear with a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. Use condensed or narrow fonts, as they look good even when stretched horizontally. Likewise, use rectangular button shapes and avoid circles.
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Drag your movie onto a menu. After creating your DVD, confirm that all media has been encoded.
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Quit iDVD. Your project will be saved as “My Wide DVD.dvdproj.”
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Right-click (Control+click) on the “My Wide DVD.dvdproj” icon and select Show Package Contents. Open the Contents folder and then Open the Resources folder. Now Open the MPEG folder.
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Copy the “MPEGxxxxxx” file and Paste it on your Desktop.
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Start HexEdit and Open “MPEGxxxxxx.” At address zero you will see this series of hex digits: “00 00 01 B3 2D 01 E0 24.”
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Enter “00 00 01 B3 2D 01 E0 24” into the Find field of the Find dialog box. Also enter it in the Replace field, but with “24” changed to “34.” Changing the “2” to a “3” will change the MPEG-2 Header from 4:3 to 16:9.
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Click Find Next.
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Click on the Find dialog box, and then click Replace.
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Click on the Find dialog box, and then click Replace All. Wait for the replacements to be made.
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Click on the Find dialog box, and click Find Previous. If the series is encountered, highlight “24” and change it to “34.”
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Repeat step 14 until address zero has been modified. Now Save the file, and Quit HexEdit.
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Start VLC and Open File “MPEGxxxxxx.” Your movie should open in widescreen and play (without audio) to its end with no errors. (To eliminate interlace “combing” artifacts, set Interlace to Blend.)
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Delete the original “MPEGxxxxxx” file from the Resources folder. Now Copy “MPEGxxxxxx” and Paste into the Resources folder. Close all package folders.
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Insert a blank DVD-R or DVD-RW into the SuperDrive. iDVD will automatically start. Now click the Burn button twice.
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