I have used the iDVD and iMovie function in the past for a number of different projects. It is a very user friendly and efficient way to share images, video, text and documents. The DVD can behave like a USB drive and/or a video with chapters and a main menu. In one project completed for the Rivers Institute at BCIT, a series of videos on river management and conservation was designed and created for distribution to highschool classrooms. A series of 10 videos were added to main menu and a video introduction would automatically launch upon loading the DVD in a tv or computer. With the templates provided by apple, it was easy to add the image or logo for the Rivers Institute to a spinning animation and then add credits and acknowlegements in the pages provided in the template.
I used videos from a Youtube channel. As an administrator, you can download the files (there is a maximum of three per hour and session) and the format you recieve is an mp4 video file. The iMovie and iDVD can accept many types of video and once you have added the videos or images to your library, they are easily dropped into the chapter or menu in the template. I created a movie from images in iMovie and then saved it to a project folder. This was then brought into iDVD and used to create the intro section that plays automatically upon loading the DVD. The first time I built a DVD using this technology, I was surprised at how easy it was to create a professional and dynamic disk. I was also surprised by how well the technology worked on both television and computer systems and the quality of the presentation and user interface.
I think that the steps to building a DVD in the assignment are easy and require little labour on the part of the user compared to older technologies and DVD authoring software. The opportunity to build complex videos of your own and add them to the iDVD project is available and of course, requires a greater committment of time and resources.
One issue that I encountered with DV was that some DVDs work better than others and some machines would work with the +R and some with the -R. I found this post by Paul Gill (2012) that gives a very good explanation of the difference between the two and why a disc may work with one machine and not another.
As of June 2006, there is no physical difference between a DVD-R/-RW disc and a DVD+R/+RW disc.
There is, however, a series of technical differences between DVD-R/-RW DVD+R/+RW recorder format. The DVD+R/+RW format offers subtle extra functionality for people who record their own movies and audio.
The Standards Differences
1) The DVD-R (pronounced “DVD dash R”) and -RW media formats are officially approved by the standards group DVD Forum. The DVD Forum was founded by Mitsubishi, Sony, Hitachi, and Time Warner, so it has tremendous industry support for its technical standards.
2) DVD+R (“DVD plus” R) and +RW formats are not approved by the DVD Forum standards group, but are instead supported by the DVD+RW Alliance. The DVD+RW Alliance is supported by Sony, Yamaha, Philips, Dell, and JP, so it also has tremendous industry support for its technical standards. Note that Sony supports both organizations.
References
Gill, Paul. (May 2012). DVD+R and DVD-R 101: An Explanation for Beginners. Retrieved from http://netforbeginners.about.com/cs/multimedia/a/DVD_explained_2.htm