iDVD alternatives?

September 6, 2006 1:39 PM

Recommended alternatives to iDVD?

i'm making some photo dvd's for my family and iDVD is driving me crazy. do any of you know of some good alternatives? or is iDVD the way to go (and i just need to learn its nuances). the software needs to support (small) AVI files too.

thanks, askmefi!

posted by cgs to Computers & Internet (11 answers total)

It's probably easier and quicker to diagnose your iDVD problems. What problems are you having?
posted by unixrat at 1:40 PM on September 6, 2006

Avid has a free version, but the interface is, well it's Avid.
posted by Gungho at 1:48 PM on September 6, 2006

Response by poster: unixrat- my idvd woes:
1. i use iview media pro, so i first have to pull everything into iphoto...which doesn't like video.
2. consistent auto-rotation problems in the photographs (i end up opening each in pshop and rotating... a real drag)
3. all of my albums have like 10-20 video clips that i want to appear in order (the christmas ones during the christmas slide show, for instance). iDVD treats the videos very differently than the photo slideshows...they are separate things. my video clips are short...under 30 seconds. so it doesn't make sense to have them as separate choices in the DVD menu, etc. i hope that makes sense to you. i could combine all the little clips into one big one in iMovie, then attach that at the end of each year's photo album. undesired, though...

thanks for your help!
posted by cgs at 1:58 PM on September 6, 2006

As far as adding video into a photo slideshow, it's just a limit of DVD's in general that they can't be included. Your best bet here is to bite the bullet and use iMovie to build your slideshow. That way you can intersperse the pics and clips however you see fit, then just send the finished project to iDVD as a movie.
posted by toddshot at 2:20 PM on September 6, 2006

Avid's software is for editing, not dvd

The rotate thing? You'll have to do manually.

I'm pretty sure you can just grab a folder of stills and pull them into iDVD and it'll make a slideshow of the stills.

The AVis? Pump them through iMovie First.
posted by filmgeek at 2:49 PM on September 6, 2006

if idvd is not giving you the options, you might want to consider upgrading to dvd studio pro.
posted by krautland at 3:16 PM on September 6, 2006

DVD Studio Pro can cope with those requirements. You don't have to use iPhoto for the pictures in iDVD though-- just drag and drop
posted by bonaldi at 3:30 PM on September 6, 2006

Rotating: Automator is your friend. It's pretty straight forward to create a plug in to rotate selected files and copy them to another directory.

Why do you use iveiw media pro? I'm asking because I've not used it.
posted by dantodd at 3:38 PM on September 6, 2006

Response by poster: i find iview media pro much more flexible than iphoto (all file types) and it doesn't duplicate files or generate thumbnails. ala, i have one source directory, and then i create any number of catalogs (root, friends, family) without creating all sorts of wierd aliases and stuff. iPhoto just feels clunky to me. i don't even use most of iView's functionality (key word searching, photo editing, etc)...

you should give it shot...they have a free 21 day trial, for both windows and mac. i know that doesn't really compare with free/bundled iPhoto, but if you are managing a large number of photos, i think it is worth it.
posted by cgs at 9:51 PM on September 6, 2006

I second the recommendation of using iMovie. I've never used iDVD for anything other than adding menus and burning discs. I did a slideshow for my wedding and used a combination of iMovie, Final Cut Pro (yeah, that was fun on a 500 MHz G3 iMac... I'm not kidding), and some Photo to Movie program. I simply exported all the parts from the various programs to quicktime files, then used iDVD to burn the disc.
posted by cebailey at 5:51 AM on September 7, 2006

To rotate a photo in iPhoto, use CMD-r. and CMD-opt/alt-r to turn the other way.

But seriously, use iMovie for all of your slide shows. You might have to convert the .avi's to something iMovie understands first, but then it should be quite easy.
posted by KimG at 2:12 PM on September 7, 2006