Re: HELP !! DVD Studio Pro for OSX10.7.3

Hi Ken,

Running today, for the first time on a new iMac OS10.7.3.
FCP 10.0.3 and out-put project via > Share - Compressor 4.0.2.
Normally we use the final Compressor files (AC3 + m2v) coming out Compressor for our 3 hour DVD production.
However I see no new DVD Studio Pro software for OS10.7.x in the App Store where I did buy all the new FCP, Motion and Compressor software.
Question - Is there no DVD Studio Pro software for OS10.7.+ ??))

Apple has discontinued DVD Studio Pro. Their current philosophy is that video delivery on optical disc is dead; video should be delivered/viewed via the web. However, there is limited DVD "share" capabilities in FCP-X and the new version of Compressor.

-DH

And that's why we are all keeping DVD SP on our Macs.

--ken

Hi Marco,

As you know the entire Final Cut Studio runs fine on 10.7.3, so there is no problem with using DVDSP. We have DVDSP installed along with FCP10, Motion and Compressor on several Lion machines and it is a great combination. When we need to deliver a copy on DVD we export our edit from FCP10 and either encode in Compressor and author in DVDSP, or we just take the exported video directly into DVDSP. For BluRay we use the Share to BluRay feature in FCP10.

It is correct that DVD and BluRay are on their way out, we hardly get any requests for mechanical delivery formats anymore. But this certainly doesn't mean these delivery formats are dead. This will take another couple of years. In the meantime there just won't be any further development of the existing DVD authoring software. DVDSP is still the most advanced affordable DVD authoring application around anyway, so if you install DVDSP on your machine you will be able to do everything you wish with what you have.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Hi Ronny, Ken

So we just reinstall the "old FCP" software - only the DVDSP part - ? Is this possible under OSX 10.7.3?

We still use DVD as a format daily. We have ships going all over the world and are not able to receive a satellite signal for good TV or Internet service.

Thanks for your input
Marco

Hi Marco,

Yes FCS3 is fully compatible with Lion. You can just install DVDSP if you have no need for the other apps.

Best wishes,

Ronny

I'd add that Optical Disc Authoring is suffering the severest decline.

It's not difficult to deliver DVD or Blu-ray screeners from FCPX. The menu options are extremely limited.
While there's still a (declining) market for authored feature films for example, most other markets are shifting to file based delivery. This include the corporate/business market. Much of Business to Consumer and Business to Business is on the web. This is generally short form of course. Even long form is shifting to online delivery. One can see that with Hulu, Netflix and (obviously) iTunes TV/Movie content.

There are certainly areas where internet connections are poor and certainly long form content can be most challenging but these underserved areas are in the decline. One can certainly deliver discs to those locations but that's not a market incentive for a software company to invest in R&D to further develop authoring software. Also it's not a great incentive for post production businesses to "author" for a declining client base (not much ROI) nor much incentive for people entering post to invest time in learning disc based authoring.

One tangential thing to ponder is that given Mountain Lion should arrive later this year, I wonder if it might break some of FCS3.

Craig Seeman Wrote:
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Also it's not a great
> incentive for post production businesses to
> "author" for a declining client base (not much
> ROI) nor much incentive for people entering post
> to invest time in learning disc based authoring.
>

Maybe not much of ROI, but if they are customers for over 10 years I still like to deliver what they are asking for. Even for much less ROI !!

Marco it's certainly a good thing to keep long time customers happy. At some point they will need help with the transition. You should show them the new opportunities. It may depend on what they're doing with the DVDs (distributing?) but perhaps you should show them the near Blu-ray quality they can get from various file players whether it's AppleTV, Roku, Western Digital, etc.

Hi Craig,

I can confirm that FCS3 works fine on the DEV version of Mountain Lion. On the other hand I don't think this is very important, as none of the apps in FCS3 can really benefit from a 64-bit OS.

From what I have heard the ML release is scheduled this Summer and major OS updates will be on a yearly basis from now on. In a previous post I have mentioned that IMO ML is just a nice update over Lion. Now I am withdrawing this statement. It's a relatively big update.



Hi Marco,

As I said before DVD authoring software will probably not be updated anymore due to the shrinking market, but the current software offerings will allow you to continue delivering DVDs for many years to come if that's what your clients request.

Best wishes,

Ronny

Ronny, I'm surprised if not impressed that ML hasn't (yet) broken anything. Perhaps FCS3 will have another year and change of life for those who need it. At this point for many it may simply be to resurrect a few old projects. As per the above posts, DVDStudio Pro may be the single most critical component to keep alive for some since there is no worthy replacement for many people.

I agree that disks are not going to be very much in demand for high-end, technical clients but I'll be giving my older clients a lot of DVDs since they are constantly given me slides, pictures, tapes of all kinds and 8mm film to transfer. These clients have no need to get into anything technical beyond DVDs, heck, some don't even have a DVD player and they have to buy one after I give them their finished products. Sometimes I even have to show them how to hook them up and use them. There's a lot of old memories out there that needs transferring to DVDs and I'll be providing that service for a long time.

Tom

So what is it that you guys all do which requires absolutely no physical media?

Joe Redifer Wrote:
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> So what is it that you guys all do which requires
> absolutely no physical media?

Local Cable Spots. I've been doing file delivery for 6 years.
Corporate Clients. They either want something on YouTube or a file they'll use on their CDN.
On the occasion where the client has download issues I do send them a disc but it's usually a data disc. In other words a file burned to a DVD (or Blu-ray) but not DVD or Blu-ray Video disc. I did have one client that wanted a DVD for distribution since they wanted to hand their customers something tangible due to perceived value. Even then, this didn't need any heavy authoring. They wanted a straight play disc.

Even my own marketing is all file based now. If I'm meeting with a potential client, I have an HD file on my iPad and I bring along my dock to HDMI connector. I can hook it right up to their HDTV in the conference room or play on the iPad directly if it's a one on one meeting. I no longer hand out DVDs. I give them a link to video that's password protected. Unlike handing a them a DVD, I can tell by the view count if they've had a look. I can then follow up with them know that they have/have not viewed it and tailor my conversation accordingly.

I don't have to worry about the occasional surprise (oh, your disc didn't play in my player) and then scramble to make another disc and hope it works. Of course they may have a file playback issue but if they can't play the file because they don't have a current Flash plugin, I can upload a WMV for them in just a few minutes. I can provide a download link so they can get the file on their system if they're going to be away from an internet connection while traveling.

For marketing (whether my own or my client's need) it's so easy to make everything 720p or 1080p. Anything I offer them is way above DVD quality.

I'm seeing a lot of that as well on my end. It used to be 100% straight-play DVDs (with smaller web versions) but now the higher end clients usually ask for ProRes files and the regular ones want HD MP4 (H.264) files. Some of them insist on uploading to Youtube themselves which drive me nuts because despite my attempts at educating them otherwise, they upload the smallest version of the video they have (or actually make a smaller version themselves) thinking that the web must be full of dial-up users. I prefer to upload everything in 1080p if I can with a bitrate of at least 11.5 mbps.

I do a weekly show on Youtube and many people keep asking for DVDs with a bunch of episodes spread out across them. They want me to sell the DVDs to them. Of course the show is designed specifically for Youtube so I ignore safe zones. It's a show about old videogames and I scale the game footage up to meet the edge of the picture instead of having a giant border around the screen which you can't see on a TV which would look odd inside Youtube's window. Suffice it to say if I ever made DVDs, they'd be file DVDs and not video DVDs. Now if I could just figure out how to burn them without getting the Mac stuff on it (hidden files and folders like .trashes and the like).

i dont understand, i do corperate work mainly but now and then weddings high end.
how on earth are videographers providing an end product to the couple if not via DVD?

plus Ken i have many wedding clients that now want blu-ray versions of there wedding how can i re-author their HD films, i know by using compressor but what about the personalised menu's that DSP gives us is there nothing out there that will do the same? i cant possibly be the only person that needs this.

To me, "near Blu-ray" isn't good enough. It needs to be Blu-ray quality or better. Things like Hulu, Apple TV and Netflix generally look awful. It may be fine for those without a discerning eye, but the compression artifacts drive me nuts. We are trading quality for convenience. And even then, it's not that convenient yet. Our internet speeds are not high enough to deliver suitable quality just yet. Many ISPs are putting caps on their bandwidth which makes it tough for people to enjoy high quality things that would require large file sizes. But most people don't have a discerning eye, I suppose, and that's why Netflix-like quality is probably here to stay for a while.

Joe I agree, the quality on the pay services is not all that great. They're generally trying to minimize bandwidth. Look at how long it's taken for Apple to support 1080p. It looks like they're much closer to good than the other services. Generally though, convenience wins in the market.

The bandwidth battle is going to be the next big war. I've heard of some other interesting business models where the ISPs charge the distributors (such as Netflix for example) instead of the end user. Of course if that comes to pass it'll just be another reason for the distributors to limit data rates and therefore quality.

Of course this generally isn't an issue for my clients.

YouTube on the other hand has been doing pretty good with quality and the end user selects what they can handle. I can upload a 1080p file at 20,000kbs and the results will look really good after they compress it.