Preface
The software behind this book, DVD Studio Pro, is an amazing tool for building complex and exciting discs. With its great-looking templates and its powerful scripting language, DVD Studio Pro 3 (often abbreviated DVDSP 3 or just DVDSP) can make quick work of simple projects, yet still enable you to build some of the most complex discs available today.
What if you aren't using Version 3? Well, that's a valid question. At the time this book went to press, DVDSP 2 was less than a year old, and several folks didn't have a pressing need to upgrade. If you use DVDSP 2, you can work with 90% of this book; although you can complete the projects relying on transitions (in Chapters 4 and 11) only if you're using DVDSP 3, you can build and burn every other project with Version 2. If you're still using Version 1.x, however, this is not the book for you. The chasm between Versions 1.5 and 2 is just about as vast as a software chasm can be. With only so much space before us, we decided to concentrate on the future of DVDSP.
This book is part of O'Reilly's Digital Studio series, a new set of books that are geared toward turning novices into subject-matter experts, regardless of their area of digital expertise. At O'Reilly, we forever strive to raise the bar with this series—and with our other books as well—providing you a volume that not only offers a tremendous amount of value for your money, but also ...