iMovie '09 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

Phase 4: Design the Menu Screen

Once your movies are safely exported from iMovie, and you've added chapter markers if you want them, open up iDVD itself.

The opening screen gives you four options (Figure 16-4, top):

• Create a New Project. In this program, "project" refers to a DVD that you're designing. It's not a "project" as iMovie refers to it.

• Open an Existing Project. Just burning a DVD doesn't mean the end of your project. You can open it up again later to burn another copy of that DVD, or make changes, and then burn it.

• Magic iDVD. This feature, too, avoids any iMovie involvement. But this time, Magic iDVD creates a DVD using a bunch of pictures, movies, and music files as its raw material. See Magic iDVDs.

• OneStep DVD is a one-click method of dumping a videotape onto a DVD, right from the camcorder, bypassing iMovie altogether. See OneStep DVDs, Magic iDVDs .

To create a new DVD for the first time, click Create a New Project. You now have three choices to make (Figure 16-4, bottom):

• Name the project. What you type here won't appear on the DVD; it's just a file name for organizational purposes on your Mac.

• Choose where to save it. iDVD suggests your Documents folder, but you can choose anywhere you like.

  

  Figure 16-4. Top: You have four options. Or you can ignore this dialog box and choose commands from the File menu, like Open Recent. Bottom: Choose a name, location, and aspect ratio ...