iMovie '09 & iDVD: The Missing Manual

OneStep DVDs, Magic iDVDs

If you've read this far, you now know that even a simple iMovie-to-iDVD transfer can involve quite a bit of effort and learning. That's why Apple came up with not one, but two, different ways to shorten the distance between your camcorder and a finished DVD:

• OneStep DVD. This is a one-click method of dumping a video tape on to a DVD. You just plug in a camera and record directly to a DVD, bypassing iMovie altogether. The result is exactly like the cassette, with the same footage in the same order as you shot it on your camcorder.

  In effect, One Step DVD turns a tape camcorder into one of those DVD camcorders. It's a handy way to offload footage from a bunch of tapes, either because blank DVDs are cheaper than tapes, or because tapes have a more limited shelf life.

• Magic iDVD. Here again, the idea is to automate a lot of the gruntwork involved in designing a DVD. But this time, instead of using raw material straight from your camcorder, Magic iDVD knits together existing files on your hard drive. You choose a bunch of pictures, movies, and music files, and boom—iDVD produces the disc for you.

  The result doesn't have to be a finished product. You wind up with an iDVD project that you could burn right away, but that you're also welcome to edit and fine-tune.

Here's a walk-through of both features.

OneStep DVD

As noted above, OneStep DVD is designed to convert the tape in your camcorder into an identical DVD in your Mac. It's very simple, and very limited. For example: ...