Is iDVD a DVD?

I was recently at a digital media conference at Tate Modern in London where I heard the lecturer say; A DVD created using iDVD isn’t really a DVD. You have to use DVD Studio Pro to truly encode a DVD. Does anyone know if this is true? Or what he may have been refering to?

Fluid Jake said:

I was recently at a digital media conference at Tate Modern in London where I heard the lecturer say; A DVD created using iDVD isn’t really a DVD. You have to use DVD Studio Pro to truly encode a DVD. Does anyone know if this is true? Or what he may have been refering to?

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iDVD encodes using MPEG2 on a single layer disc. It meets all the necessary DVD standards, so the lecturer is incorrect to say it isn't really a DVD. A DVD, by the way, is simply a Digital Versatile Disc However it is true that as an application, iDVD does not offer all the functionality a professional studio might want to use, when creating a commercial DVD... which is to be expected, considering it's a freebie with any new Mac.

I think he was making an understatement to get a point across...

Like when rednecks point to a small car and say "That ain't a car!"

It's obviously a car, they're just trying to be derisive.

surfwax95 said:

I think he was making an understatement to get a point across...

Like when rednecks point to a small car and say "That ain't a car!"

It's obviously a car, they're just trying to be derisive.

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Sounds more like it - but that would be like saying Logic Express is not a sequencer, Logic Pro is - completely rediculous.

iDVD for authoring

I was under the impression that it would all be MPEG2. As a user of both iDVD and DVD Studio Pro I'm aware of the functionality differences so it did seem a little odd to be stating iDVD isn't a DVD.

Perhaps he was just trying to say that any idiot with a mac can make a video DVD with a menu, but that you need DVD Studio to actually create anything individually yourself.

That may be true but I would say someone was an idiot for creating a DVD using iDVD. If the client isn't going to benefit from the creativity and work that goes into DVD Studio Pro then iDVD is a perfect alternative for quick, efficient turn around. My concern was the inference that iDVD and DVD Studio Pro were encoding in different formats which could have compatibility issues.