For me, iDVD has always been the redheaded stepchild of the iLife suite. While I've used Garageband to make songs, iPhoto to manage photos (until I got Aperture), iWeb to make websites, and iMovie to make movies, until recently I'd never once tried to use iDVD to put together a DVD project. I've spent the past week trying to put together a DVD of our first year in New Zealand to share with our family back in the States, and while the movie's turned out great, getting there has definitely not been half the fun.

Creating the movie itself was somewhat of a chore. Because I haven't yet upgraded to iLife '09, I'm stuck with the much-maligned tinker-toy interface introduced in iMovie '08. I couldn't use iMovie HD instead, because it's not compatible with my hard disk-based camcorder. After several days of wrestling with iMovie '08 to get it to do what I wanted it to do, I finally had a 95-minute project ready.

At "professional quality" in iDVD, that 95-minute project left me with almost a third of the DVD unused, so I decided to add more content, including a slideshow with 300+ pictures and two more short movies in an "extras" menu.

This turned out to be my downfall. Suddenly, iDVD no longer wanted to co-operate with me.

Apple just released two new updates for both iLife and iDVD. The iLife Media Browser Update will "improve overall stability and address a number of other minor issues," according to the update page.

In addition to the iLife update, Apple also updated the iDVD authoring software. iDVD 7.0.3 "improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues."

Both of these updates are available to iLife '08 users. You can update using Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update) or by downloading the two installer packages from Apple's Support Downloads site. Note that these updates do not affect the newly released iLife '09.

Thanks to Tarun for the tip!

Apple just released updates for iMovie and iDVD. According to Software Update, the iMovie update "addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues."

The iDVD update "supports general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues."

You can download both of these updates via Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update) or download the installer packages by visiting Apple's Support Downloads website.

Fire up Software Update, folks, Apple is setting some updates free. iDVD 6.0.4 is now in the wild, and it 'improves overall stability and supports compatibility with Mac OS X 10.5.'

iLife Support 8.1.1 has also been released which, 'improves overall stability, addresses a number of other minor issues, and supports general compatibility issues.'

Apple hasn't posted these on their site for download yet.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

I do not spend too much of my time (free or otherwise) in the wilds of iDVD, however, last week I found myself needing to make a DVD for work. What better program, thought I, than iDVD to get these movies onto a DVD! It worked like a charm, and within 30 minutes I had a very slick looking DVD but there was one little problem. This DVD I was making had nothing to do with Apple, its products, or its technology and yet there on the lower right hand corner was an Apple logo watermark. It was out of place, and I wanted to get rid of it.

Luckily, it is very easy to get rid of that watermark. Simply go into the iDVD preferences and you'll find the option right there in the General section. Uncheck 'Show Apple logo watermark' and you're good to go.

Simple? Yes, however, sometimes the most difficult thing about a program is knowing the options that are available. Go forth and make watermark-less DVDs!

I saw a del.icio.us/popular bookmark fly past NetNewsWire for the GarageBand 3 Hot Tips section of Apple's site, and wondered if Apple started posting tricks in those pages that might actually be useful. Sure enough - they have. Check out the Hot Tips sections for iWeb, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand. I never knew, for example, that you could simply drag a clip from iMovie's clip bin or even timeline onto the QuickTime icon in the Dock to export and re-encode said clip. How about that musical typing keyboard in GarageBand, or the app's ability to tune your guitar or bass? These Hot Tips pages probably have a little something for all levels of iLife users, but feel free to post your own hidden gems that you've found if you think Apple missed something.

The tireless folks on the iLife team at Apple have released a very nice set of video tutorials for each of the suite's applications. You can browse the videos by topic, and move through each step-by-step clip easily. It's a great place to start getting you hands dirty with the iApps. Check it out (and go create something!).

[Via Macworld UK]

The January keynote is usually a doozy, and today's was no exception...not by a long shot. For me, there's always that one moment that causes me to smack my hand against my forehead and just say, "Wow." This year, it wasn't the flash of iLife '06, the shiny new Mactels or even the .Mac enhancements. No, this year I was blow away to see that iDVD now supports third party DVD burners! Holy cow! *smack*

How long have we Mac users clamored for this, and how long has Apple used their non-compliance as a means to sell Macs? Finally, Apple. Thank you.

So, what was your "head-slap" moment? I know you all had one.

Apple today unveiled iLife 06, a major update to their award-winning suite of multimedia applications. The largest updates came to iPhoto, which can now handle 250,000 photos and features better, full-screen editing options. A major new feature is called Photocasting, which will allow an iPhoto user to publish their photos to the web using RSS technology, allowing anyone to subscribe to a feed of their images and the ability to be notified of updates. You can also subscribe through your own copy of iPhoto 06, which will allow you to actually download the images and use them as if they were your own, enabling editing as well as ordering prints, cards and now calendars.

GarageBand 3 now features a "Podcast Recording Studio," along with professional podcast sounds, a Podcast Radio Engineer, iChat Interview Recording and iMovie Scoring.

iMovie HD 6 adds Apple-designed iMovie themes, real-time effects, cinematic real-time titling, enhanced audio tools and effects, multiple open projects and video podcast/blogging abilities.

iDVD 6 brings Magic DVD, widescreen DVD abilities, an enhanced map view and the much-requested compatibility with 3rd-party DVD burners to the table.

A new addition to the iLife family is iWeb, a much rumored new app that does what everyone had assumed: it will allow .Mac members to easily publish content from other iLife apps such as podcasts, imovies, photos, blogs and more to their .Mac space. It features Apple-designed templates, easy flexible site creation, and iLife media browser and one-click .Mac publishing. I guess there was a reason behind that 1 TB bandwidth upgrade back in Dec.

Even with all these great new features, iLife 06 still sells a single license for only $79, with a 5-license pack for $99, and is available today at the online store. I'm sure local stores will have it in soon, as well.