Apple DVD Studio Pro 4 - Manual (Page 26)

DVD Burners
Being able to burn a DVD is useful for both proofing your titles on set-top DVD players
and burning the finished project (when only a small number of discs are required). You
can also burn a disc for a duplication or replication facility to use as a master when larger
quantities are needed.
You cannot burn discs that support Macrovision copy-protection or Content Scrambling
System (CSS) encryption. These must be created at a replication facility.
Note: For best results, it is recommended that you supply the replication facility with a
DLT tape or hard disk instead of a burned DVD disc. Be sure to confirm with the facility
what formats it supports.
Choosing a DVD Burner
When choosing a DVD burner for your system, you have the option of using an Apple
SuperDrive or other drives. Your choice depends in part on which media you want to
use: whether you intend to burn on red laser or blue laser media and, in the case of red
laser burners, whether to use general or authoring media.
Note: You cannot burn SD projects to blue laser media.
General Versus Authoring Media
The first drives created to write DVD-R discs used a special red laser and expensive media
and are known as authoring media drives. The most common DVD drives, however, use
a less expensive red laser and media. Such drives are known as general media drives.
Red laser DVD drives can write to either general or authoring media—not both. The
SuperDrive supplied with many Apple systems supports only general media. To use
authoring media, you need to connect a special DVD-R drive.
Important: Be sure you write only to media supported by your drive. If the media is not
labeled either general or authoring, it was likely manufactured before the existence of
general drives and can be assumed to be authoring-compatible.
The type of media you use only affects the writing of the disc. Both types of DVD drives
and most DVD-ROM drives and set-top DVD players can read and play both general and
authoring media.
For most projects, there is no significant difference between a DVD created using general
or authoring drives and discs. However, if you intend to use a replicator and require
high-end features such as Macrovision copy-protection and CSS data encryption, you
must use authoring media with an authoring drive.
26 Chapter 1 Overview of Using DVD Studio Pro