Upgrade Update and Why DVD Studio Pro is Teh Suck

First, an update on my upgrade plans. I’ve eliminated one option from my ongoing post-production software. Way, way back in an earlier entry, I wrote about upgrading from Final Cut Studio 1 on my G5. I played with Red Giant’s Magic Bullet suite and came away impressed. I also played with Adobe AfterEffect’s demo (which I haven’t blogged about yet). Last week, I started to research my third option, Final Cut Studio 2. That’s when I discovered a problem with FCS 2: my G5.

I have a 1.6 GHz G5, the low-end model of the first release, the slowest G5 ever made. I have a stock model, with an extra gigabyte of RAM. The original graphics card is the stock GeForce FX5200 Ultra, a card that isn’t certified to power Color or Motion 3. The card I would need is the Radeon X1900 G5 Mac Edition, which is no longer available new (Amazon and eBay prices range from $250 to $350 for used and "new" cards. Apple carries an X1900, but it's the version for the Mac Pros).

My G5 turns five in August, so I have to ask, “Is it worth spending $300 to upgrade an old computer so I can spend another $600 to get Color and Motion 3?

I’m not convinced my colour-correcting or motion-graphics skills are worth $1000. And there’s no guarantee my G5 will run the apps efficiently. Therefore, I’m taking Final Cut Studio 2 out of the equation. And then there were two….

And now our second topic. Last week, we got the Ed & Red appearances dubbed from VHS to mini-DV. I was able to capture the footage, edit everything in Final Cut, use Compressor to convert the footage for DVD, and then set up a project in DVD Studio Pro.

I’ve always found DVD Studio Pro to be the problem child of Final Cut Studio. It works great up until I start a build or format a DVD. I don’t recall any projects where I didn’t have to trash all the build files and start over. Sometimes, each disk I burned required me to trash and start over again. Clearly, Apple doesn’t care about the DVD—it’s the interwebs, stupid!

The Sock DVD is just for friends and family who missed our appearances, so I did a barebones project, with four options: both complete shows, the excerpts of us, a main menu, a menu for each show, and a disclaimer video to make sure nobody plays it around kids or at work. Nothing fancy, or so I thought.

So as I started to burn a test disk, the app crashed. One moment, it was on screen, the next, I was staring at the Finder. This happened every time. I trashed all the build files and folders, rechecked the project—everything I’d done in the past that had worked I did. But nothing worked, even after rebooting, checking Software Update for anything related to Final Cut Studio 1, sacrificing a goat to the gods, etc., etc.

So I trashed the video and audio files and re-rendered everything through Compressor again. I started from scratch and reprogrammed the DVD. But as I started to drop the video from one of the shows into its track, DVD Studio Pro again vanished. This happened each of the four times I tried it.

A third trip through Compressor seemed unavoidable, so I went back into Final Cut and removed the chapter markers from the troublesome track. Compressor churned out new files, and I went back into DVD Studio Pro muttering things about Steve Jobs. I put together the entire project from scratch, for the third frigging time. Then, sure I was ready to toss the G5 off the balcony, I clicked on Build/Format again, but opted to build a disk image instead of burning directly to disk. Then I went into the next room and watched TV to bring my blood pressure down.

To my shock and horror, DVD SP actually worked. I had a working disk image on my hard drive. Using OS X’s Disk Utility, I burned the image to a blank DVD and, lo and behold, I had a working DVD. So… hopefully… this is a workaround that continues to work going forward.

DVD SP allows you great control over every aspect of your DVD, so I am frustrated by Apple’s inability to prevent it from blowing up real good….