Come On Apple - burn mp3s to DVD via iDVD?

[GregA]

I throw an MP3 CD into my DVD player and a crappy menu pops up. It shows 7 letters of the song name, and gives me options to play random, repeat, play from different folders (though iTunes doesn't burn them), etc.

I'm sure this could be made great. A DVD already has menus and options, and compressed music. Why couldn't Apple join the ideas of iDVD and iTunes so I can make a DVD of my music library?

I'd like to put my iDVD burned tunes into my DVD player - and have the DVD player think it's a standard DVD. It would show the iTunes interface on the TV, allowing me to click on songs to play, or playlists.

From what I know of DVDs this is possible. Can anyone confirm or deny that? Would people like this feature?

 

[Horrortaxi]

It seems like a little creativity on your part could solve this.

Think of a song as a movie with no pictures. If you spend some time experimenting with iMovie and Quicktime you'll figure something out.

 

[GregA]

Originally posted by Horrortaxi
It seems like a little creativity on your part could solve this. Think of a song as a movie with no pictures. If you spend some time experimenting with iMovie and Quicktime you'll figure something out.

Absolutely... but I see a few stumbling blocks.

1. As a movie, iDVD will limit me to 2 hours.
2. iDVD allows me to set each song as a separate short film, but it doesn't allow me to group short films into a playlist (random or fixed order).
3. it would be great to "Sync" to a blank DVD-R (or rewriteable!) in exactly the same manner as the iPod.

 

[jaw04005]

I don't really understand what your trying to do. You would have to convert all of your MP3's to MPEG2 files that have a blank video track, then you would have to add all of these to a DVD menu that was skinned to look like iTunes? So when you clicked on each song (which really would be a single movie) it would then play. As far as the 2 hour limit, that is because of the MPEG2 Video/Sound format, I don't know of any DVD players that will play MP3's off of a DVD.. but I could always be wrong.

 

[GregA]

Originally posted by joshuawaire
I don't really understand what your trying to do. You would have to convert all of your MP3's to MPEG2 files that have a blank video track, then you would have to add all of these to a DVD menu that was skinned to look like iTunes? So when you clicked on each song (which really would be a single movie) it would then play. As far as the 2 hour limit, that is because of the MPEG2 Video/Sound format, I don't know of any DVD players that will play MP3's off of a DVD.. but I could always be wrong.

Hi Joshuawaire - thanks for trying to understand what I'm asking!

What I want in the end is 3 things
1) A DVD full of songs - say 50 hours
2) A better interface and way of selecting those songs - by my iTunes playlists basically.
3) This all automated. (My last reply was to someone who said this could be done by hand, which is also true, but not worth the time)

The DVD 2 hour limit is based on how compressed you want the video to be (the audio is also compressed) - 2 hours is reasonable quality. However, the video takes up most of the space, so if you have no video (or a slide show etc), you could easily have a LOT of music.

In many ways, a DVD is like a computer program, it puts together some simple menus, and arranges and decodes video and audio in a certain order. Many 2 hour movies have multiple soundtracks to choose from. They can also have 2 or more cuts of the same movie sharing the same underlying video and audio files (eg Independence day)

You've seen the themes and menus iDVD produces, and other commercial DVDs - it is certainly possible to make a menu to select which playlist you want. Something as simple as that would work for me.

So then you could insert the DVD in your player - the Apple logo comes up, then iTunes. Select your playlist and go. Song names would be shown when playing, maybe album art could be shown. All that is certainly possible on DVDs now.. but there's no simple software to make it work.

On the difficult side - I'm not sure if a DVD can play random visual files with any audio files. If so, they could add some background effects iTunes has, or a random slide show from iPhoto. I'm also not sure if random & multiple sorts of songs (chapters) is something a DVD can do natively.

Would other people like this?
Would it be BAD for Apple to make this due to the DRM issues (though really, as a DVD they could copy protect it right?)

[edit italic error]

 

[jaw04005]

I understand what your wanting, however I don't think it would be possible with current dvd hardware. I can't see how you would be able to create playlist or anything like that, seeing that a DVD player no matter how the interface looks, works by just playing a track. What you are wanting, is basically what some vendors are "trying" to accomplish with these media extender devices (on a smaller scale) and in more portable way. I don't know how helpful this kind of technology would be to me personally, I would just hook my iPod up to my DVD/Surround Sound System and choose my playlist from there. However, to each their own... Now Dolby Digital Out on an iPod, now we're talking (haha yea right)

 

[GregA]

Thanks for your feedback. It makes it much more interesting when throwing an idea around!

If you have an iPod then there'd be no need for an "iTunesDVD". It would just be useful for people who wanted to cart around 4GB of movie on a DVD (who don't yet have an iPod!).

I just found a thread on the Apple support site. They released an app (and have pulled it already too!) to convert 1 playlist across to DVD, and only 90mins too.

01.06.04 - NEW APP: Apple releases Playlist to DVD, an application for turning an iTunes playlist into a DVD for playback in home entertainment systems.
See http://discussions.info.apple.com/WebX?13@134.aT6qaI91cih.2@.599f2450/18

Anyway, most of the technology I know is possible. I'm still wondering whether many people would like something which, like you say, could look like they were running iTunes directly on their TV (but be just a DVD)

We could make this by hand by:
1. Pick a playlist
2. Use iMovie to make a movie with each song from the playlist
3. Make a static background graphic for the song (eg: Apple logo, cover-art, song name and title? Or an iTunes-look-alike list of the songs playing, with this song highlighted?)
4. Put chapter markers at the beginning of each song.

Now when watching the movie/playlist, the viewer can press the forward button to skip to the next song. The graphic will change to the next song/chapter's graphic (eg highlight the NEW current song on the list).

5. Export that to iDVD.
6. Repeat 1-5 for a few more playlists!
7. Make a screen on iDVD with your list of "movies" (actually playlists)
8. Burn the DVD

DVD technology lets you share chapters (or any part) of a movie with other movies on the DVD (Apple doesn't allow that yet though!).

Using that, any songs in 2 playlists would only be saved once ... you could probably have a different graphic for it too.

 

[Squire]

Greg,

I have an iPod and I still think it's a smokin' idea. I know you can backup your iTunes library on DVD but what you've suggested seems pretty cool.

Let's say it's your buddy's birthday and he has a wicked home theatre system. You make an iPhoto slideshow with some of your/his favorite tunes. Maybe start with Happy Birthday or, better yet, a video of all his buddies drunk and singing Happy Birthday. So that's one chapter. For the rest of the evening, you have album art and the iTunes visualizer playing on the screen while your playlist is blaring through the speakers.

Stellar idea! Why don't you send Apple an iDVD or iTunes feedback form with it?

Squire