This latest volume in MacWorld's series of Bibles is indeed a true revelation. Apple's DVD Studio Pro 1.x software brings professional level DVD authoring to the Mac desktop in a moderately-priced application. Yet, like so many first generation products, it lacks extensive documentation.

DVD Studio Pro, unlike so many computer "how to" books which merely are rewrites of the developers' manuals, goes beyond Apple's skimpy documentation and provides true hands-on guidance to the use of the program.

The authors employ extensive visuals of menus and concise explanations of their functions. Perhaps the most valuable contribution is the step-by-step guide to the creation of DVD Menus in Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop is necessary for the creation of menus and overlays and the Apple manual provides insufficient guidance. The DVD Studio Pro Bible fills that big hole left by Apple.

A companion DVD/ROM contains several try-out applications (not really very useful) as well as very-useful tutorials, real-world scenarios and a pdf of the book complete with color illustrations.

DVD Studio Pro is essential reading for anyone beginning to use this program and will also provide tips to intermediate and advanced users.

Ned Soltz

Missing pages

Rating: 3/5

This book was missing pages 65-112. And had duplicate pages for 113-160!!

rushed to market

Rating: 1/5

Anybody could have written this book by working their way through the menus. They went out of their way to make this book thick, but there's nothing in it that an experienced Mac user couldn't figure out in an hour or two.
What they DON'T tell you:
-How to write scripts.
-How to use "non-simple" hi-lites and overlays.
-how to do anything except make a pretty straight-forward chapter by chapter DVD
I use the Flash Bible and the Final Cut Pro Bible all the time. They're great, and really go in depth to teach you how to do the complex things professionals typically do with these tools. However, for the DVD Studio Pro Bible, these authors only describe the menus, and then fill up the rest of the book with useless interviews and commentary/promotions from third parties.
Big disappointment. I'd recommend another book, but I blew my money on this one and can't afford another, and feel guilty about selling a useless book to someone else.
My only thought is that DVD Studio Pro 1.5 is so new, that the authors didn't have time to do anything with the software except read the manual.