Home > How to > iDVD Tutorial

iDVD Tutorial for Beginners: How to Burn A DVD Using iDVD

How to use iDVD to burn a DVD? This iDVD tutorial can help you to understand iDVD better.

By Abby Poole to iDVD, Mac Tips｜Last updated on Mar 28, 2019

This iDVD tutorial explains how to use iDVD to burn a disc and covers all the basics of the Mac built-in app, including its user interface preview, guides to add a movie/slideshow/soundtrack, edit button, copy DVD to DVD, project from iMovie, iPhoto and iTunes library to DVD. Now, follow the step-by-step iDVD user guide to burn a DVD on MacBook Pro/Air/iMac to create backup, play on various TVs, computers, share with others.

Part 1: A Preview of iDVD User Interface

Before you go through the iDVD tutorial, look at the user interface and learn some basic menus.

• Drop Zone: Drag files like videos, clips, movies, slideshow, photos to edit.

• Add button: click the button to add content.

• Burn button: click the Burn Button to burn DVD on Mac when editing is finished.

• Media: Click this button to access iTunes media files and iPhoto libraries.

Part 2: How to Use iDVD to Burn A DVD

Step 1: Create A New Project.

Click the iDVD application icon in the Dock, and Click the "Create a New Project" button in the opening dialog, shown below. Or you can also choose Magic iDVD and select a theme, movies, photos etc. Meanwhile, choosing OneStep DVD will copy clips footages from camera to a DVD. Check iDVD supported formats if necessary.

Step 2: Set the Encoding Quality.

Go to iDVD > Preferences > Project to set the encoding quality, DVD type and video mode. It will set the video mode for your region. NTSC is used in North America, South America, Japan, South Korea, and PAL is mostly used in Australia, Western Europe, and others. Check out how to convert PAL DVD for burning. Best Performance mode will encode quickly with nice quality. High Quality option is for larger video encoding and compress data to a disc with good video quality. It takes longer to burn onto your disc. Professional Quality is the option for users who require best quality possible. It is the slowest mode, so we don't recommend this mode on the iDVD guide for users who don't want to spend too much time.

Step 3: Choose A Theme for Your DVD

Click on the Themes button at the bottom and choose a theme for your DVD menu, as shown below. You can save the custom theme for future uses.

Step 4: Add Movies or Movie Folders

Click the Media button at the bottom of the window or the Movies button at the top right pane to add movie or clips, photos, folders to the project. You can add more than one movie title at the same time. Or you can directly drag a movie thumbnail to the drag zone on the left of the iDVD window.

Step 5: Add Slideshow

Click Add button at the bottom left corner of the Window and choose Add Sideshow to add slideshow. You can also use this Mac DVD burner to make slideshow. iDVD supports to load more than one pictures and even a whole photo albums from iPhoto album or hard disk on your computer. You can arrange these pictures, delete them, add soundtracks and transitions to your images.

Step 6: Add Transition Between Images

Click Transition button to add transition between images. You can click the Preview button to see which transition is your favorite.

Step 7: Add Soundtrack

Click the Audio button at the top right of the Media pane, select a song from your iTunes library, and drag it to the Audio well.

Step 8: Add Menu Text and Customize It

Click Project, Add Text, drag the text to the place below the title. Press Command + (x) to open the Text Info iwndow and edit text color etc.

Step 9: Add Transitions to Buttons

Choose Edit on the main menu > Select All buttons and edit button text, shape, image and add transitions to buttons.

Step 10: Burn Video to DVD on macOS

After the editing is finished, you can burn these projects to a DVD disc for backup or playing on TV, computer with disc drive. Preview your projects to make sure they are ready before you continue to learn how to use iDVD to burn a DVD. Then choose a media type to burn a disc. The recommended type is DVD-R that is playable on most DVD players for Mac.

Click the Burn button, insert a blank disc into your computer's SuperDrive for Mac or Mac external hard drive - if your hard drive is new, learn how to easily format hard drive on Mac before using. And it will start to burn projects from iMovie, iTunes library, hard disk etc. to DVD. The DVD burning speed depends on the your computer performance, the video size. If you want to burn a DVD to DVD using iDVD, scroll down to study the iDVD tutorial on how to import a DVD for latering burning into a blank DVD disc.