Chapter 9: Turning Your Mac into a DVD Theater

In This Chapter

Understanding what you need to watch DVDs on your Macintosh

Using the DVD Player software

Unearthing the mysteries of the hidden controls

All the creative capabilities of the Mac OS X digital hub are a lot of fun, but at some point, you’ll want to take a break from work. In recent years, DVDs have exploded onto the home entertainment scene; because of its high fidelity, convenience, and seemingly limitless storage capacity, the DVD has taken consumers by storm. The idea of an honest-to-goodness theater in your home is now within the grasp of mere mortals (with, coincidentally, merely average budgets). Mac OS X has everything that you’ll need to enjoy a night at the movies without ever leaving home. In fact, I highly recommend the 24-inch iMac or the 17-inch MacBook Pro for those widescreen classics.

The DVD Hardware

Before you watch one second of film, get your setup in order. Playing DVDs requires a bit of hardware; fortunately, virtually all recent Macintosh computers come equipped with the stuff that’s necessary to watch DVDs.

To play DVD movies, you need either an internal DVD-compatible drive in your Macintosh or an external DVD drive with a FireWire or USB 2.0 connection. DVD-ROM drives can only play discs, whereas others, such as the SuperDrive, can both play and record discs. Either type of drive works fine for watching movies on your Mac.

You can watch any standard DVD that you purchase at your local video store as well as any DVD that you create with iDVD. (For more on iDVD, read Book III, Chapter 5.)

The DVD Player: It’s Truly Shiny

To watch Frodo Baggins, Don Corleone, or James Bond, you need DVD player software. Mac OS X comes stocked with the perfect tool for the task: DVD Player.

Apple’s DVD Player application is included with Mac OS X; you can find it within the confines of your Applications folder. But instead of rooting through the Finder, you can launch DVD Player an even easier way: Simply insert a DVD into the drive. As soon as you do, your Mac recognizes the disc and launches DVD Player by default for you. (Time for another round of well-deserved gloating about your choice of personal computer.)

This automatic behavior (the DVD playing — not necessarily the gloating) can be curbed, however. You can control what action Snow Leopard takes (if any) when you load a DVD via the CDs & DVDs panel within System Preferences. For all the details, visit Book II, Chapter 3.

However you choose to start DVD Player, you’ll notice that it offers two windows:

♦ Controller: The small, silver-colored, remote control–looking interface that holds all the controls for the Player

♦ Viewer: The large window where you view your DVD movies

In Full-Screen mode, of course, you won’t see the Viewer window, and the video will take up the entire screen. The controller appears as a floating opaque strip of controls along the bottom of the screen. To display the controls, move your mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen. Move the cursor to the top of the screen and you can switch chapters and jump to bookmarks. (I talk about both later in the chapter.)

If you’re already using a traditional DVD player, you’ll be right at home with Apple’s DVD Player. Even if you’ve never used a traditional DVD player, you’ll find that it’s not much different from using a software-based audio player such as iTunes.

Using the Controller

The Controller is the command center of the DVD Player software. Arranged much the same as a VCR or tape deck, all the familiar controls are present. Check it out in Figure 9-1.

Table 9-1 details the fundamental commands present in the DVD Player Controller. Apple software usually has some goodies hidden beneath the surface, and DVD Player is no exception. The controls in DVD Player have a few functions that might not be obvious to the casual user. These are listed in the third column of Table 9-1.

Keeping your eyes on the Viewer

As soon as you begin playing with the DVD Player controls, you’ll notice activity in the Viewer window, as shown in Figure 9-2.

You can think of the Viewer window as a television inside your Macintosh, if it helps, but DVD Player goes one step further. Unlike a television screen, the Viewer has some nice tricks up its sleeve: For example, you can resize the Viewer window by using one of the four sizes listed in the View menu (Half, Actual Size, Double Size, Fit to Screen, and Full-Screen sizes). This is useful for watching a movie in a small window on your Desktop while you work with other applications. You can toggle your Viewer size from the keyboard; for example, select Half Size with Ô+0 (zero), Actual Size with Ô+1 (one), and Double Size with Ô+2 (two).

If you’re only in it for the entertainment factor, you’ll probably want to resize the Viewer to fill the screen. I like to watch movies in Full-screen mode, which you can toggle with the Ô+F keyboard shortcut. If you want to take full advantage of all your screen space yet leave the Viewer window on-screen for occasional resizing, choose Fit to Screen mode with Ô+3 (three).

Taking Advantage of Additional DVD Features

As anyone with a little DVD experience knows, DVDs can do a lot more than those archaic tapes that you used to feed your VCR. Apple has included several functions that allow you to explore the extra features and content provided with a DVD movie.

Controller extras

To use the additional Controller features, double-click the small tab at the rightmost (or bottom) edge of the DVD Player Controller. After you do, a trick drawer slides out, displaying the extra controls. (See Figure 9-3.) You can also display or hide the drawer with the Controls⇒Open/Close Control Drawer menu command or by pressing Ô+] (that’s the right bracket key).

Are you interested in fine-tuning the audio from your DVD movies? If so, choose Window⇒Audio Equalizer, and DVD Player displays a ten-band equalizer. (I often use this feature to add extra bass to a concert DVD.) Click the pop-up menu at the upper right of the Equalizer window, and you can choose a preset (such as Bass Boost or Vocal Boost), or even create your own custom audio presets.

Table 9-2 summarizes the functions that you can perform with these additional controls.

Although you won’t find a Bookmark button on the Controller, DVD Player can set them nonetheless. A bookmark is a spot, like a favorite scene, that you specify in a movie so that you can return to it at any time. To set a bookmark at the current spot in the movie, click the Controls menu and choose New Bookmark, or press Ô+= (the equal sign key). DVD Player even allows you to name the bookmark so that it’s easier to remember. To return to a bookmark, choose Go⇒Bookmarks and click the desired bookmark. (If you’re enjoying your movie in Full-Screen mode, move your cursor to the top of the screen to use the Bookmarks strip.)

DVD Player preferences

The DVD Player application has a variety of settings that you can access and adjust via its Preferences window. To open the Preferences window, choose DVD Player⇒Preferences. This brings up the Preferences dialog.

This window consists of six panes:

♦ Player: Settings that affect how DVD Player operates

♦ Disc Setup: Settings for Audio, Subtitles, Language, and the Web

♦ Full Screen: Settings that determine your full-screen viewing configuration

♦ Windows: Settings for displaying on-screen information during playback

♦ Previously Viewed: Settings that determine what happens when you load a DVD that you watched already

♦ High Definition: Settings that specify how high-definition video is displayed on your Mac

The advantage of these Preference settings is that you can customize your copy of DVD Player to match your needs or desires. (Thanks yet again to the Cupertino Crowd!)

Player

The Player settings take care of much of the automation within DVD Player:

♦ When DVD Player Opens: These two check boxes affect what happens when you launch the DVD Player application. You can force DVD Player to play in full-screen mode and automatically begin playback every time you start the application.

♦ When DVD Player Is Inactive: If you’re multitasking while watching your movie in windowed mode, you can click another window to make it active. This check box determines whether DVD Player will automatically pause while you’re working in that other application.

♦ When a Disc Is Inserted: Besides automatic playback on startup, you can also make DVD Player start playing a disc automatically when the application is running already. (To illustrate: If this check box is deselected, loading a new disc won’t automatically start it playing if DVD Player is already running.)

♦ When Playing Using Battery: If you’re using a MacBook, you can conserve power while using DVD Player by selecting this check box. The DVD Player will “spin down” the DVD whenever possible, which may cause a short delay when you fast forward or rewind.

♦ When Muted: Do you answer a lot of telephone calls while you sneak a quick DVD movie at work? If so, be sure to enable this option. If you have to press the Mute button on your keyboard while a movie is playing, DVD Player automatically adds the subtitles/closed captions so that you can keep up with the dialog. Super sassy!

♦ During iChat with Audio: Another option for those who like to run multiple applications simultaneously. If you’re watching a DVD and start an audio chat in iChat AV, you can choose to either mute the DVD audio or pause the DVD playback until you click Play again.

♦ When Viewer Is Minimized: Watching a DVD at the office, eh? Enable this check box, and DVD Player automatically pauses the movie when you minimize the DVD Player window. (Managers label this feature downright sneaky.)

Disc Setup

The second tab of the Player Preferences window consists of these controls:

♦ Language: Sprechen Sie Deutsch? DVDs are designed to be multilanguage-aware. Feel like brushing up on your German, Spanish, or Chinese? You can control the language used for the audio, subtitling, and menus in this section.

♦ Internet: Some DVDs with DVD@ccess support can access information on the Internet. Mark this check box to allow that function.

♦ Audio: Click this pop-up menu to specify the default audio output signal that you’d like to use. You can also choose to disable the Dolby dynamic range compression feature, which might enhance the sound for two-speaker systems; however, you don’t want to damage the lower-output speakers on a MacBook or MacBook Pro, so I recommend that laptop owners leave dynamic range compression enabled.

Multiple languages and Web access are not mandatory features of a DVD, so don’t be surprised if you see variations of support when it comes to these settings.

Full Screen

These Preference settings control the default screen display settings within DVD Player:

♦ Controller: I generally like to hide the Controller after a defined time of inactivity; select the Hide Controller If Inactive for xx Seconds check box if you agree. To set the delay period, click in the seconds box and type a new value.

♦ Displays: These options specify how DVD Player shares your Desktop with others: politely or downright rudely. You can choose to automatically dim other monitors while a movie is playing (if you have more than one display connected to your Mac), and DVD Player can stay in full-screen mode even if another application actually has the active window. Finally, you can choose to remove the menu bar altogether (often called kiosk mode), which helps cut down on interruptions and accidents if small hands are nearby — and you can optionally allow Snow Leopard’s screen saver to appear on the DVD menu in kiosk mode.

Windows

This pane gives you the chance to configure the behavior of the Controller and status information for the Viewer window:

♦ Options: Mark the Display Status Information check box, and DVD Player adds a small text box at the top-left corner of the Viewer window. In this text box, you see the name of the last task that you performed with DVD Player. For example, click the Stop button to see the word Stop displayed in the Viewer on top of the video beneath it. You can also set the Controller to fade away instead of just disappear — it’s eye candy, but doggone it, it’s good eye candy!

♦ Closed Captioned: If you do decide to display the closed-caption text from a DVD movie, you can click the color buttons to specify the text color. You can also choose the font for your text.

Previously Viewed

This pane controls what happens when you load a disc that you’ve seen already . . . or perhaps your significant other watched it and didn’t tell you. (Insert growling noise here.)

♦ Start Playing Discs From: If you have to quit DVD Player for some reason, the application is smart enough to remember where you were, and you can choose to begin watching from the beginning, from the last position (where you were when you stopped the last time), or from a default bookmark. Alternatively, just select Always Ask, and DVD Player will prompt you each time this situation crops up.

♦ Always Use Disc Settings For: Select these check boxes to specify whether DVD Player should use the same settings you used the last time you watched this disc.

High Definition

The final DVD Player Preferences panel specifies how both standard DV and high-definition video from a disc you’ve created in DVD Studio Pro are displayed within the Viewer window. (As I mention earlier, the Viewer window size can also be changed from the View menu, but the settings in this pane control what defaults DVD Player uses.)

♦ For Standard Definition: You can choose to display the actual video size by default, or to use the default size provided by the DVD.

♦ For High Definition: These options affect how a high-definition video signal is displayed. Your choices include the actual video size, a height of 720 pixels, and a height of 1,080 pixels.

Don’t forget to click OK to save any changes you make to your DVD Player preferences.

After you have your DVD Player customized to your liking, get out the popcorn, pull up your favorite recliner, and let the movies roll!