International Mac Podcast

A great many years ago I started creating a Christmas DVD with slideshows and videos of the past year for my family. Creating the content and making it look good isn’t that big of a problem, since that’s what I got iLife (and FinalCut Express) for. However creating the labels and covers for the DVD has been a very different challenge.

Back in 2005 when I started with those DVDs in earnest, I was using LightScribe to print those DVD labels. I got a bit of software with my DVD-Writer that made creating the DVD labels bearable, however those labels didn’t have that much contrast and thus despite looking good, they weren’t right for me. In 2008 I purchased a Canon printer that was able to print directly on DVD and again I got a bit of software that made creating the labels ok, but amazingly it didn’t work all that well with the printer.

Creating DVD covers ended up as a task for Pages and a ruler to measure an existing cover to get things just about right. Those cover were only limited by my lack of creativity. For Christmas 2009 I ended up getting a copy of DiscLabel from SmileOnMyMac and let me tell you, creating beautiful and stunning DVD labels and covers was a breeze.

DiscLabel is a fairly inexpensive bit of software for Mac OS X – at US$ 35 it truly ain’t all that expensive. The whole user interface is very Mac like and integrates beautifully with the other tools you might use to create your CD or DVD, such as iTunes, iPhoto, iDVD or Toast.

So if you wanted to add all the track names for a compilation music CD to the cover, it would be as simple as clicking on tracks and then import that data from the iTunes playlist, which you hopefully used to create the CD. Adding all those track names thus takes seconds rather than minutes of bothersome typing. And of course this doesn’t just work with iTunes, but several other programs installed on your Mac, as outlined above.

If you wanted to add photos from your iPhoto library, simply click on Photos and you’ll get access to your iPhoto events, letting you insert, crop and modify individual images. Or if you’d really like you’ll get to create and use a montage of your photos. Should you need effects, it appears that the developers chose to use the whole power of the Mac OS X graphics engine and make it easily accessible to you. Now this doesn’t make DiscLabel a competitor with Pixelmator or Photoshop, but it adds a whole lot of power to your creative processes.

In my opinion the greatest benefit of the software is its wonderful print-engine. The guys at SmileOnMyMac have put together a massive list of supported media, so if you prefer to buy labels for your CD/DVDs or maybe the jewel case inserts, you will be almost assured to find the right media type. For my Christmas DVD I didn’t go down the route of special media, I used DiscLabel and my Canon Pixma iP4700 to print straight to DVD and the result looked amazing. I needed to adjust precisely nothing and printing the 10 DVDs I had produced only took a short while.

The DVD cover I printed on plain A4 paper and DiscLabel was smart enough to add cut and fold markers ensuring that cutting the DVD covers to size was a matter of aligning them correctly on my paper cutter. Thus the trickiest part of that process was putting them inside the empty DVD boxes.

In my opinion this software is awesome and if you create CD or DVDs fairly regularly, you want to check it out. Not only do they have a trial, but also a 90 day money back guarantee. Once you register your version of DiscLabel the good folk at SmileOnMyMac will send you a small number of “getting started” eMails to ensure you get the most out of your purchase and I am sure that you won’t regret your “investment” in this bit of software.

Want to win a free copy of DiscLabel?

When I contacted SmileOnMyMac about my upcoming review I asked whether they’d be happy to provide a free copy of DiscLabel to the lucky winner of a simple prize draw over at MacTopics.de and they were kind enough to say yes. My opinions on the product was in no way colored by that decision, as a matter of fact I only contacted them after I was convinced that this software was awesome.

So while MacTopics.de is all in German, I wanted you to get a fair chance to win as well. It is real simple to participate: Send an eMail to claus@mactopics.de by 16 January 2010, using the subject line of “Gewinnspiel_DiscLabel” and tell me what your favorite iPhone or Mac OS X Software is and why. I’ll draw the winner at random and inform you by eMail on 17 January whether you won, or not.