Yep, I've heard that one too. I'd say it's true. On 14/12/2005, at 4:12 PM, Kynan Shook wrote: > The theory I've heard is that it's actually an MPEG-2 licensing > issue; instead of licensing per copy of iDVD sold or distributed on > a computer (which gets especially costly with upgrades), they > license per DVD-R drive sold, since iDVD won't write to anything > else. At a royalty of $4 a pop before 2002 and $2.50 since, that > could add up to some pretty serious dinero. > > And, unlike the MPEG-4 licensing fees where there's an annual cap, > I don't believe MPEG-2 producers have this safety net. For MPEG-4 > encoding and decoding, Apple pays a flat $2 million per year; they > hit the cap (25 cents per encoder, 25 cents per decoder) in well > under a month just from the free QuickTime downloads online. > > Chris Olson <chris.olson at astcomm.net> writes: >> You can get around the Apple lock-in with iDVD on your PowerBook. >> Apple did that originally to force people to buy their inferior and >> overpriced (underspec'd compared to what you could get in a PC for >> less money) internal DVD burners. When the guys at OWC wrote "the >> enabler" to allow iDVD burning with external or non-Apple burners, >> Apple broke out the strong-arm tactics to shut it down. So they >> moved it to a website off US shores where Apple can't do anything >> about it except throw a hissy fit. > > _______________________________________________ > Titanium mailing list > Titanium at listserver.themacintoshguy.com > http://listserver.themacintoshguy.com/mailman/listinfo/titanium > > Listmom is trying to clean out his closets! Vintage Mac and random > stuff: > http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZmacguy1984