Am I just dense? Or is DVD Studio Pro 1.5 really hard to use?

Question

I got Final Cut Pro 3 and DVD Studio Pro 1.5 at the same time at the end of 2002. I always use iDVD to burn discs because I can't seem to figure out Studio Pro 1.5, but I had no problem figuring out Final Cut Pro. Here is my dilemma: I have a couple of projects that are going to exceed the 1 hour limit of iDVD (the version I have at least), and I was wondering if I should upgrade to Studio Pro 4. This of course would mean having to upgrade Jaguar to Tiger and also upgrading FCP. Is the new DVD Studio Pro much more user friendly? Is the newest iDVD able to burn up to 2 hours on a disc? Would I be better off just buying Tiger and iLife to get iDVD?
Powermac G4   Mac OS X (10.2.x)  
Powermac G4   Mac OS X (10.2.x)  

Answer 1

Hal an David have it covered
That being said I am one of the ones who really liked DVD SP 1.5.2, followed by DVD SP 3. DVD SP 2 did make sharper menus it seemed. DVD SP 4 added a couple of things that were good but not critical for most things.
DVD SP 4 is now only available (unless you can find an older version of 4) as DVD SP 4.1 Universal Binary. It has some issues and so does Tiger (again this is what I have found so far) I take the tact that if it ain't broke don't fix it - and when I do upgrades on OSes or software I first do it on machines that I do not HAVE to have working properly (or on another boot disc in a tower.)
In other words be careful stepping into this. Do not recall when iDVD started to support Dual Layer projects, but the new one does, with the caveat that I do not recall if you can burn DL to external burners or not (which is not an issue anyway if you take a look at
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/image_to_diskstone.html)
TIger and iLife will be less costly that the new Suite (if that becomes your only option) and all the iApps in and of themselves I like alot for the most part - iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and Garageband [iTunes is free, the website software does not do much for me], so if you are comfortable with iDVD it may be the way to go as a less costly step. At some point you may like the to step into DVD SP.
All that being said there is an upgrade to the full suite
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio
off of Final Cut Pro 3 for $699 still available for the next few weeks
http://www.apple.com/universal/crossgrade/
And the Final Cut side was a real good upgrade off of FCP 3 in terms of what was added, really like Motion and Soundtrack and DVD SP is still there. You will need Tiger (not sure though of all the specs on your machine and whether it will support all the software and/or features in the software, depends on processor, video card etc.- but my guess is you should be able to use it somewhat, I run the suite, other than Motion, on a tiBook 1ghz)
And DVD SP 4.1, even with some of its issue, is still good, you just got to be aware of one or two things, that hopefully Apple is working on fixing anyway.