Does everybody remember when Apple blindsided us all in January of last year with that new-fangled "SuperDrive" contraption, which, together with its accompanying iDVD software, promised to usher us all into a shining new era of bad home movies for the Digital Age? At the time we were a little nonplussed, primarily since we were hard pressed to imagine that the Do-It-Yourself DVD Revolution was really going to catch fire while the SuperDrive was only available in the top-of-the-line 733 MHz Power Mac G4. It's tough to start a grass-roots technological movement when the price of entry is a hair short of thirty-five hundred bucks.

But here we are fifteen months later, and Apple's still dutifully waving the iDVD flag. The technology got a much-needed shot in the arm this past January when the SuperDrive came to the iMac, thus bringing Apple's highly-touted DVD-burning capability to "the rest of us"; what used to cost $3499 was suddenly available for just $1799. (Well, sort of available, for a while. But they're shipping in droves, now, we hear.) Apple has wrested DVD production from the death-grip of the rich pros and brought it to the semi-rich masses, thus sending shivers down the spines of many a relative dreading the thought of interminable hours of school plays, oboe recitals, vacation footage, and the like-- all shot in crystal-clear digital video and burned to convenient and easy-to-store DVDs that, some might say unfortunately, can't be "accidentally" taped over with Seinfeld reruns as soon as the beaming faux Spielbergs walk back out the front door. Truly, 'tis a whole new era in the realm of boring friends and relatives to tears. And digitally!

And the revolution is apparently truly underway: today Apple issued a press release to boast that it's shipped "nearly half a million SuperDrive-equipped Macintosh computers" since the technology was unleashed two Januarys ago-- and at least some people are apparently actually using them. (The company has also sold "more than 2 million DVD-R media discs," and at $5 a pop, we doubt people are just buying them to use as shiny purple coasters.) Just think about that for a minute; half a million Mac users out there have the technological capability to create their own DVDs-- and, frighteningly enough, you have to number us, your AtAT staff, among them. (Dadadadummmmm!) Oh, but fret not, folks; we promise we aren't planning to bore you all to death with DVDs full of footage from our recent trip to the textile museum... because our textile-trip DVDs are going to be enthralling masterpieces of cinematic beauty. Uh-huh. Right.

Well, you know what they say: you can't throw a desktop video revolution without boring a few people into a coma. But we're flashing back to the desktop printing revolution and a zillion family newsletters mixing eighty fonts on one page, so we're starting to wonder if perhaps SuperDrives should only be sold to customers who pass an exam in basic aesthetics first...