SP1.5 vs SP2 worth it?

I understand that the interface on DVD SP 2 is much easier and more intuitive than that on 1.5 but I am curious as to wether there are any performance improvements. I use FCP 4.02 and compressor and then lay out the DVD in SP 1.5. Does the upgrade buy you anything other than a nicer look and feel.

Thanks,

Richard Lubash
2K-Plus

DVD SP 2 has lots of improvements. DVD9 production is simplified, work in a timeline, drop zones in the menu environment. More thing than I can think of right off.

DVD SP 1.5 can and did "pad" your build sometimes causing rejection from replicators.

How about the fact that you can concentrate on building menu's while the encoding goes on in the background? Just drag the Quicktime assets into DVDSP 2 and it takes off using Compressor to encode MPEG-2 while you are thinking about the "look" of the DVD or off looking elsewhere???

The new interface is made to make using motion menu's easy!!! AHHHHH!
There are templates to use and if you don't want to be caught using someoneelses buttoms, make your own in Photoshop and import them into the library of artwork under different headings.

When adding Chapters to the MPEG'd material and upon opening up a Chapters type menu the buttons are automatically named the same as the Chapter Markers on the timeline!!!

Making attributes for a button and adding another button with the same attributes is a snap.

Scripting is way easier to understand and visually see the connections than the Matrix Editor in DVDSP 1.5 was.

Over all - it should cut DV production time down to visualizing the look of the menus and building the necesary stuff in Photoshop or make reusable assets that go into the library for future use. When the encoding is done, drag the .m2v video onto the timeline and the audio follows (if named the same)

Set your first run attributes and where to jump upon completion, then.

Open it up in the Simulator to test actual operations of the DVD before "building and burning"

WAAAY COOOOL!

IMHO sp1.5 was a beta test, another in a long tradition of software developers using the consumer as a product development team.

I gave up trying to use it very quickly and figured I'd wait for version2 and hope the upgrade cost wasn't too high.

SP2 now feels like a pretty decent piece of software that is in its early stages of development, kinda analogous to the FCP release after Apple figured out that editing might include actually being able to monitor audio levels.
Anyhoo, SP2 is a good start, it's got some annoying features which I am sure will be addressed in coming versions but overall it's useable, somewhat intuitive, and a huge leap forward from the SP1.5.