DVD Mastering

[sleepytom]

Is anyone VJing off home burnt DVDs? if so what mastering software are you using? I'm looking for somthing that will allow simple menues and to be able to make tracks loop - thats all

[elbows]

I havent VJ'd with DVD yet but Ive been making my own DVDs for a few months now.

After evaluating various authoring software from the low end to high end, Id recommend Ulead DVD Workshop (free trial available)

http://www.ulead.com/dws/runme.htm

Sonic DVDit is the other cheap-ish option Ive tried, and personally I hate it but heres the link anyway...

http://www.dvdit.com/

[fisheye]

If you install DVD studio pro 1.5 you'll find a codec to output from finalcutpro direct in to MPEG2. Then you import these files in DVD studio pro. Loop your tracks endless.... Works great and the quality is super

Fisheye.be

[elbows]

Aha after some research I think the above DVDStudio Pro advice is for the Mac platform.

[holly]

I'm on a Mac and have used both Apple DVD softwares.

iDVD is super-simple and WILL MAKE EXCELLENT DEMO REELS. Totally drag-n-drop editing and supurb full motion menus (in osX), music backgrounds, looping previews, etc. There are limitations. I think only 4 or 6 "buttons" are allowed in a single menu and functionality (such as track looping) is limited to the parameters of the program -- which assumes you are putting home movies of the kiddies from your dv camera onto DVD. Encode quality is excellent, but a lack of real control and a reliance on visual menus makes it a no-go for practical VJ use.

DVD STUDIO PRO is far from simple or well documented, but allows for programming, scripting, and track looping. I created a no-menu DVD of simple clip loops and set each track to "jump to" itself at the end of the clip. Works great on my settop DVD player, but my brand new little portable player (which has a built-in loopTrack/loopDisc option) wouldn't allow my to skip to the next track by hitting the <NEXT> button (<PREV> button works though...). Will have to re-author the disc without the auto "jump to" and re-test. The Apple Quicktime to MPEG2 Encoder that comes free with DVDStudioPro is CBR and not very kind to graphic material. I had to encode at a fairly high bitrate and it was decent but choked my computer in playback. Now I'm using BitVice MPEG2 Encoder from www.innobits.com. Retails for around $300, but image quality is unsurpassed in a software encoder. Speed on osX is excellent also.

Almost all DVD players will hang for about one second while jumping to tracks, so loop clips should be pre-looped in video several times before the track is looped. I feel a one second hang every two or three minutes is an acceptable trade-off for the excellent image quality of DVD. I'm planning to abandon the laptop for live use in favor of self-authored DVDs on 2 small portable DVD players (once I have enough material edited). If my rig gets stolen I'm out 2 $120 players and a few discs rather than a $2500 lappy!

Holly

[BrainStove]

Welcome on board Holly!! (Finally Sharing with us... Hehehe )

Well, you really have to tell me WHERE can I get those $120 small portable DVD players you are refering to, until now the best offer and full featured little one I?m aiming to, was a very fortunate suggestion by Robotfunk on this thread:

http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=548

Let me know what you think about these others

[holly]

you really have to tell me WHERE can I get those $120 small portable DVD players you are refering to

Hi Brainy,

I started a thread about DVD players over in the hardware section:

http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=782

I actually got my player, a KOSS, for even less (about $102 special price) from Amazon.com. woo-HOO! I'm looking for a second player, but now I'm spoiled by that price.

Has anyone else tried to search the forums for "DVD"? I get an error saying that I can't search for anything less than a four-letter word.... What up with dat? I have a coupla choice four-letter words.... Where's Morph?! Explain this to me!!

Holly

[elbows]

OK behind the scenes the search facility works by indexing words in posts into a special search index. This makes the database quite large, so there is a limit set on the size of words that are stored there, if it were less than 4 characters then so many more word would be in that index that the database would probably go mad under the strain.

Its a pain in the world of computers etc with all the threee letter acronyms, but its the lesser of 2 evils.

Anyway Im inpressed by the price on portable DVD player, nice

[eXhale]

Originally posted by holly
Has anyone else tried to search the forums for "DVD"? I get an error saying that I can't search for anything less than a four-letter word.... What up with dat? I have a coupla choice four-letter words.... Where's Morph?! Explain this to me!!

this limit is used by the forum script (vBulletin) to limit the number of words to index. i have just changed it to 3 on the options so a search on DVD should work now

[elbows]

Unless you rebuild the search index it will only show posts with DVD in them that have been done after you changed it to 3.

Watch out for the size of that db table!