DVD Authoring

Your video is transferred in its entirety onto a hard drive using a high-end non-linear editing application.

Step 2 - Subtracting dead space

All blank, scrambled or 'snow' passages are extracted. If you want your entire video converted from start to finish, let us know.

Step 3 - Adding chapter marks

The editing software is used to add chapter marks that the DVD authoring software will later understand. Chapter marks are added usually when one scene ends and another begins. If the video is from a DV camera (miniDV or Digital8), the scene changes are taken directly from the camera.

Step 4 - Encoding to MPEG2 and Dolby Digital

DVD players only play video encoded in MPEG format. Your video is encoded to MPEG2 using a two-pass, variable bit rate (VBR) encoder. This takes much longer to encode than regular one-pass constant bit rate (CBR) encoders, but the benefits are twofold:

• A VBR encoder allocates less disk space to passages with little or no movement, and more disk space to fast moving frames. The end result is an MPEG file which is a faithful representation of the original, with none of the blocking or artefacting normally associated with CBR encoders.
• A VBR-encoded video takes up less space on the DVD than a CBR-encoded video of comparable quality. This is how we can fit 90 minutes of video onto a DVD, and still have space for slideshows, a second audio track, and DVD-ROM content.

The audio track(s) are encoded to two channel Dolby Digital format. This is again to save space on the disc, and also to aid smooth playback - some players begin to stutter when they have to deal with uncompressed audio.

Step 5 - Photographs to slideshows

Any photographs to be included on the disc are scanned and assembled in the editor. A sountrack is applied, and then encoded to MPEG and Dolby Digital. A DVD-ROM folder is created from the original scans, if applicable.

Step 6 - DVD authoring and multiplexing

All the assets that make your finished DVD are assembled in a DVD project. The project is then multiplexed, and a disc image is created from these streams.

Step 7 - Finishing

The finished disc is created by burning the disc image onto a DVD-R. The face is printed directly onto the disc, and is placed in a clear case with a printed sleeve.