Do a lot of people use DV for pro DVD production

plainman007

Well-known member
A basic question but , do a lot of professionals shoot on DV format (with a cam like the DVX102) and edit within vegas for an actual commercial DVD which will be marketed worldwide ?

Because basically thats what i intend to do. Ive contacted a production co which says they will handle the glass master and replication / distribution. But i am looking at taking care of the production side entirely by myself. That is, shoot, edit/color correct, then give them the master for them to mass produce.

Is this a proffessional approach ? (i dont want them to laugh at me when i offer to give them an uncompressed avi or something). What would you guys suggest ?
 
There's no reason why someone couldn't shoot with the DVX, edit with Vegas, and distribute worldwide. (Heck, Barry's DVX DVD is exactly that.)

As for them laughing at you, ask them for their requirements and deliver what they need.
 
Fine. But usually, or say YOU had to deliver a film for dvd mastering. How would you output from Vegas ? What format and framerate would you maintain ? Since anyway the master was DV would rendering to DV and letting them downconvert to whatever they need be appropriate ?
 
That depends on who's authoring the DVD. Were you going to do that yourself, or were you just going to deliver the video content and then have THEM author it -- create the menus, etc.?

If you're going to have them do it, then you really need to ask them what they need. It could be that DV files are fine, or they may need uncompressed, or MPEG-2. I can't answer any more specifically than that, because different houses may have different needs.

If you're doing it yourself, then somewhere along the way, you're exporting your files as MPEG-2, because that's what's on DVDs. You can either do that from Vegas, or you can export DV and have your DVD authoring program make the conversion. It's better to export as MPEG-2, though, because it will take less time when preparing the DVDs.

Vegas has templates for both generic PAL DVD and DVD Architect PAL DVD under MPEG-2.
 
But whichever format they might need Vegas can output right ????

I guess the menus etc i will have leave to them because i dont know if the DVDArch creation can be used by them for mass duplication. Ill have to ask how they make their menus before making the master etc.

Whats a glass master Jimerson ??
 
Yes, Vegas can output whatever format they need. DVD Architect can master to DLT (tape) as well, but you need a DLT deck.

A glass master is what's used to duplicate DVDs. Commercial DVDs are pressed, not burned -- in home-burned DVDs, the DVD contains dyes which a laser burns holes in, representing 1s and 0s. A commercial DVD isn't burned that way; the glass master is used to press the holes into a DVD. It's more clean and precise and should present no playability issues.
 
Hi Jimerson,

So in your experience whats the format before it gets onto the glass master ? Or is there a specific conversion prior to glass master ? What i mean is the packaged commercial dvd comes from a glass master. The glass master comes from ?
 
If you're authoring the DVD yourself, you'd deliver either a DLT version (tape), or you'd deliver a DVD that you burned yourself.
 
Do you mean they would make a glass master out of a normal dvd which i burned out of DVDA ?? Is that possible. Without loss of quality ?
 
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