DVD Menu

A

Alicia Ferrows

Member
Hi there i will be selling my film shortly on DVD and plan to use a replication house to create a glass master and run off 1000 copies. As i understand it, for a glass master to be created i have to supply my movie on file, but if i do that then how do i go about creating my interactive dvd menu to feature my behind the scenes footage etc?

I didn't want to burn a master copy myself as im sure that my final cut pro to compressor to dvd studio method will fall short in comparison to a companies hardware compression methods. am i forced to creating the master dvd myself if i want my interactive, or even standard dvd menu?

Thanks guys
 
The main portion of my business is DVDs. I am using a different editing platform than you (Edius 5 on a PC) but my experience may help. My method is to encode to the DVD spec. with Tmpgenc 4 then import into DVDlab Pro to author the DVD master. Both programs produce excellent results. The master is a fully functional DVD that then goes to the DVD replicator for manufacturing. There is kind of a steep learning curve on doing interactive menus if you have not done it before but if you have the time it is good to learn. Also, I review the master on 4 different DVD players and a mix of HDTV and CRT t.v.s to make sure everything looks right. The master should be authored to look correct on both HDTVs and 4:3 CRT t.vs

Don't forget your artwork for printing on the DVD face and the case jacket if you are going to have one. Both can take considerable time to produce yourself but you can save much $$$. Read your manufacturer's artwork specifications to see what software is required. Most use Adobe Illustrator which you can download as a 30 day fully functional trial.

Ask for a printed proof of the artwork to be mailed to you final review. What you sent may look different on your monitor and their's resulting in possible dissapointment unless you can hold a printed proof in your hand.

If you do the master and artwork yourself you should be able to get 1,000 DVDs, two color printed DVD face, full color jacket, in Amray case, with retail barcode, shrink wrapped and shipped to you for about $1,200 in the U.S. If you have them do the menu, authoring from your files and also the artwork then costs will quickly mount up to to about twice that amount.

Good luck and let me know if you need some more help.
 
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So much good advice thank you. Im comfortable creating the dvd and interactive menu but my fear is the actual compressing of my master file to dvd spec, im thinking that a hardware solution may yield greater results that software based options?
 
Well not necessarily. I'd ask what encoding process/equipment that they use. Folks on this forum can tell you if it is any good. But if you want to put it in their hands I wouldn't pay more than $150 per hour of play time for encoding. Also if you have the software produce a test dvd and view it on a HDTV and see if it looks good enough. I was shocked at the difference between using the Edius generic mpeg encoder then using TM4. It was the difference between night as day with the default setting. Text was razor sharp and images crisp even after downsizing from 1080i to 480i which is the DVD standard. TM4 offers a free trial.
 
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from your experience would you say its possible to create a dvd at a quality 'similar' to that of lower end production companies making high quality films for commercial dvd distribution (given the source film is of high quality of course)?
 
I think it depends on how much time or money you want to spend. I do mostly DVDs with high motion nature scenes. High motion will tax and sometimes break the mpeg2 codec. It takes some experimentation with the encoder settings to compensate for this. If you do not have high motion scenes to contend with and you shot everything properly exposed and color corrected, obviously it puts less stress on the encoder's limits. The encoding process is not the place to fix any issues with a video.

Can you achieve the encoding quality of a high end project? Probably not, but maybe pretty close. If you are going to have your replicator do the encoding then I think you need to understand their process and tools used so you can make a decision if it is worth having them do it.
If you have the time and patience the only way to know what your limits are is to experiment with encoding yourself.
 
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Really cool, really good advice.

I'm sure I'm going to learn more about this maybe on my feature film, considering it will go through the proper process, but I was always wondering what is it about a professional DVD that is so much different than what I burned for my short film for instance? This is what I'm referring to specifically, I'm sure others have seen it...

On my color correction monitor, which I know is as accurate as they come for what it is, maybe it skews colors a tiny bit "green" but it's pretty accurate, the film looked just like I wanted it to. Rich colors, a bit dark in tone, nice and saturated.

On my 40" Samsung, it looked light, almost blown out at times, or certainly way too washed out looking, and a little bit drab. You can't possibly blame the TV settings because keep in mind I run hundreds of films through this TV, they all look great and I've adjusted the settings just how they should be or how I like them.

Now I try for curiosity on my really crappy 22" TV or something in my bedroom area, and the colors are much more accurate, closer to how I thought it would turn out, but perhaps a bit darker. I can live with it...

So then I decided to correct a bit more for the 40", but of course that made it overly dark on the 22", and the point is whatever I did, there was absolutely NO consistency between ANY TV I tested it on. Even when I later finished it and took it to my dad's place, his 60" TV showed it different than my three sources.

If I take a pro DVD and put it in all three of these players, I notice very little if any difference at all. Whatever difference I notice is clearly the quality of the TV, like yeah it looks a bit wore on my 22" because it's not a 1080p TV, or whatever, but the colors, saturation, all of that looks the same. The compression also -- that didn't look so great on my DVD, it was ok but not the way that you sometimes see a pro DVD and go, "Huh, hard to believe this is 480i, it looks surprisingly good!" With my DVD burns, it was more artifact-y or something, hard to describe, but just not quite as sharp.
 
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