DVD Authoring: An Introduction

DVD Authoring is the process of collecting various content assets such as video, audio, images, subtitles and menus, connecting them together and burn them to a master DVD disc. The assets themselves are generated in a variety of applications such as video editing, post-production, image editing and subtitling. They are then combined into a DVD authoring application such as Ulead DVD Movie Factory on the PC or DVD Studio Pro on the Mac. The process of writing is very much on building a website. The menu on a DVD analgous to the homepage of a website in that it contains links to all content on the DVD. Menu screens usually link to the main feature, chapters within the feature, additional scenes not in the office, photographic slideshows and additional audio content. The main menu screen may also contain links to sub-menus, which helps avoid cluttering the main menu with too many options. Besides setting up the menu selections on the menu of the DVD-authoring application allows the producer to set up additional features such as subtitles. Within the authoring application, each item is given the metaphor of a container. A container can hold any type of supported content and is linked to a menu selection, either on the main menu or submenu. DVD authoring applications also usually support the creation of a multi-angle content (where viewers can decide to watch a different passage of video with the same soundtrack and subtitles) and Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound This method is very easy, even for a comparative novice to a fairly sophisticated DVD disc with most of the commercial functions on a disk. Indeed the biggest challenge for the future DVD author is the aesthetic design itself. All bits to work properly is one thing, but making it look good and intuitive to use another. Once the contents of the disc is recorded in the authoring application, it is then checked to verify that everything works. It is then 'multiplexed' (the content linked) and the master disc can be burned. It is noteworthy that the affordable DVD writers and authoring applications only support writing to DVD-general for media not have the necessary lead-in tracks required by mass duplicators. Therefore this type os solution is not really suitable for the production of DVDs to be mass-duplicated. Robert Armstrong is a contribution to the HDTV Tuner - a guide for the kit, the content and issues related to HDTV.