Results tagged “DVD Studio Pro” from Final Cut Studio, Avid, Adobe, and Video Streaming

Layered menus in DVD Studio Pro can allow you to create menus with far more sophisticated-looking buttons than the native DVD standard allows.  Unfortunately, this extra functionality comes at a cost.  The layered menus that you create in DVD Studio rely on some behind-the-scenes tricks to work -- and this can make them play back in unexpected ways when viewed on computer DVD players.

Symptoms
When you play back a DVD with layered menus on a computer-based DVD player (but not in DVD Studio's Simulator), and you try to navigate the menu using your mouse, you have to click a button once to "select" it, and then click it again to activate it. 

The menu behaves normally:

• in DVD players, and
• in most software, when you use the arrow keys rather than the mouse to navigate it.

After the jump, the explanation ...

You can tell deliver a Standard Definition DVD, with HD versions of the video on the disc as well? To add High Definition video to a standard definition DVD, add it as DVD ROM content. The viewer will not be able to view the HD video on their DVD player, but as long as they have the Quicktime Player, or iTunes they will be able to view the HD version that you have added as DVD ROM content.



DVD Studio Pro is only going to allow you to have total disc usage of 4.7 gb ( on a standard DVD5), so you will want to keep the file size of whatever you are adding to the DVD ROM as small as possible. You probably will not have the space to add a 1920 x 1080 Apple Pro Res movie unless the total length of the video is under 4 minutes. The Apple TV setting will produce a 1280 x 720 Quicktime movie that will compress to a manageable size that will not cause you to need to leave too much space for the DVD ROM content.  When producing the Mpeg 2 video in Compressor, you can add the Apple TV setting to the same batch, and Compressor will do everything at once.

If you are adding the DVD ROM when you a doing a Build/Format in DVD Studio Pro, be sure to make sure you have the disc space before doing so, because DVD Studio Pro will not update the Disc Meter unless you add the content at the Disc level in the Inspector.
It would be a good idea to explain to the viewer how to access the HD content. In most cases, you will probably just tell them if they put this DVD into their computer, they will be able to access the HD content directly from a “HD Contentâ€? folder on the disc. You don’t want to claim that you have produced a HD DVD, because you have not. More and more people have their computer integrated into their home entertainment system, and for these people being able to play the HD version instead of the SD version will be much appreciated. For that matter if you know that you are delivering to someone who will be viewing your video from a computer, you could just deliver a full res 1920 x 1080 version on a thumb drive. Not only will they be getting superior HD, but it will be something that if they needed to edit it down the road, it would be ready to go right into a NLE system. 

If you are producing both a Standard Definition, and a High Definition project in DVD Studio Pro here is a very important piece of information to keep in mind. When setting the DVD Standard, set it to SD DVD first, author out the entire project, even build it. BUT, before you change the Video Standard to HD DVD, save the project with the HD suffix atatched, then change the Video Standard for that project to HD DVD. If you change a project from SD to HD, you cannot change it back. If you need to build another SD DVD, you won't be able to reset the DVD standard. You can upgrade from SD to HD, but not the other way.

Using a graphic to indicate which button is highlighted creates a very professional looking menu.  It is also very professional to have the button text animate onto the menu. When creating the genealogical history video for the O'Toole job, it would be quite appropriate to have a shamrock appear next to the active button.

To do this you simply create an overlay with a shamrock in every position you will want it to appear on your menu. When creating your buttons, you make sure that each button range includes a shamrock. Only the shamrock associated with the active button will be visible.

This time, we'll write a script to detect whether the DVD player is showing in widescreen (16:9 anamorphic) mode or standard (4:3) mode - and automatically play the video in the appropriate format.

I hope that this tutorial will be a practical one for those of you who are putting both regular NTSC-DV content and anamorphic on the same disc, but more importantly I hope that the introduction to bit math might be useful if you need to extract other characteristics from the bitwise SPRMs, like SPRM14 (Video Config), SPRM15 (Audio Config), and SPRM11 (Karaoke).

You'll have to excuse me for getting all technical up in here; "bitwise" just means that the single SPRM stores a lot of pieces of information in one number. Read on for what I promise will be a painless introduction ...

Let's say your title is a bit ... racy. And maybe, because you're a good citizen, you don't want it to play on sets where parents have enabled parental control.

Using DVD Script, the solution is surprisingly simple. First, create a script - call it, say, "Verify Parental Controls" ...

Finally, a practical example! And we won't even need all the SPRMs or most of the GPRMs from last time as we create a video that plays its tracks in random order.

In fact, we'll only use a single GPRM - those are the variables that are ours-all-ours, remember? - plus a jump or two, a little math, and the conveniently-named Set GPRM Random command. Let's say you have four tracks of video, and you want them to cycle randomly ad infinitum - maybe you're at an exhibition or something, who knows.

Ever think that those old algebra classes would come in handy producing video? Well, I'll ignore the fact that algebra is a major part of almost all of the editing process, and pretend that I'm BLOWING YOUR MIND.

Scripts, in DVD Studio, are awfully intimidating on the surface. Even though DVD Studio makes the process a whole lot easier than it would be by hand, you're still trying to write the sort of hardware-level instructions that would make more sense to, well, a programmer.

Rest assured, it's not as bad as it seems. In this series, we'll cover the basics, and some examples of how you might be able to use scripts to enhance your work.

Having your DVD start with a short Intro Movie is a very professional look. The transition from the Intro movie to the Main Menu; unfortunately can be a little clunky. To avoid the transition all together, we can produce a movie that becomes our main menu background, and then loop the menu display to the point of the background movie that is the Main Menu.

It's easy to slap the web address on-some menu somewhere and let that be it.  Take it from the brand psychologists: if you actually want to make that nice, readable address stick in your viewers' minds, you should expose them to it by as many different ways as you can.  

So I wrote about why I don't like DVD@ccess for sending viewers to the web. But how would I do it "better"?

The simple fact of the matter is that you'll have to show the website URL on-screen. But even here, you've got design decisions to make that will mean the difference between a few visitors and none at all.

Briefly during our 5-day intensive Final Cut training program, we cover a DVD Studio feature called DVD@ccess. It's a cool feature with lots of potential - essentially, it lets you pop open a web page from within a computer DVD player. Unfortunately, some things just make too much sense to work in the real world.

Your viewers are able to set up their audio stream or subtitles from their remote, but there are potentially several advantages to letting them do so from within your menu system. For starters, your work looks that much more slick and professional. Also, you can more fully describe what's on said alternate streams - there's no ISO code for "Director's Commentary." For that matter, if you want to use advanced features like Subtitle Buttons, you can create really cool interactive experiences that people wouldn't even think to turn on from the subtitles menu (I think Rocky Horror Picture Show did this ...).

DVD Studio Pro has a function called a Story which will allow you to play just a portion of a track without continuing thru to the end.  When you have videos that you want to be able to play all one after the other or individually this is a great work flow. A demo reel for example would be a perfect example of this.

First place all the videos in one track, and place a chapter marker at the beggining of each video.

iDVD allows you to create chapters, but is limited to where you can place the actual chapter points.  Did you know that you can use Final Cut Pro to create specific chapter points that will automatically turn into iDVD chapters.

To do this, all you need to do is add markers directly within a Final Cut Pro sequence.  Press the 'M' key to add a marker point at the place you'd like to have a DVD chapter.  Make sure the marker is placed within the actual Final Cut Pro sequence, and NOT within the actual clip. You don't need to add a marker at the very beginning.

Next, press the 'M' again to bring forward the Edit Marker dialog box.  Within the Edit Marker box, press the 'Add Chapter Marker' button to add the required meta-data into the marker point.  This is so iDVD knows to create a physical chapter point from the marker.

Next, all you need to do is export your sequence as a QuickTime movie.  Navigate to the File menu and select 'Export -> QuickTime Movie'  The save dialog box will appear. Change the 'markers' menu to include chapter markers. 

 

When an asset is imported into DVD Studio Pro without chapter markers, there is an easier way to add them to a Track, than adding each one individually, and then naming it in the inspector. You can import a Marker List in DVD Studio Pro, that is simply a text file. It is much easier to type in all of the specific timecodes where each marker is to be placed and the title of the marker, than it is to go back and forth within the DVD Studio Pro interface.

To import a marker list you simply right click on the area above the timeline where markers appear, choose Import Marker List, and then navigate to where you stored the text file. Once you click Import after selecting the text file that is your Marker List, the markers will automatically place themselves into the Track. One thing to be careful of is that DVD Studio Pro will bump the markers to the next GOP structure (GOP standing for group of pictures. Typically a GOP structure is between 3 and 9 frames) , and that may or may not be acceptable. If the marker is in a position that is unacceptable you can move it to the beginning of the GOP structure. If neither the beginning nor end of the GOP structure will work. . . . you have a problem. To get markers to appear exactly where you want them, you will need to embed them into your asset.