John Cline or others - Mastering to DVD?

PeterWright wrote on 6/25/2003, 3:29 AM
I know John has mentioned that he uses DVD as a mastering medium from which VHS dubs can be made.

I'd like to know more about this process - it would be very useful for projects longer than the 83 min that MiniDV can manage, and of course would not deteriorate ...

Anyway - how is it done - is it a simple matter of putting a MPEG2 file on a DVD as data, or is there more to it?

thanks

peter

Comments

John_Cline wrote on 6/25/2003, 7:22 AM
Peter,

I just make a straight video DVD, but there are two things I do differently when I author the DVD for VHS dubbing purposes.

First, I add 15 seconds of black at the beginning of the program when I edit and compress to MPEG2. That way, when making the VHS dubs, you can hit "PLAY" on the DVD player and as soon as the dub operator sees black video, they can immediaely hit "RECORD" on the VHS dub machines. The 15 seconds of black gives the VHS machines enough time to spin up and start recording and usually ends up recording about 7-10 seconds of black before the program starts on the tape.

Secondly, I render up an MPEG2 clip that is nothing but 10 seconds of black. When I author up the DVD, I add this clip so that it plays immediately after the main program has ended. But I set it up so that at the end of the 10 seconds of black, it loops back the the beginning of this black clip. The end resullt is that, at the end of the main program, it loops in black and never goes back to the DVD menu. This way, the operator doesn't have to be there at the very moment the program ends to stop the VHS machines before the DVD goes back to the menu because it never goes back to the menu.

Unfortunately, not all DVD authoring software will let you set up a DVD like this. I used to use DVDit PE because it would easily let you define "end actions" on clips, but lately I've been using a very slick $79 authoring program called "DVDlab" from www.mediachance.com.

Sonic Foundry's DVD Architect will not currently let you define end actions. However, if DVDA is all you have, there is another alternative method of setting up the DVD that will work fairly well. At the end of the main program, since it's going to return to the main DVD menu, just make the DVD menu a black screen with a copyright notice in the"lower third" as a single text button that launches the main program. That way, when the program ends, it goes back the the DVD menu and sits there recording the copyright notice until the dub operator stops the VHS recorders.

Either way, making a DVD for VHS dubs works really well.

John
mcgeedo wrote on 6/25/2003, 8:15 AM
I do almost exactly the same thing. I use DVDComplete (less than $100) which does allow "end actions." The VHS duplicators I use start fairly quickly, so I use only 10 seconds of black for pre-roll.
PeterWright wrote on 6/25/2003, 7:44 PM
Many thanks John. Just what I was after.

I suppose I could also use a "menuless" single movie DVD, with black at the beginning and end.

peter
John_Cline wrote on 6/25/2003, 9:08 PM
Peter,

Well, yes, you could, I guess it depends on what the particular DVD player does at the end of the single-play movie. Does it go to some screen saver with the DVD player's logo or does it just go to a solid blue screen? Or maybe it does something else.

You would have to decide how much black to put at the end of the file. If you're going to be making the dubs yourself and can make sure to stop the VHS machine(s) at the end while it's still in black, then maybe 15 seconds of black will do. If you're having a dub house make the dubs, then you might need to make it longer, but how much is enough? A minute? five minutes?

Ideally, if you can, it's still probably better to use the looping black file because 10 seconds of black MPEG2 is a very small file, so the extra diskspace that a minute (or five or ten) of black at the end would take up would be better used throwing a slightly higher MPEG2 bitrate at the main program. On really lengthy programs, every little bit helps. Plus, then the question of how much black to put at the end becomes irrelevant.

John
PeterWright wrote on 6/25/2003, 10:39 PM
Yes - good point John. I'll be using DVDA so a black menu with a copyright notice sounds fine.

Once again, thanks for your help, which goes back to the dc30 days ...

In fact, it was a posting from you in the dv500 list that first alerted me to the existence of Vegas, which I'll always be grateful for!

Peter
John_Cline wrote on 6/26/2003, 2:42 AM
Peter,

I just looked up your info... Peter Wright! Nice to "talk" with you again. Thanks for the kind words. As always, I am thrilled to be able to help.

John
Jsnkc wrote on 6/26/2003, 10:13 AM
"and of course would not deteriorate ..."

Not exactly true, do a search for "DVD Rot" on google and you might be suprised at what you find.

Luxo wrote on 6/26/2003, 3:09 PM
I'll be using DVDA so a black menu with a copyright notice sounds fine.

Just a thought...if you want a completely black screen, you could always place a black text button over a black background in DVDA.
PeterWright wrote on 6/26/2003, 7:51 PM
Yeah, I'd considered that, Luxo.

I first thought that as the same Menu would show before starting playing, the duplicator wouldn't be able to see where to click

.... then thought again that it would be from a DVD player, so he'd only have to hit his "Enter" button to start

.... then thought again that if the menu was black and the first 15 seconds of the clip were also black, it would be hard for him to know which was which for rolling VHS machine purposes.

... so I came back to a simple copyright notice at the bottom of the screen!

Maybe the menu and text could be dark grey .....

decisions, decisions!

peter
John_Cline wrote on 6/27/2003, 9:29 AM
If you went the black menu route, you could render up a 30 second clip with a screen of text explaining to the dub operator to simply hit enter when it goes to the black menu. You could add this clip as the "first play" so it would play as soon as they inserted the DVD.

John