430 The Digital Filmmaking Handbook, 4E

DVD and Blu-Ray Disc Authoring

Once you’ve compressed your files, you’re ready to author the menus and interactivity that will form the interface for your DVD or Blu-ray Disc. Through special authoring software, you’ll use still images and short video clips to create the menus and interface for your disc, as well as establish how the user will navigate using their player’s remote control.

Many packages such as Apple’s DVD Studio Pro (Figure 18.8) include software MPEG-2 encoders, allowing you to buy a complete DVD authoring system for under $500. If you’re a Windows user, Adobe’s Encore is an excellent professional-level authoring tool. If you have the Apple Final Cut Studio or Adobe CS5 bundles, you already own DVD Studio Pro or Adobe Encore.

Figure 18.8

Apple’s DVD Studio Pro lets you author professional-quality DVD and Blu-ray videos, complete with menus and interactivity.

Chapter 18 n Finishing

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When creating your DVD or Blu-ray Disc, here are some technical tips to keep in mind:

nOptical discs are designed to play on both video and computer monitors. This means that they are susceptible to all the limitations of video. Unless you’re absolutely certain that your DVD or Blu-ray Disc will only play on a computer monitor (perhaps because it’s a corporate or industrial presentation that will be shown under controlled conditions), you’ll need to make sure your DVD interface uses only NTSC-safe colors, and that the buttons and text all fall within the standard title-safe area. Test your DVD or Blu-ray Disc on a video monitor before you publish it.

nPretty much all DVD or Blu-ray Disc players have a handheld remote control device, while computer-based DVD players include an equivalent virtual remote. Don’t forget to program interactivity for the remote as well as the on-screen menus.

nWhatever the size of your DVD or Blu-ray Disc, you’ll need to double that in computer storage space in order to create the disc. If your DVD is 4GB, you’ll need 4GB for the source materials for your compressed MPEG-2 video and 4GB for the rendered DVD files.

nBlu-ray Disc graphics should be created at 72dpi, with a pixel resolution of either 1920 1080 or 1280 720, depending on which type of HD you prefer.

nDVD graphics should be created at 72dpi, with a pixel resolution of 720 480 (for NTSC video). Remember that if you create menus and buttons in a square-pixel environment, like Photoshop, you should work with files that are 720 540, and then resize them to 720 480 when you’re ready to import them into your DVD authoring application.

If you plan on burning the disk yourself using a recordable DVD or Blu-ray Disc drive, then you’ll want to be sure that you buy the right type of media for authoring. Check the packaging and your disc burner’s manual to be certain.

If you plan to have your DVD or Blu-ray Disc mass produced by a professional replication house, then you should consult with them about the different capacities (and prices) that are available. If your final DVD or Blu-ray Disc will be a higher-capacity disk and you only have a single-layer burner (or no burner at all), you can still author the disk yourself. You’ll just have to write the final files to your hard drive and move the resulting files to the replication house when you’re ready to make the disk. Most authoring programs allow you to output to a disk image or to a hard drive. Check with your replicator to find out what media they can accept.

Pass the Buck

If all of this sounds too complicated, there are companies that will take your final video master and create a DVD or Blu-ray Disc for you. Services provided by these companies vary from simple MPEG compression to full mastering, including interface authoring.