Is there loss of quality going from DVD to DVD?

If DVDs are going to be struck from a movie master, what's the most practical format to give the duplicating house?

If they're charging for authoring the DVD, is there a way to give them a master that's already authored for DVD duplication?

In other words, what does it mean to give them an authored DVD?

Should one give them a DVD master that will play directly in the DVD player or one with title, chapters, etc.

Thanks for your help.

This is really a question for the dub house, as they won't all work the same.

But in general, authoring refers to the design and implementation of the menus, navigation, extras on the disc... some may also take it to include encoding.

So if you're looking to eliminate paying for "authoring", you give them a disc that is completely encoded, menuized, finished, ready for play. An authored disc.

If you're not sure you can get the best results yourself, talk to them about having them do it.

On one extreme we have supplied DigiBeta video masters and a drive of finished artwork from the Design Department and a list of instructions as to what goes where. The company send us a sample of the finished work and then, when we approve, burn their brains out.

Glass masters are the best way to get, or close to get 100% burn success.

Another job we furnished a master DVD and they burned copies and applied paint (which we can't do).

Your mileage may vary.

The worst problem with sending out for thousands of copies, is that you can't change your mind. "I wish I had reversed cuts two and three." Such desires can be parlayed into bux for buying your own duplicator and printer.

Koz

Thanks for your help. I understand it a little better now. Let me ask you, if you'll be kind enough to advise me on this a little further:

I made a data DVD for a 5 minute trailer by dragging the QT movie I had of the trailer to my burn folder and then I burned the DVD.

The DVD had the QT icon showing in the window and the size was 1.5 GB.

When I sent this to the dub house, the guy said they couldn't read the file. He asked for an authored DVD, which was of lower quality, but I had no choice but to send him the DVD copy that I had made myself of the trailer. It was okay, but I would've liked to have seen if he could do a better quality one by going from my full resolution QT movie.

Can you explain to me what went wrong? Why couldn't he read the QT file?

> When I sent this to the dub house, the guy said they couldn't read the file.

Couldn't read the file, or could read the disc? Big difference. Did you put ".mov" into the file name? Extensions are what tell the computer what kind of file it is, especially if you're crossing platforms. Does he have the codec you're using?


www.derekmok.com

I don't know, Derek. I'm pretty sure I didn't add .mov to the file. Apparently since I simply dragged the QT movie file into my burn folder and burned the DVD -- as such I don't think the .mov was added automatically?

I think this may have been the problem. Unless he didn't have the software to open the file on his PC. Because if he had FCP on Mac, he would've been able to open the file regardless of whether or not it had the .mov extension. Am I right?

And, Koz, what do you mean "add paint"? Do you mean the DVD artwork printed in color on the dsic?

What does the glass master cost?

Finally, what about ouputting a DLT from DVD SP -- I seem to remember John Foley mentioning in another thread that a DLT master can be generated from DVD SP. Is that another good choice?

DVD's are in MPEG-2 so the quality is never going to get better than that. You can convert them yourself in Compressor and do a pretty decent job, especially if you have short form content. Just take your exported QT from FCP and drop it into Compressor and apply the best preset(90mins dual pass is pretty good if you have the time). How did you make the DVD you gave them?

If you dont want to author anything and have the post house do it, you need to make sure the file you give them is pretty universal. Not everyone has HDV codecs or the .mov might have been missing which might have messed them up.

Going to glass is pretty expensive and only really necessary if you are sending out hundreds and hundreds of discs. The quality will always be the same(MPEG-2), it is the success rate of the discs working that changes. DLT is what you usually deliver your pre-authored disc is delivered on when going to a glass master.

<<<Do you mean the DVD artwork printed in color on the dsic? >>>

Yes. We stil use sticky paper labels for most of our work. We have a direct to disk printer, but nobody uses it because it takes weeks and weeks to print. We can't do that when the client is in the car with the motor running. Sometimes one of the artists will use it to produce a demo reel, but even they run out of patience after a while. One maker of blank white DVD stock refused to "take" the ink and they stayed sticky.

The houses use much better and faster printers

Koz

I'd like to add my 2cents to your scenario-- there are a couple of subtle points in your questions, perhaps not quite replied to yet. We offer these services, so maybe I can help.

First, to get clearer to a useful answer it would be good to know whether your intent is to make a few dozen, a few hundred or a few thousand disks. As one reply pointed out glass mastering is only going help you if you are planning to make hundreds. I'd say 500 or more. That would make your run a candidate for replication (manufactured) disks -- rather than duplicated (burned) disks. Replicated disks can be cheaper per unit are more compatible and can offer more printing and packaging options. Burned disks have much small minimums and faster turnaround for small quantities, and can be done locally by many dub houses samll or large, versus replication which have longer lead times are only done by or outsourced to larger replication factories.

The term "authored" often implies a full blown disk with lots of menus and features. To avoid over-thinking it, an authored disk could also mean that it simply a playable DVD (even if all it does is play on start with no added features). What I think it meant in the context of the exchange you had with your dub house is simply that you were providing them with a data disk with a Quicktime, and they were expecting a finished playable, duplicable dvd, ready to copy.

Now either they were not aware of this, or too lazy to check, or unable to convert the Quicktime to dvd, or simply didn't think to check on the possibility that you were handing them a data DVD with a Quicktime-- not a playable, ready to copy DVD. Since you were trying to give them a Quicktime, it seems likely to me that you were expecting that the DVD would be a play-only - not a heavily menued and feature filled "authored" creation. By "play-only" I mean that you put the disk in the dvd player and as soon as it spins up-to-speed it starts playing the video on its own. No menus. No features. For certain completed projects and for some projects in pre-distrubution stages, there is nothing wrong with play-only. It certainly keeps costs lower. And frankly, I think a menu is just plain silly when the only thing that the menu does is start the program and there is no where else to go or do on the disk. To me its like having a refrigerator door to open to get to your refrigerator door. But that's me.

if you approached us for DVD dubs, we would prefer and it would be the most cost effective for us to copy from a playable DVD that you provided. If you provided only a Quicktime, we would be able to make playable DVD from it, but first we'd make (and charge a little extra to make) a "duplication master," which would be a playable DVD from which we could burn copies. Even if the master did nothing more than play it would still be a very simplified version of authoring. We wouldn't call it authoring, but that is what it is.

I'd say if your plan is to have a "play-only" if you are confident in compressing out and assembling
your own dvd master then -- great!. Offer that up as a master to your dub house. if this is beyond you, no problem just have a dvd duplication master made from either a Quicktime or a video tape. then dubs can be made. Also, most dub houses who burn disks can print labels directly on the disks too.

Hope this helps.

Mike Klinger
Tree Falls Post/Clonetown
Los Angeles

The company I work for has a duplicator and disc printer that we use on a regular basis. The printer is the MicroBoards Print Factory (Version 1...it is able to use standard HP cartridges) and we've been pretty happy with it. Other than the fact that some discs tend to stick in the loader, it works great...print quality is very good considering it's an inkjet printer. As most of the jobs we do are less than 200 discs, this works pretty well for us. However, I do have a question for Mike...as far as a master disc is concerned, is it necessary to use a certain kind of disc? We use TY inkjet silver printable dvd-r stock...would this be acceptable, or would we need to invest in a higher quality disc for a replication master? Also, a huge advantage of replication would be the ability to use a dual-layer disc. Are DVD+R DL discs acceptable for master discs? Or would it be better to rent a DLT machine for the master of a project that would require this?

David Burch
Producer
Spiritborne Productions

I have a finish dvd project in dvdsp, Has an animated menu with sound and 8 music videos Now I have to deliver a master for duplication, thousands. The videos are from 3 to 7 minutes long compress using dvdsp, from self-contained movies that came from FCP. All of them were shot on mini dv.

Here a few questions I have:

1) Should I compress using compressor on the best quality setting and which one this will be. ( I have the time.)

2) What would be the proper delivery method for the duplicator?

3) What exactly is a dlt tape and can I output menus and everything to it?

thanks so much and much respect to all that spend the time to share their knowledge.


sincerely

J. García