1. Contents
Last updated: January 7, 2006
| 1.0
Introduction |
| |
1.1
Some DVD Basics |
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1.1.1
How many kinds of DVDs are there? |
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1.1.2
Are DVDs all the same around the world? |
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1.1.3
What are the features that I can add to my DVD |
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|
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| 2.0
The Workflow |
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2.1
Video Capturing |
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2.2
Video Editing |
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2.3
Video Encoding |
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2.4
DVD Authoring |
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2.5
DVD Mastering |
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| 3.0
The Roads to Rome |
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3.1
Free Solutions |
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3.1.1
An Example |
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3.1.2
Quicker and Easier Ways |
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3.1.3
Adding Sub-titles |
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3.2
Medium Priced Commercial Products |
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3.3
Advanced Solutions |
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| 4.0
Common DVD Authoring Mistakes |
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4.1
Not enough space between IFOs and BUPs |
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4.2
Try to create a copy protected DVD-R |
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4.3
Didn't test playability on enough number of players |
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4.4
Use cheap DVD-R as master |
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4.5
Mishandling of DVD |
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4.6
Didn't enable verify when burning the DVD-R |
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4.7
Send only one master copy to your replicator |
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4.8
Did not include a PCM or an AC-3 audio track for NTSC video |
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4.9
Set a bad layer break for DVD-9 |
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4.10
Broken menu links |
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4.11
Menu text cropped |
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4.12
Hard code drive letter for enhanced DVD, i.e. DVD with video and data |
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4.13
Audio and video out of sync |
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4.14
Subtitle out of sync |
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| 5.0
DVD Replication & Duplication |
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5.1
How to choose DVD replication service provider? |
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| 6.0
Glossary |
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| 7.0
References |
2. Introduction - Basic DVD Concepts
1.0 Introduction
Making DVD is both a science and an art. With the ever decreasing prices on
powerful PCs and peripherals, you and I can create great DVDs that used to
require big investment on hardware and software just few years ago. Now a $400
PC from Dell or other PC
manufacturers will be good enough to create somewhat professional DVDs.
In this article I will try to provide you with the basic information to get
you started on creating DVDs. All you need is just some basic equipment such as
a digital camcorder, an IEEE 1394 controller card or a video capture card. There
are lots of other tutorials and HowTos on the web on making DVDs. What
distinguishes ours from the others is that we try to cover as much as we can, so
novices or pros, prudent or extravagant readers, Windows fans, die-hard Mac
users, or Linux supporters can benefit from reading this. In this article we not
only tell you how, but in most cases also tell you why.
As in life there are always trade-offs. If you have tons of money to burn you
can get yourself the state-of-the-art system to add great features to your DVDs.
But if you like the challenge of experimenting free software, you can be equally
satisfied by creating wonderful DVDs without spending a dime on software. But
many of you will be in the middle-way category, i.e. spend some but not too much
and still get the job done beautifully.
Both the free and advanced approaches require steep learning curves and
strong technical background. You will find some "DVD for Dummies" kind of
approaches in the middle. I have made no assumption on your technical ability so
it's your own decision to choose and read the right sections of this article.
The Table of Contents is your best pointer to the appropriate sections. Do study
the Workflow, DVD Mastering, and the DVD Replication & Duplication sections
though.
1.1 Some Basic DVD Concepts
As you don't need to know combustion engine to drive a car, you don't really
need to know how DVD works in order to make great DVDs. Nevertheless, some basic
concepts about DVD will help. Let's provide such concepts in form of
Q&A.
1.1.1 How many kinds of DVDs are there?
Depends how you see it, there are DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, and DVD-Audio. Each of
these DVDs can be in DVD-5, DVD-9, DVD-10, and DVD-18 formats. The first
classification is based on functions and the second classification is based on
the capacity or playtime. The names of the DVDs are pretty self-explanatory.
DVD-Video is for video, DVD-ROM is for pure data, DVD-Audio is for high quality
audio, and DVD-R is the recordable version of all these DVDs. There is also
DVD+R which is nothing more than a different kind of recordable DVD. The new DVD
writers do not care whether the recordable media is in + or - format.
The following table summarizes the different formats of DVDs.
|
Format |
Capacity |
Side / Layer |
Video Playtime |
Comment |
| DVD-5 |
4.7 GB |
Single / Single |
2 hours |
The most basic kind of DVD |
| DVD-9 |
8.54 GB |
Single / Double |
4 hours |
Need to be careful during authoring to choose the correct jumping
point from Layer-0 to Layer-1. |
| DVD-10 |
9.4 GB |
Double / Single |
4.5 hours |
Essentially a DVD-5 on each side. The disc needs to be manually
flipped in order to play the other side. No artwork can be printed because
both sides contain data. |
| DVD-18 |
17.1 GB |
Double / Double |
8 hours |
Essentially a DVD-9 on each side. The disc needs to be manually
flipped in order to play the other side. No artwork can be printed because
both sides contain data. |
Since this article is about authoring video DVD so we will leave the
discussion of other functional DVD formats to other people. Jim Taylor's DVD
Demystified is like the Bible of DVD and will be a good place to
look into.
1.1.2 Are DVDs all the same around the world?
Physically they are. It's the content that makes the difference. This is all
because of the different video system used by different regions of the world. In
the US the video format is NTSC and in Europe it is PAL or SECAM. NTSC has 30
frames per second and the line density is 720x480 for DVD. PAL has 25 frames per
second and the line resolution is 720x576. These resolutions are for normal TV
size. For wide screen TV the resolution will be different.
A PAL/SECAM DVD normally won't play on an NTSC regions unless the player has
the dual-format feature. Most cheap DVD players do come with this feature. On
the other hand, an NTSC DVD will normally play in PAL regions; not because they
don't care but the popularity of dual-format players in those regions. To be
safe, you should make your DVD in the correct format for the targeted regions to
assure 100% viewership.
1.1.3 What do I need to know as the DVD author?
DVD is a feature-rich gadget for the years to come. It has more interactive
features than the old VHS tapes. As the author of DVDs you should at least know
about the following features unless all you care is just a plain video played
from the beginning to the end. Features of DVD include:
- Menu
Menus are like the table of contents for a DVD.
On the remote controls of most DVD players there is a Menu button. Pressing
the Menu button will bring the screen to a menu on which viewers can choose
randomly to jump to specific part of the movie. In it's simplest form a menu
can be no more than just few text labels. But it can also get fancy by adding
a small movie as the button animation background. When you author your DVD you
will need to set break points on the video to mark them for chaptering.
- Subtitle
Subtitles are like the Closed Captions (CC)
on TV and they can be turn on or off if your DVD player supports this. The
most common application of subtitles is to create different language subtitles
for foreign viewers. For instance if the main movie is in English and you want
French or Spanish viewers to understand the plot, you can add subtitles in
French and Spanish. Besides texts, subtitles can be images too and gaming DVDs
sometimes do take advantage of this. Creating subtitles can be time consuming
task. But with the right tool it will be a pretty straightforward process. We
will talk about a free subtitle tool call Subtitle
Workshop later.
- Audio Tracks
Just like the subtitles audio tracks can
be turned on or off if a DVD player supports this feature. With the remote
control, you can imagine yourself going to a concert where you can be the
conductor to turn the violin on and make the cello silent. Audio tracks can
accomplish this effect so individual track can be turned on or off and the
overall sound is the resultant of all tracks that are turned on superimposed
together. The obvious application of audio track is again for foreign viewer
to watch the movie with foreign language voiced over. Combined with subtitles,
you can have many language combinations, say, French subtitle with Chinese
voice over.
- Camera Angles
Camera Angles can be considered as
having few movies played simultaneously and the viewers can only pick one
movie at a time. With this in mind, you can actually design a DVD to play two
totally different scenes and has nothing to do with the camera angles. The
original concept of camera angles is to look at a movie setting from different
angles. I rarely see any DVDs make use of this feature and was told this can
only be found in some promiscuous movies. The real estate people should put
this feature to work for them when trying to make a virtual tour for their
potential buyers.
- Copy Protection
Copy protection can only be added
during the authoring step. Once a DVD is authored and mastered there will be
no way to add copy protection. Common copy protection schemes are CSS and
Macrovision. These are usually added at the last stage of the authoring before
transferring the result of the authoring to DLT tapes. There is no copy
protected DVD-R because DVD burners cannot write copy protection information
onto a DVD-R. If you need copy protection on your final pressed DVDs, you will
need to output your masters to DLT tapes instead of DVD-R. No all DVD
authoring software can add copy protections. If a software can output the
result to DLT tapes normally it will also have copy protection enabling
feature. In any cases you should consult the User's Guide on how to enable
copy protection. We will talk about this on few popular DVD authoring software
programs.
3. The Workflow
2.0 The Workflow
As in cooking, making DVD is a step-by-step process. By and large, we can
divide the process into these following activities.
2.1 Video Capturing (Video Transfer)
DVD is all about video (although this is not true; there is audio DVD and
data DVD as explained above) and video comes from different sources. In order to
create DVD on computer you will need to somehow convert the video source into
computer video files for later editing. Common way of getting video into the
computer is by IEEE 1394 Firewire. Most video camcorders now have a Firewire
output. If you have the older camcorder then you will need to have a hardware
capture card plugged into your computer. As the power of PCs is getting more
powerful capture cards are becoming less popular. In either case just follow the
User's Guides that come with the device to transfer your video into digital
file.
A video capture software should be run on the computer to receive the video
stream from the video source device. The user interfaces of the software differ
among different pieces of software. The format for the captured video can be
different too. It can be either AVI or Mpeg-2 and each format has its pros and
cons. AVI is the raw video format with gigantic file size. A 10-minute video in
AVI format can eat up 2GB of disk space easily. Being an un-compressed format,
AVI preserves the video quality. If you have a powerful computer with a lot of
disk space, AVI will probably be the best bet. Mpeg-2 is the native format for
DVD and it is a compressed format, meaning the file size will be much smaller
and the video is re-constructed based on a very complex mathematical algorithm.
Since our ultimate goal is making DVD so capturing in Mpeg-2 format makes a lot
of sense. The disadvantages of capture in Mpeg-2 format are: i) if you have a
slow computer the CPU may not be fast enough to process and compress an
individual frame which in turn causes drop frames; ii) you will have no control
over how many passes need to compress the file into Mpeg-2. The quality of the
video will improve if the compression software scans the video more than one
time to determine the optimal streaming rates. But with real time Mpeg-2
capturing this is pretty impossible. Normally if the video does not have fast
moving scenes then one pass should be ok.
2.2 Video Editing
Once captured, video has to be trimmed, re-arranged, cropped, and beautified
by added effects such as transitions. Video editing can be the critical part of
your project. Good or bad, the result of the editing dictates whether the DVD is
professional or amateurish; outstanding or mediocre. There is an array of video
edit software, ranging from totally free to couple of thousands dollars. We will
discuss them thoroughly in the following sections.
There is an analogy
between word processing and video editing. In word processing we are dealing
with paragraphs and in video editing we are dealing with video clips. Let say
you are writing a long essay such as this. Once the essay is written you will
need to refine it rhetorically by doing some editing. So you will probably move
paragraphs around, splitting a long paragraph into two or even three. The same
applies to video editing. You might have a long scene that you want to divide,
some bad scenes you might want to get rid of, and you might want to re-arrange
the scenes in different chronological order.
2.3 Video Encoding
There won't be the need for encoding if there is only one video format. But
in the video world there are many formats, namely AVI, MPG-1, MPG-2, DivX, MOV,
WMV, etc. Encoding is essentially a transformation from one format to the other.
An analogy will be for human language. A thought of "Thank you!" in English has
to be translated to "Danker" in German so the recipient will understand. In the
case of DVD, an AVI file has to be converted into MPG-2 format in order for the
DVD player to understand. The software or hardware device usually associated
with encoding is "Codec." Codec stands for Coding and Decoding and there are
many examples in the real world that require these processes. Translation among
different human languages is one example. In covert operation, a message may
need to be encoded in a special way so only the intended recipient can read it.
When the recipient receives the message he or she has to decode it. The rule
governing the encode and decode process is called an algorithm. Another good
example is the ubiquitous WinZip program. By zipping a file we are encoding it
to another format and by unzipping it we are recovering (or decoding) its
original content.
The encoding used for DVD is called Mpeg-2. Mpeg-2 not
only converts the video but also compresses it and this allows a 4.7GB DVD-5 to
hold video up to 2 hours. The DVD player (either the set-top unit or the
software in a computer) will decode the Mpeg-2 stream and convert it back to
video signal suitable to be viewed on the screen. It's a misnomer to call some
software as a codec if they only do encoding without decoding or vice versa. So
it's more appropriate to call some of them as encoder or decoder instead of
codec. A codec should do both encoding and decoding.
2.4 DVD Authoring
Let say you have all the asset elements (i.e. video, audio, menu background,
subtitles) ready, it's time to combine them together into an integrated DVD.
Again, there are a lot of software products that can accomplish this goal. We
will describe them in the follow sections.
2.5 DVD Mastering
The result of your authoring needs to be transfer to physical media such as
DVD-Rs or DLT tapes for testing or for sending out for replication. At this
stage you will need to consider issues such as copy protection and region
limitation. If your DVD does not have menus, you will need to consider DVD
specifications compliance which is ignored even by famous DVD writing software
such as NERO.
4. The Roads to Rome
3.0 The Roads to Rome
Referring to the above diagram and let's recap the workflow we
have discussed earlier. The sequence of activities is: We
Capture (or transfer) the video from the tapes on a camcorder
into an AVI files on a computer. The captured AVI files may have lots of scenes
and some of them may be useless so we need to go through the
Editing to clean it up. Out of Editing we get
a good AVI file but it's not the format to be stored as a DVD. So the AVI file
will be Encoded into Mpeg-2 file making it ready to be used by
the Authoring step. During Authoring, menus,
subtitles, and/or audio tracks are added. The result of
Authoring needs to be put on a physical medium such as DVD-R or
DLT tapes and this is the job at the Mastering stage.
This is only an overview picture. There are still subtle
intricacies that need to be dealt with at each stage. For example, out of
encoding most software products require you to separate the video and audio
streams as .m2v file and .ac3 files. These issues will be addressed later in the
discussion.
3.1 Free Solutions
There are a lot of great DVD Authoring software products selling at very
reasonable prices. So using free software should not be financially motivated.
To me experimenting free software products is a good learning process. By going
through each stage of the workflow with a dedicated software, you get the
insight on why things are done in certain way. Eventually when you use
commercial software you will appreciate the nature of work more. Just like if
you know how to use slide
rule using a electronic calculator will be a piece of cake.
Thanks to open source and unselfish programmers, there are many solutions
here and each one of them is totally free. You can create you own suites of
software by choosing a tool from each category of the workflow. When you move
along the workflow the new tool chosen for the current activity should be
independent to the tool chosen in last stage. For example, you can choose
Windows Movie Maker or WinDV as your capturing tool and your editing tool should
perform just well no matter which tool you have used during capturing. Listed
below are the available tools for each stage of the workflow. For the sake of
discussion, we will choose the path of WinDV (Capturing)
> VirtualDub (Editing) > QuEnc & BeSweet
(Encoding) > DVDAuthorGui (Authoring) >
ImgBurn (Mastering) as an example.
For Capturing
- AMCap
I couldn't get it to work. Try DVApp developed by the same author.
- AVCutty
Not
very intuitive at the beginning, but very fast and efficient trimming tool
once you get used to the user interface. It has optical/digital scene
detection and other functions for working with your videos.
- CaptureFlux
The
preview function doesn't seem to be working.
- DVApp
Pretty
simple capturing tool allows Type 1 and Type 2 AVI file capturing with or
without preview.
- STOIK
Capturer
Pretty stable and easy to use tool. It doesn't have
the options to choose between Type 1 and Type 2 AVI as it always capture as
Type 1.
- VirtualDubMod
Though
a wonderful tool for editing, it's not very straightforward for capturing. Too
many settings.
- WinAVI
Video Capture
Used to be a shareware and it's FREE now. It can
capture video as AVI, WMV, RealMedia, Mpeg1, Mpeg2, Non-StdVCD, VCD, SVCD,
DVD, and miniDVD.
- Windows
Movie Maker (XP only)
Only captures Type 1 AVI.
- WinDV
Very
simple and small capturing utility allows Type 1 and Type 2 AVI capturing. But
it doesn't have the VCR like control buttons to control the camera.
For Editing
- AVCutty
Not
very intuitive at the beginning, but very fast and efficient trimming tool
once you get used to the user interface. It has optical/digital scene
detection and other functions for working with your videos.
- AVE Visual
Editor
AVE Visual Editor enables user without any programming
experience to use the power of AviSynth. With AVE Visual Editor you simply
connect icons with lines and when graph is complete watch the output.
- AVIDemux
Video
editor and encoder. It can edit, encode, requantize MPEG and AVI including
DivX. Very much like VirtualDub, but can also encode to VCD/SVCD/DVD mpg.
- AVIEdit
AVIedit
allows you to join and split avi files, extract frames and do whatever you
want. You can capture video by number of ways, including one-frame-per-minute
(web camera) option, workaround annoying 2 Gb file size limit, send your
videos to printer, heavy compress it and post to your webpage. You can change
framerate, duration, frame size, color depth of your videos and other
properties, even without recompression and without loss of video quality.
AVIedit allows you to convert avi clips to bmp and bmp to avi, animated GIFs
etc.
- Avid Free DV
(Windows XP only)
Perfect for students, DV camera owners, video
enthusiasts or anyone exploring video editing - Avid Free DV software is an
easy, free way to join the Avid family and test-drive the industry-standard
editing interface used by more professionals than any other video editing
solution.
- AviTricks
Classic
AviTricks is a non-linear, non-destructive AVI video
editor with real-time preview. The tree-structure and sub-project approach
allow for an unlimited combination of filters and overlays, while rubber-band
timeline adjustment gives a smooth blending of video and audio properties to
produce a professional result in either AVI or Windows Media Format. It
includes a wide range of adjustable effects that can be used separately or in
combination.
- AVSEdit
Official
editor for avisynth. Requires .net framework 1.1.
- TMpegEnc
One
of the best MPEG video encoders, convert to MPEG2 (SVCD, DVD) and MPEG1(VCD)
with several settings and filters. Freeware MPEG1(VCD) encoding. Also basic
joining, splitting, demultiplexing and multiplexing features. MPEG2 encoder
expires in 30 days.
- VirtualDubMOD
VirtualDubMod
is a unification of several popular modifications of the famous video editing
software VirtualDub. Unification of three projects, VirtualDubMPeg2,
VirtualDubOGM, VirtualDubAVS and more.
- WAX
Wax is
a high performance and flexible video composing and special effects software.
The idea for Wax is to be very general purpose and flexible in video composing
and effects, so that you can compose your dream video sequence with ease every
time.
- Windows
Movie Maker (XP only)
Windows Movie Maker 2.1 makes home
movies amazingly fun. With Movie Maker 2.1, you can create, edit, and share
your home movies right on your computer. Build your movie with a few simple
drag-and-drops. Delete bad shots and include only the best scenes. Then share
your movie via the Web, e-mail, or CD. Using third-party software you can even
take movies you've made and turn them into DVDs. You can also save your movie
back to the video tape in your camera to play back on a TV or on the camera
itself.
- Zwei-Stein
Zwei-Stein
3.01 is a freeware non-linear, non-destructive video composing and editing
system which offers many advanced features unavailable elsewhere. With
Zwei-Stein you can edit up to 256 video, audio and still image clips, each
with up to 64 effects chained serially. Cropping, panning and custom effects
are easy with automatic key frames.
Encoding
- AutoQMatEnc
AutoQMatEnc
is a MPEG2 Video Only Encoder. Read any AVS script by using directly
avisynth.dll. Can also be used with DVD Rebuilder, just make DVDRB point to it
instead of CCE SP. Command line tool.
- AVI2DVD
Avi2Dvd
is a GUI in order to convert with just one click an Avi/Ogm/Mkv/Wmv/Dvd to
Dvd/Svcd/Vcd.
- AVIDemux
Video
editor and encoder. It can edit, encode, requantize MPEG and AVI including
DivX. Very much like VirtualDub, but can also encode to VCD/SVCD/DVD mpg.
- Diko
DIKO
is an automation tool: it command many other software to get the best result
in this conversion. DIKO allows you to get up to two hours in 1 SVCD or 10
hours in 1 DVD with good quality, depending on the content, thanks to the
compression of BVCD techniques. DIKO is freeware, and everything it needs is
also freeware and bundled in the install package.
- FreeEnc
FreeEnc
is a free MPEG-2 encoder, which uses avcodec library to encode. It only
accepts avs file as input.
- HCEnc
HC
is a free MPEG2 Encoder. Input can be a d2v project or input using Avisynth. 2
pass VBR encoding. Variable GOP structure dependent of the video content or
fixed GOP structure. Scene change detection. Pre-programmed matrices or use
your own matrices. Restart possibility to run the second pass again. Bitrate
control: average and max bitrate can be set.
- NUEnc
A
codec based on QuEnc to allow multiple passes.
- QuEnc
QuEnc
is an easy to use MPEG-2 encoder that is completely free, yet yields amazingly
good quality (no, it doesn't beat CCE SP, but there's a $1900 price difference
between the two). It's also quite fast for an MPEG-2 encoder, but since it's a
full encoder, not a compressed domain transcoder, you won't get your DVDs done
in 20 minutes.
Authoring
- AVI2DVD
Avi2Dvd
is a GUI in order to convert with just one click an Avi/Ogm/Mkv/Wmv/Dvd to
Dvd/Svcd/Vcd.
- DVDAuthorGui
DVDAuthorgui
is a very basic win32 front-end for the DVDAuthor project. The gui is meant to
be an easy means to create a basic dvd. Features: multiple titles (pgc),
multiple titleset menus, m2v still creation, chapters, subtitles, multiple
audio streams, basic navigation commands, iso creation.
- DVDStyler
DVDStyler
is a cross platform GUI front-end to the dvd authoring and recording programs
dvdauthor and dvdrecord. It is free software distributed under GNU General
Public License (GPL).
- IfoEdit
IfoEdit
is the first freeware program to be able to multiplex elementary audio and
video streams and create a fully compliant DVD disc out of it. If you're only
using your favorite DVD authoring program to create 1 video movies without
menus IfoEdit is perfect for you. It can multiplex any DVD compliant MPEG-2
streams, DVD compliant audio streams (AC3, LPCM, MP2 and DTS), DVD subtitle
streams and you can create your own chapters. Considering that a lot of DVD
authoring programs have limitations when it comes to the number of audio
streams, audio format, number of channels in audio streams and subtitles,
IfoEdit's feature set is pretty impressive indeed.
- Muxman
DVD
multiplexer/authoring tool. The most important component of any DVD authoring
system is its multiplexing engine. It should be flawless, and well tested.
This is the purpose of my very simple first authoring program, Muxman.
Mastering
- AVI2DVD
Avi2Dvd
is a GUI in order to convert with just one click an Avi/Ogm/Mkv/Wmv/Dvd to
Dvd/Svcd/Vcd.
- BurnAtOnce
burnatonce
is a cdrdao / mkisofs gui for windows. Supports also DVD, DVD-Video and DVD
ISO writing.
- CDBurnXP
Pro
CD Burner XP Pro is a freeware CD/DVD-Writer program. The
program can write CD-R, CD-RW, DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW discs.
- DVD
Decrypter
One of the best DVDDecrypter tool, it enables you to
decrypt and copy DVDs to your HD. It can also make DVD images and burn DVD and
CD images. No longer developed, use DVDFab Decrypter or AnyDVD if you get any
ripping problems.
- ImgBurn
ImgBurn
carries on from where DVD Decrypter left off! (Well, for the burning part
anyway!). ImgBurn can write most types of CD / DVD images and it supports all
the latest writers (including booktype / bitsetting on many of the major ones
- i.e. BenQ, LiteOn, NEC, Plextor, Sony). You can even use ImgBurn to erase /
format your rewritable media!
- ImgTools
Popular
tools to make an image of a DVD Folder(VIDEO_TS) and also burn it. In
Addition, the burning tool allows you to confirm and burn a DVD from VIDEO_TS
made by any other application.
- IfoEdit
IfoEdit
is the first freeware program to be able to multiplex elementary audio and
video streams and create a fully compliant DVD disc out of it. If you're only
using your favorite DVD authoring program to create 1 video movies without
menus IfoEdit is perfect for you. It can multiplex any DVD compliant MPEG-2
streams, DVD compliant audio streams (AC3, LPCM, MP2 and DTS), DVD subtitle
streams and you can create your own chapters. Considering that a lot of DVD
authoring programs have limitations when it comes to the number of audio
streams, audio format, number of channels in audio streams and subtitles,
IfoEdit's feature set is pretty impressive indeed.
5. Examples
3.1.1 Example:
Step 1: Connect the cable from your DV camera to your IEEE
1394 controller card or your capture card.
Step 2: Download WinDV from http://windv.mourek.cz/download/WinDV-1.2.3.zip
and unzip the file to any directory on your hard drive. There is no need to
install the program. You can simply run the program directly by double-clicking
.
Step 3: Click the [Config...] button
Choose [type-2 AVI (vids+auds)] from the next dialog then
click "OK"
Tick the checkbox next to the [Config...] button and then
provide a file name in the [Capt. file:] input field. Make
sure the folder name for the file name has been created. For example, if "g:\DVDCapture" fold
is not created in the above example, WinDV will bomb in a very unfriendly way
by saying [ "Runtime Error!" ... "This application has requested the
Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the application's
support team for more information."]
You can stop the capturing by pressing the [Cancel] button
any time. The capturing will also stop when there is no video signal coming
from the DV camcorder.
Step 4: Download VirtualDub from http://www.virtualdub.org/download
and unzip the files to a directory on your hard drive. Again, there is no need
to install the application, just double-click the 
icon to fire up the program.
Step 5: Click [File] > [Open video file]
to open the file we have captured in Step 3.
Step 6: As you can see the opened AVI file has some video
noise at the beginning. This is normally the case because most video tapes are
non-recordable for the first few seconds.
When VirtualDub is opened you can see two screens as shown above. The left
screen represents the source file and the right screen represents the result of
the editing. The three controls we are going to use are i) the video play head,
ii) the [Mark In] button, and the [Mark Out]
button. The other buttons are just there for you to navigate to the specific
point of the video but I found them less efficient as compared with moving the
play head. You can move the play head quickly along the timeline to get to any
point very quickly.
By and large editing is a matter of trimming and rearranging of the video. To
trim the unwanted portion of the video you just move the play head to the
beginning position where you want the trimming to start; press the [Mark
In] button to mark it, then move the play head to the ending position
where you want the trimming to stop; press the [Mark Out]
button. The time between the [Mark In] and [Mark
Out] will be highlighted. You can either press the
[Delete] button on the keyboard to delete it or press
[Ctrl-X] to delete it and put it into the clipboard. By putting
into the clipboard you can paste it to any place where the play head is
positioned.
Step 7: Once you have finished the editing, click
[File] > [Save as AVI...] to save the edited file which will
be used as input for encoding.
Step 8: Download QuEnc from http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/video_encoders/quenc.cfm
and unzip the file to any directory on your hard drive. Start QuEnc by
double-clicking 
.
Step 9: Chose the source file we saved in Step 7 and press
the [Encode] button.
Step 10: As a result of the last step, you now have an
m2v file which is essentially the video portion of the movie.
In this step we will try to get the audio out using a tool called
BeLight. You can download Belight from http://corecodec.org/projects/belight/.
Run the .exe file to install BeLight and start the program after the
installation.
Step 11: Click on the [AC3] tab, press the
[Input] button to locate the file we finished in Step 7. The
output field will be automatically filled in.
Press the [Start] button to start the audio ripping.
Step 12: Download DVDAuthorGui from
http://www.videohelp.com/~liquid217/dvdauthorgui.pl?p=download.
Install the program and run DVDAuthorGui after installation.
Step 13: Press the [add title] button to
add the m2v and ac3 files.
Step 14: Choose [file] > [create
iso after authoring].
Step 15: Once the files are added, press the [author
dvd] button.
You will be asked to name a fold where the result of the authoring will be
stored. Just give any name you like. Depending on the length of the video and
the speed of your computer it may take 15 minutes to hours to finish up this
process. Once done, you will have the VIDEO_TS and
AUDIO_TS folders in the directory you have named earlier.
Step 16: With the ISO file we have created in Step 15, we
now have everything we need to burn the result to a DVD. You can use any disc
burning software that supports image burning. Nero and Roxio Easy Media Creator are
the most common ones. You can also use free tool such as ImgBurn.
Simply download ImgBurn from http://imgburn.com/index.php?act=download
then install it.
Step 17: Once started, click on the
[Source] browser button to choose the ISO file we have created
in Step 15, put a blank DVD-R into your DVD writer, and then press the green go
button. Voila! In about 10 minutes you will have the DVD burned.
If you use Nero, just choose the [Burn Image to Disc] button
and then choose the ISO file we have created in Step 15 and the rest should be
self-explanatory.
3.1.2 Quicker and Easier Ways
With all the exercises so far, you must be asking the question: Is there a
better way? Yes! There are quicker and easier ways and they are being listed
here. The example above was deliberately chosen to illustrate the logical flow
of information from one stage to the next. Once you understand this flow it will
be much easier for you to appreciate some other software products.
|
Solution |
Tools used |
Description |
|
1 |
WinAVI
Video Capture, ImgTool,
ImgBurn
|
If your source video is pretty clean, you can choose
to capture the video directly into DVD format using WinAVI Video
Capture and then create the ISO file using
ImgTool. Burn the ISO file using
ImgBurn. |
|
2 |
WinDV, VirtualDubMod,
AVI2DVD,
ImgBurn. |
Capture the video as Type 2 AVI with
WinDV, edit the video using
VirtualDubMod, author the DVD with
AVI2DVD to create the ISO file. AVI2DVD
integrates the Encoding and Mastering procedures into one program and you
have few encoders to choose. Use ImgBurn to burn the ISO
file into DVD. |
|
3 |
AVIEdit, QuEnc, DVDAuthorGui,
ImgBurn
|
Capture and edit with AVIEdit, encode
with QuEnc, master with DVDAuthorGui,
burn with ImgBurn |
|
4 |
WinDV, DIKO, ImgBurn
|
Capture with WinDV, edit, encode, and
master with DIKO, burn DVD with
ImgBurn. |
Again, you are not limited to the ways we have listed. Feel free to mix up
the software products to create your own suite. Some software products require
your to write an Avisynth script which is
beyond the scope of our discussion.
6. Adding Sub-titles
3.1.3 Adding Sub-titles
Many of the authoring tools in this section have the capability of adding
subtitles. The theory behind subtitles is pretty simple -- You just need a
script file telling the authoring tool the beginning and ending time and the
text for a subtitle. You can pretty much do this without the help of any tools.
All you need is just watch the movie and then record all the time intervals of
conversation and then create a mapping file with the subtitle texts. For
example,
1
00:00:00,790 --> 00:00:02,662
Bonjour! Monsieur.
2
00:00:24,523 --> 00:00:27,879
Bonjour! Madomoiselle.
3
00:00:55,516 --> 00:00:56,934
Ça va?
4
00:00:58,229 --> 00:01:01,316
Ça va!
But this will be a tedious effort. You should turn to subtitle tools unless
you have too much time to waste. Subtitle
Workshop is among one of the best free tools. You can use this tool
to do your marking and subtitle editing and here is how.
Step 1: Download Subtitle Workshop 2.51
from http://www.urusoft.net/download.php?lang=1&id=sw,
unzip the download file to a temporary directory and then run the program
installer.
Step 2: Start Subtitle Workshop from
[Start] > [Program] >
[URUSoft] > [Subtitle Workshop] >
[Subtitle Workshop].
Step 3: Go to [File] > [New
subtitle...].
Step 3: Go to [Movie] >
[Open] to load the movie into the program.
Step 4: Once the movie is loaded, you can then play the move
and mark the starting and ending points for a subtitle. You can stop the movie
any time, make a slight backward or forward, and edit your subtitle as shown
below. All the control buttons have tool tips. You just need to mouse-over the
individual control the the tips will be shown. It's very straightforward.
Step 5: When the whole subtitling task is done, you can save
the file by going to [File] > [Save as..]. Subtitle Workshop allows you to
save the subtitle for many authoring programs. Just choose the format that your
authoring program will need and then provide a file name. This file will become
one of the assets when you do the authoring.
7. Medium Priced Commercial Products
3.2 Medium Priced Commercial Products
If you can afford couple of hundred bucks then do yourself a favor by buying
some great software products. Commercial software products do save you a lot of
time in many ways. First they tend to integrate the functionality of the
workflow into a single application and they tend to be more stable then their
free counterparts. Although this is debatable, the quality of the DVD created is
usually better.
Look for the software pack that comes with your digital camcorder first.
There is pretty good chance you already possess some basic software for DVD
capturing, editing, and authoring. Sonic MyDVD
is the most common DVD authoring software that bundles with digital
camcorders.
With over hundreds of software products you can choose, it is very easy to
get lost. It is my intention here to clarify the uncertainty and fit them to our
workflow. It will be a big mistake to buy an editing software then find it
cannot do authoring.
The software products I choose to write about are from the following
companies
|
Manufacturer |
Product |
Price |
Capturing |
Editing |
Encoding |
Authoring |
Mastering |
|
|
Premiere 1.5 Pro |
$699.99 |
Premiere 1.5 is an XP only software. You can
use it for capturing, editing, and encoding. If your DVD does not have
interactive menus, you can also use Premiere 1.5 Pro to burn the DVD
directly from the timeline. The selling point of Premiere is its editing
capability. If you can afford to have After Effect, another piece of Adobe
software costs about $ 999, you can create many special effects. |
| Encore DVD 1.5 |
$349.99 |
|
Encore allows you to import AVI files as
assets and then encode them. It also let you create sophisticated
interactive menus and then burn the result to DVD-R or transfer it to DLT
tapes. Encore can be used to authored DVD-9 -- the dual-layer media. CSS
and Macrovision copy protections can be enabled. |
|
|
TMPGEnc MPEG Editor |
$48.00 |
|
This is an editing tool for Mpeg. The source
files have to be in Mpeg format or from an authored DVD. It can be used as
a DVD ripping tool or Mpeg touch-up tool. |
|
| TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress |
$58.00 |
|
This tool allows the import of AVI, Mpeg,
and DVD vob files. The editing functions are limited to trimming and
re-arranging. This is a great tool for preparing Mpeg-2 file for later
authoring. The best feature is the crop filter which allows to crop the
video to get rid of the un-wanted edges along the four sides of the
screen. |
|
| TMPGEnc DVD Author 1.6 |
$68.00 |
|
This tool adds the Authoring and Mastering
functions to TMPGEnc MPEG Editor. The editing function is very limited and
it lacks the nice filters found in TMPGEnc 3.0 XPress. It does allow the
authoring of DVD-9 but it does not have the copy protection enabling
capability. |
|
|
DVD-lab PRO |
$199.00 |
|
This is a great authoring and well-priced
tool. It can do almost everything a high-end authoring tool can. It allows
the authoring of both DVD-5 and DVD-9 but lacks the copy protection
enabling capability. |
|
|
Video Studio Pro 9 |
$99.99 |
Don't let the coverage fool you. Yes, this
tool can accomplish all the tasks of our workflow but it's just a very
basic tool. The program has a DV-to-DVD Wizard, Movie Wizard, and
VideoStudio Editor. This is a very easy to use tool but lacks the ability
of making sophisticate interactive menus. Great tool for newbies when just
want to have a plain DVD with a single video that plays from the beginning
to the end. |
| Media Studio Pro 8 |
$399.99 |
This is a powerful video editing tool that has all the functionality of
Adobe Premiere. It allows capturing, editing, and encoding all done in a
single suite. There is also an audio editor built-in. |
|
| DVD Workshop 2 |
$395.00 |
A very simple to use tool that covers all
elements of the workflow. The editing capability is limited trimming and
re-arranging. It you need transitions and effects you still need to get
Media Studio Pro 8. It does support dual-layer DVD-9 authoring and the
enabling of CSS and Macrovision copy protection. You can use this tool to
add subtitles too. |
3.3 Advanced Solutions
If you are rich and decide not to donate some of your wealth to a nice guy
such as myself, then go for the top of the line products from Sonic. When
you buy retail DVD movie such Star War chances are the DVD was not authored
by
free software or the medium priced software. Sonic claims 80% of the
Hollywood movies are authored by their flagship product Scenarist. There
may be some truth in such claim as Scenarist is the most advanced DVD authoring
software you can have (most expensive too). Some less expensive
competitions include Sony Vegas.
8. Common DVD Authoring Mistakes
4.0 Common DVD Authoring Mistakes
As a DVD replicator we have received over thousands of DVD masters from our
clients. It is our pre-mastering QC's job to check the masters for errors and
compatibility. To our surprise, more and more DVD masters have problems in some
form or other. Let's briefly list the commonly seen problems here in a hope that
you will not commit the same mistake when you make your DVD for replication.
4.1 Not enough space between IFOs and BUPs.
Nero, being the most popular disc burning software on the market, has its
Achilles' heel. When you use Nero to burn an ISO file, NERO will try to help you
conserve space by packing all the files tightly and disobey the original ISO
layout. The consequence of this is: The CRC Error Protection designed for DVD
might be broken.
How could this happen! To understand why we need to know a little bit about
the structure of a DVD. Normally within the VIDEO_TS folder you will see the VOB
files are sandwiched between the IFO and BUF files. The IFO files contain the
pointer information, more or less like the table of contents for a book. The VOB
file is the actual content, and the BUP file is a backup copy of the IFO.
Without the IFO file the a DVD player would not know where to start and where to
end. If the IFO file is damaged, the DVD player will try to look for the playing
direction from the BUP file. Unless both the IFO and the BUP files are damaged
then the DVD is doomed.
Most reputable DVD authoring software will try to leave a gap between the IFO
file and the BUP file when the VOB file is too small. But Nero will break this
layout by squeezing all the files together. If this happens, your disc will
still play without any problems until some day the area contain the IFO file is
scratched or damaged. DVD players will try to recover the damaged data from the
backup sector, i.e the .BUF file. But if there is no enough space separating
between the IFO and the BUF file, chances are the same scratch that damages the
IFO sectors also damages the BUP sectors rendering the DVD totally useless.
The solutions to this is to re-create your DVD with the proper gap. If you
DVD have menus chances are the VOB files are big enough and you won't need to do
anything. But if your DVD is the simplest kind with a video playing from the
beginning to the end, then you should do some patch work. The article here
will be your solution.
4.2 Try to create a copy protected DVD-R
A commonn misconception is that when you author your DVD with the copy
protection flags enabled, then you can burn a copy protected DVD-R. The fact is
there is no copy protected DVD-R. Copy protected DVD can only occur on pressed
DVD, i.e. the DVD discs that are manufactured from a glass stamper. That's the
main reason why replicators will need you to provide DLT tapes instead of DVD-R
as master when you request to have copy protection.
The reason behind this is copy protection information is written only on
certain track of a DVD. As member of the DVD Forum all DVD equipment
manufacturers are bound by the rules so DVD burners cannot write such
information on a DVD-R. If you are a firmware guru you might be tempted to think
you can hack the firmware code so the writer can record copy protection
information. Although I cannot be 100% sure, DVD-R manufacturers might also be
bound by the rules not to have the copy protection track writable.
4.3 Didn't test playability on enough number of players
DVD technology, though a decade old, is still not mature to the point that
there is a universal compatibility. To create a DVD that will work on all DVD
players is really a myth. If you can get your DVD work on 90~95% of the players
than you are in pretty good shape. The incompatibility comes from the fact that
DVD players has evolved and there are old DVD players and new DVD players. There
are also DVD players stick to the DVD specifications tightly and there are DVD
players that are more tolerant to error.
If you don't have a matrix of DVD players then you won't have the assurance.
A DVD plays well on your own DVD player does not mean it will play on other
people's DVD players. That's why it's crucial to hire a reputable replicator who
will test your master on different mix of DVD players. New Cyberian Systems,
Inc. will test our clients' DVD master on about 20 brands such as Apex, Pioneer,
Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, etc. The brands we choose represent a good market
distribution that covers from high-end to low-end players.
4.4 Use cheap DVD-R as master
DVD-Rs are made all the same, after all they are all digital and either they
work or they don't, right? If you believe in that then you are dead wrong. Cheap
DVD-Rs, I mean in terms of quality, have plagued the market. When you burn a
DVD-R with NERO and congratulated with the "Successful" dialog, you usually have
the comfort of mind that the burning is truly successfully. After reading this,
think again!
There are only a few DVD recordable media manufacturers in the world. The
brand name DVD±Rs you buy from a physical or online store are mostly likely not
manufactured by the brand owner. For example, DVD±Rs carry the name of HP could
be manufactured by a Taiwanese company called CMC. Ritek, another recordable
media giant, turns out ultra good quality discs (so called grade A) and some
craps (so called grade C).
If you only need to duplicate few DVDs for friends and families, then getting
the cheap DVDs won't do you too much harm. The worse case is you just burn
the
DVDs into coasters and burn a little bit of your time and money. But when it
comes to high quantity replication, you'd better be picky on the DVD-R media.
Bad DVD master will
result in many quality related issues such as skipping, freezing, and
blockiness.
Good DVD-R brands include: Apple, Fuji, Maxell, Sony, Taiyo Yuden, and TDK.
Try to avoid Imation, HP, Kodak, Philips, Princo, and Radius. But don't just
take my word for it. Always find out the Media ID of the media you just bought
by using tools such as DVDInfo/DVDInfoPro. The
tool will tell you who's the true manufacturer behind.
You should also test your media with NERO CD-DVD Speed.
4.5 Mis-handling of DVD
Scratches and finger prints on the data side of a DVD are absolutely No-No's
for glass mastering. Very often people damage the DVD surface without even
knowing it. Believe it or not, the plastic on the DVD surface is actually very
soft. If you put a DVD and rub it on a table top softly, it won't need hard
examination for you to see scratches are already all over. Although DVDs are
designed to have error correction, too many errors will slow down the decoding.
From the mastering point of view, too many scratches will reduce the reliability
of the stamper. To avoid a "garbage in garbage out" situation, you should
- Never put a DVD on a table without proper protection
- Never touch the DVD surface with your fingers. Always handle a DVD with
the thumb on the rim and another finger through hole at the center hub. If you
find fingerprints on the DVD surface, clean them with a damped tissue or a
alcohol cotton swab.
4 6 Didn't enable verify when burning the DVD-R
Disc burning software programs usually have the "Verify" function. For
example, Nero Express has the "Verify data on disc after burning" checkbox at
the final stage of the wizard before you hit the [Burn] button. If you find such
feature, check it! This is a very economical way to have a final sanity check.
In our daily routine of duplicating thousands of discs everyday, we have found
many instances of successful burn but fail the verification. The failure can be
caused by many unforeseeable reasons such as voltage fluctuation or dirt on the
laser head.
4.7 Send only one master copy to your replicator
When you send your master to a replicator, it's always good idea to send two
copies. Why? The master you send out will go through a long journey and be
passed along many hands. The stamping machine at the US Post Office, the guy
throwing parcels at the FedEx hub, the conveyer belt at the UPS sorting facility
all can contribute to damage your DVD master. Once again, in our experience in
receiving thousands of masters from our clients, we have found very often the
masters are damaged or useless for other reasons. If we don't have a backup copy
to work with, all we can do is to call the clients and ask to send us the master
again. You not only waste money on the shipping, but also delay your deadline.
Just as an insurance, always send two or more copies to your replicator;
especially when your project is mission critical.
4.8 Did not include a PCM or AC-3 audio track for NTSC video
NTSC DVD allows to have 8 audio tracks. Audio formats supported by the DVD
specifications are AC3 and PCM. Many DVD players also support the MPEG-I Layer
II format, especially those cheap DVD players that are meant for the Asian
market to support VCD and SVCD. These DVD players have now entered the US market
and
4.9 Set a bad layer break for DVD-9
Remember DVD-9 is a single-side dual-layer format? The DVD layer break
is the place where a dual layer DVD switches from the first layer (layer 0) to
the second layer (layer 1). DVDs are laid out in sectors with each sector
contains 2048 bytes of content. The first sector of a DVD is sector 0; the
second sector is sector 1, ......... the nth sector is sector (n-1). This
way, the first sector of layer 1 is actually the number of sectors on layer 0.
Ideally you should set the layer break point near the middle of the video
with layer 0 slightly longer than layer 1. To understand this we need to
know how the play head in a DVD player travels. Starting from sector 0 on
layer 0, the play head will travel away from the center until it reaches the
break point. Once passed the break point the play head will switch to
layer 1 and travels back towards the center of the disc. With this in mind
you will understand why you cannot set layer 0 smaller than layer 1 because
doing so layer 1 won't have enough space.
Theoretically you can set the break point with layer 0 substantially longer
than layer 1. But this suffers from the disadvantage that layer 0 content
will be written close to the outer radius of the disc. DVD disc are read
more reliably closer to the center. Although you are unlikely to see any
problems for new DVD players, old players might create problems such as skip or
freeze.
Besides, the break point should occur at a sector number that is divisible by
16. The reason for this is an ECC (Error Checking and Correction) block is
formed for every 16 sectors. If the break point is set at
non-sixteen-divisible sector, an ECC block will be split by the layer break
point.
If you DVD authoring software supports DVD-9 it should give you the advise
where the break point should be set. Make sure to read the User's Guide
that comes with your software to set the break point correctly and wisely.
4.10. Broken menu links
Menu links are like the hyperlinks on a web pages. If configured
incorrectly their behavior will be quite different from what you have
expected. Common problems are
- Link to the wrong clip
- Link to nowhere; meaning no effect on clicking
- Link to non-existing clips; same as the page not found on web pages
4.11. Menu text cropped
Most DVD authors assume a computer screen is same as a TV screen. In reality,
the TV screen border is thicker than what you might have thought. Very
often we receive masters from our clients that play perfectly on a computer but
the menu text got cropped when played with a set-top DVD player on TV. So
when you author your menu, always keep in mind that the visible area between a
computer monitor not the same as a TV screen. Good authoring software
normally will provide a suggested safe-zone and you'd better follow the
suggestion to avoid your menu texts disappear or half-cut on a TV screen.
4.12 Hard code drive letter for enhanced DVD, i.e. DVD with video
and data
An enhanced DVD is a DVD with both video and data sessions. The
intention is to make the DVD viewable on both set-top DVD players and
computers. A common problem we found on enhanced DVD is that the video
works perfectly on set-top DVD players but fail on some computers. One
obvious problem is that the author fails to see that every computer in the world
is more or less different. A program works on computer A doesn't mean it
will work on computer B. Hard code drive letter is the #1 crime in
computer programming. A DVD-ROM drive called D: one my computer doesn't mean it
will be called the same on other computers. If you hard code the drive
letter, your DVD will fail on other computer systems that don't have the same
drive letter as yours. We had clients yelled to the hell that their DVDs
were OK. But when asked to test on other systems other than the authoring
unit, they immediately saw the problem. So do test your DVD thoroughly on
different systems before signing it off to a replicator.
4.13 Audio and video out of sync
The causes of AV out-of-sync are manifold. They can occur during
capturing, editing, compressing, and rendering. With the ever increasing
computation power of an average PC A/V out-of-sync is becoming less a problem,
albeit still found in many DVD masters that were sent to us. Studies
showed we human can tolerate audio lagging video more than audio leading video.
The A/V out-of-sync acceptability thresholds are 185 ms for audio lagging video
and 90 ms for audio leading video.
Common causes of AV out-of-sync are:
- Drop-frame is the number one culprit for AV out-of-sync. Drop-frame
occurs when the computer is not fast enough to process the video and audio
stream. You can minimize the occurrence of drop-frame by having computer
with powerful CPU, a hard drive with high spinning speed and seek-time, and
you should optimize the performance of your hard drive by defragmenting it
from time to time.
- Choose the mismatched attributes for source audio and capturing
settings. For example, if the DV audio is set at 12-bit 32KHz and you
choose the 48KHz project setting for capturing, AV out-of-sync is likely to
occur.
- Do not use the hardware profile for capturing. Good capturing
software usually have a set of hardware profile for you to match your
device. If your device is not in the list you can only choose the
generic profile. Doing so will leave a lot of guess work for the
software. For example, the audio frequency of certain brands of
camcorders might not be truly 48KHz but 48.0005KHz. Without the hardware
profile to compensate this discrepancy the captured audio will have many
sample cycles less then the source audio; 5 x 3600 = 18,000 cycles to be exact
in one hour.
A good way to check whether AV out-of-sync occurs is to demux the audio and
the video, i.e. separating them as two individual files. Play each file in
any compatible players (such as Windows Media Player) and then observe their
lengths. If the lengths differ than there is AV out-of-sync for sure.
4.14 Subtitle out of sync
This is purely a careless mistake with crappy quality control. We
point it out here just for you to add this as your checklist. Since you
know your own DVD better than anyone else in the world, only you know the answer
where and how to fix it. Word of advise: The same old hackneyed
cliche - Test the DVD thoroughly before signing it off to the
replicator.