IDVD Makes Authoring a Cinch

David Shamah, The Jerusalem Post November 1, 2005

DVD authoring reminds me of the “laugh track” - that insipid invention TV producers use to let you know when to yuck it up, no matter how lame the joke. Without it, of course, you wouldn't know when one of the players was saying something funny, which maybe means that the material on its own is not so funny in the first place.

Similarly in authoring. The video you are putting on a DVD is probably interesting enough on its own; the music, background colors, and other editing additions that give it a “context” are really just devices to keep you on track. Like a laugh track or the “music,” which is cheery, sad or shivery, as the mood requires, the background stuff is supposed to lead your sensibilities to fit the right mood.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not criticizing, but observing. The point for you, the prospective DVD author, is that you need to know how to push the right buttons in putting together your production, because we've all been conditioned to react to the signals our brain picks up from what we're seeing on the screen. If you can't beat 'em, you might as well join 'em – meaning that while you would think that simple conversion to DVD format, as we have been discussing until now, should be sufficient, it really isn't, and authoring – the process of adding menus, subtitles, background, music, chapters, etc. - is something worthwhile knowing.

No question that authoring has more of a learning curve than conversion, unless you're doing specialized conversions like PAL to NTSC and vice-versa (to be discussed in an upcoming column). But it doesn't have to be too complicated – and hopefully this discussion will help keep you from pulling out too much of your hair in frustration!

There are dozens – maybe even hundreds – of DVD authoring programs. Many provide facilities for converting video between formats, as we have been discussing so far, and often the authoring part of the process begins automatically after the conversion takes place. “Authoring” is actually a wide ranging concept, and the more you pay, the more features you're likely to get in your program; for example, “prosumer” packages, costing $200 and up, can include things like 16:9 (widescreen) video, surround sound audio streams (Dolby AC-3 5.1), DLT drives, motion menus, etc., whereas cheaper “consumer” packages will have few, if any of these features. Then there are the professional packages, which will include features like region coding, subtitles, etc. Apple, for example, has a professional (Apple DVD Studio Pro) and a consumer (iDVD) package. The field is very broad, indeed, but because you can't believe anything you read in the newspaper anyway, and because I don't want to be responsible for people spending thousands of dollars on software and hardware they are not ready for, we are going to concentrate on the basic, consumer level programs.

There is one big caveat to keep in mind when looking at authoring programs, however. One of the major differences between more and less advanced programs is the formatting engine used to create the files and folders that will be read by commercial DVD players, and while any authoring program that can create DVDs will create the appropriate software images capable of being read by DVD players, you may find that some are more accurate than others, producing a “winner” every time, while others produce DVDs that “look right,” but just cannot be read by some players. This is a very involved issue that would mostly affect professional producers – which is not whom this series of articles is aimed at – so we are going to assume that whatever program you use with the techniques to be described is going to produce a disc that will play on your DVD – and if it does not, you'll switch to another program that will.

Once again, if you're interested in a no-brainer method for authoring, you've got to get a Mac. IDVD may not be the most sophisticated DVD authoring application out there, but it is by far the easiest. As with everything in the Mac world, somebody out there in California decided (no doubt after many hours of market research) what canned “themes” - consisting of graphic backgrounds, music, buttons, etc. - would go over well with consumers, and iDVD 5.x has dozens of such themes appropriate to vacations, weddings, family functions, birthdays, graduations – all you do is click on the elegant and simple iDVD interface's Customize button, and you can set the theme, the title, background music, menu duration before automatic play of your movie, etc. You can have up to six elements on a DVD “page” - the opening screen the will display on your TV when you insert the disc into the player – that can consist of multiple movies, a movie and a slide show, etc. Apple is always known for an elegant presentation, and iDVD is no different – almost anything you need to do is controlled from one of seven buttons on the main iDVD window, and you never have to dig down more than one submenu to get to a command, even a relatively esoteric one.

Once your theme is set up, just drag your file – Quicktime, AVI, Mpeg2 (not Mpeg1, though) onto the iDVD window. IDVD will automatically encode your movie into 4:3 format, and will also show you the “tv safe” area of the DVD “page” - of concern when you move buttons around on a multi-purpose DVD, or when typing a title for a movie (the TV safe command is under the Advanced window). One cute touch you can also easily add is a “moving menu” - an actual background of your movie running as part of the button that viewers click on to play the movie. To get that into your production, simply click on the Motion button on the iDVD interface. You can preview what the whole thing will look like by pressing the Preview button, which will open up a virtual “remote control” onto your screen. Press the play button, and your menu, music and movie should start playing.

Then it's time to click on the last of iDVD's buttons – Burn. If you are using a non Mpeg2 file, iDVD will automatically encode it for you into proper DVD format. A typical single layered DVD will hold about 2 hours worth of movie, and if the program tells you your movie is too big for a standard DVD, just use the program's “lower” quality setting – confusingly called “best quality” on the Preferences menu, instead of the higher quality “best performance” setting (this confusion is my only criticism of the program). Now just sit back and wait until iDVD does its work (encoding time is somewhat slow, and then it has to burn the DVD). Like I said, a no-brainer. Next time we'll see what the options on the PC side are.

Ds@newzgeek.com