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Is authoring a dvd synonymous with menu design?
We have a debate going on around the office – the boss thinks that when you create any kind of basic menu for a DVDSP created disc (as opposed to a no-menu first play disc in DVDSP) that you’re making a disc that may or may not play in some people’s dvd player. The boss believes that this ‘menu creation’ process is what is referred to as ‘authoring’ a disc.
Meanwhile we employees believe that ‘authoring’ includes the overall process of making a DVD player-readable SD MPEG-2 disc from a mac computer – so in other words menus have nothing to do with the chances of the disc not being readable by somebody’s dvd player. any thoughts? thanks –
Matt Pennington
q media solutions
Toronto -
4 Replies
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Menu creation is only a part of DVD authoring. So long as the DVD is authored in a program that creates a DVD-Spec compliant DVD then it should play in all DVD players as they have to abide by the DVD specification as well. It makes no difference whether it has a menu or not.
You employees are right. Except you can create on any platform (Mac/PC).
There are many factors that can make a DVD not play in a player. Sometimes it has to do with the menu but that has nothing to with the menu “being there” it is up to the author to make sure they authored the disc correctly (menus and movies).
Aren’t you guys a replicator? Are you looking to get into authoring or just trying to prove the boss wrong? Is it still cold in Toronto?
-Luke
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OK, that’s what we figured. But no we’re not in the replication business, just a small production house. We deliver mostly on betacam or compressions for web, but occasionally we’ll do a big corporate job and send the disc out to be duplicated or replicated, depending on the amount needed.
But we do send out a lot of DVDs for client approval, etc. and we’re always warned against making even just basic navigation menus. nevermore…
pretty cool here in toronto, and rainy. thinking about moving to miami tomorrow.
thanks – Matt
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Hhah yeah I used to go up to Toronto all the time while I was in school in Buffalo. I’m in Tampa now and it is beautiful. Miami is a little too far south for me! Good luck with your projects!
Oh and just remember that Hollywood manufactures million upon millions of DVD’s every year with very complex menus and navigation and about 99.9% of them work fine in all players.
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the only kind of disc that could be troublesome on a handful of players would be one that has no menus- the simply jumps right into a movie. Some players reject this as invalid if there’s no menu. But that’s pretty rare.
Noah
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