DVD authoring software

[Arky]

David, I appreciate the point you made in your original post, and you are, of course, correct that M-A is widespread in the Adult Entertainment Industry (indeed, the Adult Entertainment Industry may, arguably, have been quite a driving force in home video technologies), but I assure you, categorically, that I was NOT referring to ‘Adult’ films, in my own post, whatsoever. Multi-Angle has been used in a whole host of legitimate (non-XXX-rated) mainstream films, for various creative purposes, not least in attempts to mimic that Holy Grail of DVD authoring, Seamless Multi-Story (AKA ‘Seamless-Branching’).

For example, one means of achieving such mimicry is to place a Multi-Angle Interleave Block near the beginning of a Title VOB, such that one story (the ‘longer-duration version’) begins with a segment of non-interleaved content, then, shortly afterwards, enters a M-A segment, playing Angle 0, then exits and playback continues to the conclusion of the film, with no more M-A segments being encountered. The second story version skips the first non-interleaved cell, used by Story 1, and instead begins at the beginning of the Multi-Angle Block, at Angle 1, playing the appropriate alternative scene and then exiting and playing back the rest of the non-interleaved material in the Title, that is common to both stories (upon exiting Angle 1 of the Interleave Block, the player will automaticaly default playback to the only remaining Angle – Angle 0, without a significant glitch, if authored correctly). The Angles contained within that Multi-Angle segment, near the beginning of the Title, contain entirely different material and thus switching between the two Angles, during playback of either story version, is disabled in UOPs. Broadly-speaking, it can be seen that this implementation of ‘interspersed’ (‘Mixed-Angle’, in Spruce/Apple Parlance) Multi-Angle would hold little or no interest for a DVD author working in the Adult Entertainment Industry. In my above post, I was referring to entirely ‘legitimate’ use of M-A, right from the outset, so, no harm done, but in future, please refrain from misappropriating my comments and speak for yourself!

John.

[David Roth weiss]

John,

Characterizing your words as “shorthand” was an attempt at humor… You have so many words to spare, I figured you wouldn’t mind if I misappropriated a few.

Sorry if I offended you.

[Arky]

David, as I said, no harm done, I was just rather peeved, even though I understood it was meant humourously…

Regards,

John.

[David Roth weiss]

John,

I go through this stuff all the time with my British friends… I have to explain my jokes to them, and they are very intelligent people. It can be very frustrating for a would-be comedian… Sometimes I wonder how you guys came up with Monty Python???

[Arky]

Therein lies the problem – If Monty Python only ever released their sketches and filmscripts in text form (I think that method used to be referred to as ‘books’..), then they would surely have had their fans (as does Larson, another of my all-time favourites), but nothing like the millions who ‘grasp’ the decidedly-unorthodox Python humour by virtue of the vocal intonations and facial expressions given life by the medium of film. The Parrot sketch is a prime example of this – without Cleese’s outrageous gesticulation and outlandishly-indignant vocal performance, much of the hilarity would be lost.

Text is wonderful, and has stood the test of time, but when it comes to humour (particularly sarcasm), it’s often woefully inadequate unless one is a master wordsmith (which, incidentally, I would never, personally, claim to be).

“..and now for something comPLETEly different…” – isn’t this a DVD authoring forum?

John.

[Alan Teo]

thanks for all the replies… since i am using windows platform, I think i will check out Sonic Scenarist. 🙂

[Wts(jmanz)]

You do realize that the cost of Scenarist software alone (for what you want to do) is several thousands more than DVDSP AND a Mac to run it on?

Jim

[Bob Cole]

[David Roth Weiss] “Get the picture??? “

And I thought you were into making political films.

[Harold]

hi john,

another example of seamless multi-angle being used for non-‘adult’ purposes is advertising. what a nice way to display your product from several angles, no? bmw released a dvd a while back that allowed the user to switch between angles while watching footage of various cars.

also a company called mx entertainment–of which i am sure you have heard–has been exploiting the same features slightly differently to produce semi-interactive concert dvds.

i am however, curious about what interesting uses people have found for non-seamless multi-angle. i imagine it is might be more effective for trying to do fake seamless multi-story.

cheers,
h

[Eric Pautsch]

I’m using the feature right now for a Surf DVD. Ive got a camera on the nose, the tail, in the water and 1 on the shore. I also have a multi cam shot with all 4. Its a cool effect.

Ive also seen some medical training DVDs of a surgery with multi angles.