Bill Stephan
Forum Replies Created
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Graeme,
Implementing a screen where you enter a pin number to access content is about as secure as the CSS copy protection is — there are many ways to bypass it. DVD Spec never had the ability to implement unbreakable locks.
FYI, by DVD Spec, stopping playback of a disc with the DVD player’s stop button terminates execution of all programming on the DVD and clears all memory registers in the player.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
I’ll bet the problem lies inside your DVD player, not the authoring software. Many Sony DVD players have a feature that remembers where playback stopped and stores that point for the next time the DVD is inserted. Then playback resumes exactly where it left off. To disable this behavior when stopping playback, you hit the stop button twice, then eject the DVD.
I have an old Pioneer DVD player that also has this feature. I’m not sure if any other brands do this.
Also check whether there is a menu setting in the player that controls storage of the last playback point.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
Set up a 12 frame dissolve on an edit in the timeline. Then, in the effect editor window, drag the purple effect icon at the top into a bin. Rename the effect in the bin so you know what it is. To use the effect, just drag it from the bin and drop on an edit in the timeline. This is a great method to deal with complicated effects that mmust be used multiple times.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
DVDSP and Scenarist both have the programming support to handle a task such as this. We would use Scenarist, as it’s easier to finesse the fine details of a complicated process in a spec-level authoring app.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
Difference or Exclusion blending modes will invert the colors and gray scale.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
Hi JC,
Not much out there on the Mac side, I’m afraid. I believe you can still download Adobe Encore, but that software is also E-O-L.
If you are an all-Mac house and you have expertise in DVDSP, I would seriously consider configuring one or more Mac workstations with OS-X 10.6, using these as dedicated DVD authoring workstations. There are enough people with DVDSP experience that you should be able to find answers to whatever issues you encounter.
There are more options on the PC side should you decide to go that route. We do editing and DVD production on both PCs and Macs, passing data between them all the time.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
We have had persistent problems moving media between Avid Media Composer/Symphony Nitris and Avid DVD using QT Reference files. I suggest using a normal QT file, which always works on our systems.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
Jerel,
If your MPEG-2 Blu-ray discs play successfully in your player, compatibility is most likely not the issue.
Our experience burning Blu-ray discs is that the H.264 codec works better than MPEG-2 — better compatibility plus better picture quality at same or lower bit rate.
We encode using either AME or Apple Compressor 3, 25-30Mb (subject to bit budgeting requirements), Main Concept H.264 codec. Audio should be Dolby .ac3 (same options as for DVD). Make sure Encore is set to “Do Not Transcode” for both audio & picture streams. It is important to use Main Concept H.264, as this is a spec-compliant codec that produces excellent image quality.
You should be able to build and burn a compatible BD-R disc inside Encore. Just be aware that some brands of Blu-ray players do not play burned BD-R discs at all. Check manufacturers’ web site for more info.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
Simple. Export a Quicktime file from After Effects and import that into Encore, same as you would if moving assets between non-Adobe apps.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
DVD Architect and all other DVD authoring software authors the DVD-Video format, which does not support audio-only assets.
You could make a still frame with the title of the music cut and then encode that into one of the reduced bitrate video formats supported by the DVD Spec. For example, if you have a 3:00 music cut, then encode a 3:00 MPEG-1 at 1.0-1.5Mb with your still graphic. This technique would allow 2-8 hours of content on a DVD, depending on the audio format chosen.
Your menus would be built same as on a conventional video DVD.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City