Lucas Fazzary
Forum Replies Created
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Scenarist is good if you have $30,000 and plenty of time to learn. Try Netblenders DoStudio BDA. Easy to learn and priced on a monthly basis. Creates a fully compliant CMF for replication. Easy to learn and they provide a 30-day demo along with sample menus and HD footage.
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Yes just about every SD-DVD can be copied. However there are other copy protections out there that are very difficult to copy. Hackers will find a way to remove the protection but for the casual user it makes it near impossible to rip. I am actually doing a test this week for a new DVD-Video protection on a DVD-9. So far what I’ve found on another DVD-Video copy protection is that it could not be copied/ripped.
Oh you don’t have to rent a DLT machine. Just output to DDP 2.0 and either burn to a DVD-R or place on an external HD to submit to the replicator. That is of course if you are using a DVD authoring program that can output to DDP.
-luke
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Honestly, If the replicator found a problem on their equipment that they didn’t catch then yes it is the replicators fault. They are responsible for making sure the masters submitted meet Part 1 and Part 2 or the DVD specifications. If their equipment failed to generate an error pertaining to these parts of the spec then they should be liable. It may not have been the equipment either. Saying their equipment didn’t find the problem can also be lingo for “the Premastering Engineer didn’t catch it”. Definately their fault.
One process that we do is a bit-to-bit verify from the original DVD-R/DLT/DDP master to various replicate samples throughout the run. This ensures that what you sent in is exactly what you are getting. Also their should be physical tests throughout the run as well. If they aren’t doing these things then find another replicator.
Now if you send in a master and you accidentally set your menu to Pan and Scan instead of widescreen and it goes all the way through the process then it is your fault. Those types of errors are in part 3 of the DVD spec. Basically part 3 of the spec is everything you should check before sending it to the replicator. Trust me I still get masters from DVD authors with their DVD master on a CD-R (just happened today, from a big client).
So to answers your question I think if you are going tho have a waiver of a sort then I would waive your responsibility to Parts 1&2 of the DVD spec (replicator responsibility). If the DVD plays fine in all players but a button link doesn’t work its all on you. Programming of the DVD or the video/audio quality will never change once you send in your master. Unless the PM engineer makes unauthorized changes. Which I hope NEVER happens.
Hope that helps.
-luke
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If you use TMPGENC you can do audio only encode from the AVI. Probably your best bet. I am not sure but I think TMP has a full 30-day eval you could use. I’ve owned it since back in 2003 and up until we got Scenarist I used it for a lot of AC3 encoding. Matter of fact you may get better encoding of your video using TMPGENC then with Encore or your video editing app.
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Just be sure what ever you use to transcode to AC3 (especially free programs) that it does in fact produce a compliant AC3 stream. I have had clients in the past use free programs online that will transcode to AC3 and even import into the authoring app but would when played back on some players there would be no sound. And trust me it was a pain trying to figure that one out.
Good program to use is TMPGENC and it is relatively cheap.
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You should have a .WAV file. In Encore just right click on the audio asset(WAV file) and choose transcode settings. Now I believe you have to buy the Ac3 plugin to transcode to Dolby but you can choose “Don’t Transcode” to keep it uncompressed PCM audio. So long as you didn’t encode your video to high (should stay below 7mbps to be safe) you should be all good.
-l
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They are correct. Mpeg audio is not part of the DVD spec for NTSC DVD’s (PAL is OK). This will have problems not just on old DVD players but new ones as well. And when I say problems I mean some wont even play the DVD. So- *this is very serious*. If you still have the project just transcode the Audio to AC3 and re-output.
If you dont have the original files then you will need to demux the DVD and reauthor. Just search the Cow for demuxing/reauthoring.
Hope that helps
-l
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I wouldn’t trust the simulator. What DVD program are you trying to play this with? I know some will highlight when rollover and some will not. Try another software player. If it works fine on a set top player then most likely it’s you software player. Every software player has kooky kooks to them. Thats why I don’t trust them when testing a DVD. It may be as simple as a setting in the program but most likely you will find different results with each software player you use.
-Luke
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Yeah I think you are having drive issues.
I definitely think Plextor is the way to go. Thats all we use to burn masters and for our duplicators. They are a little pricey but worth it. But like all drives out there if they get used enough they can go bad.
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Hmm, our duplicators are setup to copy the original to hard drive and then burn and verify from that. I didn’t think the LED on the drive itself would show any sort of verification error, but I could be wrong. The duplicators software should be setup to verify 100% and during that stage the error should be more precise.
Have you tried burning the master using a different drive? We have about 15 plextor drives and a few of them cannot burn anymore. They produce a dark circular band on the bottom of the DVD-R which is full of unreadable sectors and thus cannot verify. However they all will play fine on our settop DVD players. Still NOT good though.
Oh and they have to verify from the original master/image. If they don’t there is no verification.
As far as the burn area on the bottom of the DVD is concerned, I think that has to do with how different drives write the lead-in and lead-out as well as the padding packs. I have made copies before and the burn area is half the size of the original yet it verifies fine within our Eclipse premastering system (which does a bit-to-bit comparison.
First thing I would do is burn a new master with a different drive. Other than that see if they will accept an image file and they can produce the copies from that or at least create a new master for you. That way you can send the image on a hard drive or FTP. this eliminates any sort of problem you will have in the burning process.
Oh also you can also download a program called “Beyond Compare” it does a great job at comparing files from one source to another. That way you can see if some of the information is being changed before you send to your dupehouse.
I hope this helps.
-Luke