making dvd

[miker]

do NOT get DVD-RAM

ALERT!

DO NOT GET DVD-RAM

seems to me that of all the formats

DVD-RAM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW

that DVD-R is currently winning through with compatibility with set-top players (all the DVD pirates I know use DVD-R) and low prices (~70p for 1x media)

I think this may be due, in part, to Apple's Superdrive being a rebadged Pioneer A0something.

As for the war - we are film makers, dammit.

Although it is polluting this thread a little, I think it's important for filmmakers (of any integrity) to be opinionated. Else, how will you be passionate enough about anything to make a great statement about something?

Of course Saddam deserves a good kicking. That's what the fortnightly bombing sorties over Iraq for the last 12 years has been doing, plus the sanctions.

But do I consider a 'pre-emptive' strike against Iraq to be a just war, a cause worth dying for? No way! I'm as yellow as Bush during his National Service on that one!

You could do a lot worse than catch the 'Holidays in the Axis of Evil' series on freetoview in the UK. Or go watch Bowling for Columbine.

See, I made a link to films!

[Alex]

I think the best solution is to put both Bush and Hussein on an island for a week. Let them settle their differences that way. (they made a movie with this idea a few decades ago, I forgot what it was called).

Yes, machead, Hollywood features do look good significantly better on DVD than on VHS, but that comes with a heavy price, yet it is a price that works out to be so radically inexpensive because they sell hundreds of thousands of copies of their DVD's.

When Hollywood makes a DVD, each frame of the entire movie meticulously analyzed by a DVD technician magician who determines the minimum amount of pixels that individual frame needs to still look beautiful.

An example of this is the same blue sky codec/pixels are used over and to help save memory.

Many that do low cost authoring buy programs that mimic what Hollywood does, but they are more automated, so they don't work as well as individually allocating pixels on a per frame basis.

The following is second hand information told to me by a producer. I don't remember the exact running times, but I will go from my memory for purposes of explaining the following.

If your feature film is authored the low-budget way via DVD authoring software...there are settings you choose from.

If your movie is under 75 minutes, you can do quality level 5 (the best quality). If your movie is between 75 minutes and 1 hour 45 minutes, you can do quality 4 (still considered good) If your movie is over 1 hour and 45 minutes, you have to do quality level 3, and the quality drops off significantly.

I don't know if those are the exact numbers...but you get the idea. This if for NTSC, it may be different for PAL.

If you want to break the shackles of these DVD limitations, as Hollywood is apt to do, you would spend $50,000, to a $1,000,000 (I don't know how much) but you would spend a jillion dollars and you get quality 5 even if your movie is 2 hours long.

So DVD authoring is not created equal, it's all about how well you can strategically eliminate unnecessary/redundant visual information without messing up the picture.

DVD = Chenga.

Only for Hollywood Changa = Cha ching, so they spend a lot more on authoring than we would ever dare. Even if we started with a movie that looked as good as a hollywood movie, our DVD's won't look as good, especially the longer the movie actually is.

[machead]

I use iDVD, I have no control over the quality settings and am very satisfied with the results. If I was disatisfied (which I'm not) with the results I'd tried Toast Titanium (which I have) to encode and author a DVD's.

Miker's right DVD-R are the way forward although I get mine for 40p a Disc. I also have no compatability issues, they work on all DVD players that I've tried (I've tried alot!)

I think we should impose economic sanctions on IRAQ and starve the population ( but maybe we've been doing that for the last 10 years )

[Alex]

What is the range of the running times that you have DVD'd MAChead?

[machead]

How come feature films look great on VHS?

because you've never watched it on DVD

[machead]

I can get an hour onto a DVD. Can't remember how long encoding takes (roughly about 2-3hours for an hour of footage)

It burns in real time. I only need to make a few copies, so this is not an issue. If I needed a large quantity I'd farm that work out.

[miker]

hey machead, do you have to bulk-buy to get 40p per disc?

where do you get them from?

etc.. ?

[machead]

Miker from here
http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk

I was paying ?4.24 + VAT for 10 disc (ICE White top (GENERATION 3) 4.7 Gb DVD-R - No Case).


Unfortunately they do not appear on the web site any more(got the info from an old invoice), I think they're x1 media, un-branded/ pure white finish (but look cool) and work in all DVD players I've tried.

[Alex]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by machead:
I can get an hour onto a DVD. </font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

That is in line with what I posted before.

It's when your film goes over a certain length, either 75, 90 minutes, or 105 minutes, that the DVD will turn into a mess unless you get a really high-end encoding made.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 01, 2003 12:29 AM: Message edited by: Super-8mm in the DigitalAge ]</font>

[Vlad the Impaler]

only 1 hour on a dvd?! what!?