* Up to 8 channels of 48 kHz; up to 4 channels of 96 kHz
** Regional Audio Formats:
For NTSC countries and discs, PCM and Dolby Digital may be used with MPEG audio as an option.
For PAL countries, PCM and MPEG audio may be used with Dolby Digital as an option.
Video/Audio Premastering
The process of taking video and audio assets and turning them into a final DVD disc image is called DVD premastering. DVD Premastering can be broken down into: project planning; bit budgeting; video asset capture; audio asset capture; authoring; proofing; and formatting. Each of these steps relies upon the others for complete DVD production.
Project Planning: Defining the scope and basic structure of the project. It can range from a simple movie with limited activity to a mulit-angle, multi-story adventure game. The information that you provide us helps determine the level of interactivity of your project.
How interactive is your project? If it is a simple, straightforward, linear play title, a simple flowchart can be made to represent the Title and Root menus (These menu structures will be discussed in another area). If your project is highly interactive, such as a video game, a detailed template must be made.
How many languages are required? Multi-languages may be placed along with the video.
They may also be represented as subtitles or different menu structures can be generated for each language. More resources must be generated to manage multi-language projects.
Asset Management:All source assets must be complied. Source assets may include the following: Digital or Analog Movie Source Tapes; English surround source; Spanish stereo source; French stereo source; .TIF graphics files for every menu in each language (average about 20 files); and bitmapped files for each subtitle graphic (approx. 1500 subtitles per movie per language).
Bit Budgeting: The management of the total source files so that your project can be stored on one side of a DVD master. This would include determining the average bit rate per second for your combined files.
Video Asset Capture and Compression: Highest quality variable bit rate or constant bit rate encoders are used for MPEG-2 video compression. The specific encoding bit rate will be determined according to the bit budget and project management requirements. The video compression stream includes Time Code Stamps as well as I-frame insertion at navigational points.
Audio Asset Capture and Compression: Because Dolby Digital is designated as the compressed audio format for NTSC DVD Players, content providers must be able to prepare multiple language mixes, either in stereo or in combination with surround. A typical mix might include a single 5.1 surround sound track with two or three Dolby Digital stereo language dubbed versions and perhaps a single stereo PCM version. Eight track professional audio encoding systems enable the sources to be transfered in real time in PCM, Dolby Digital or MPEG audio formats.
Subtitle Streams
As covered previously, bitmapped files must be provided for each subtitle graphic in each language. (approx. 1500 subtitles per movie per language).
Movies and Chapters
A DVD Video can have up to 99 Movies and each movie can have up to 99 chapters. A simple movie could have one movie and 12 chapters. Movie and chapter points within a DVD Video can be found using navagation menus, which will be discussed later.
Timed Stills and Slide Shows
DVD allows the capture of single frames of video to be used as menu backgrounds or still
images for still shows and slide shows. A still show is a sequence of video images that can be advance manually by the user. A slide show is a fully animated series of stills. Still images can have audio, even full surround sound associated with them. Stills can be video captures or created graphically. They are typically .TIF files at 720 x 480 pixels.
Camera Angles
Up to nine angles of the same scene can be placed in the DVD format. Users can have different points of view for sporting events, music videos, and movies. Users can select different camera angles using the DVD remote control shown below.
Parental Control
DVD is the first video format that can actively change the content based on movie rating. When a DVD is placed into a player, the rating level of the movie is mapped against the rating levels set in the player. A DVD player set to only play PG movies will automatically switch to a PG version of the movie. If an R-rated DVD does not have a PG variation of the movie, the player will not play the movie.
Regional Coding
The movie industry often selects different release dates for a film to be shown
in different regions of the world. Therefore, the DVD specification divides the world into six regions.
Each DVD player is hardware-coded for a single region and every DVD title is coded for one or more regions.
Copy Protection
With the contribution of the cross-industry Copy Protection Technical Working Group (CPTWG), several methods of asset protection were included in the DVD format. The protection is both analog and digital. Macrovision is used to protect against copying the analog video output to a VHS deck, and an encryption scheme is used to scramble the digital data streams. Encrypted data can only be decrypted with a hardware chip in the DVD player or through specially-designed software for PC-based DVD encoding.
Navigation Menus
Navigation menus are full frame color images that allow the user to navigate their way through your DVD presentation. These menu images can be stills, motion video, or animations with user button overlays. Below are some examples of navigation menus that would be full-sized .TIFs at 720 x 480 pixels.
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