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Profile of a DVD edit suite
Article by Doug Braddock 8/8/6
Last week I assisted a client by researching and setting up an edit system that uses DVD technology right through the post process. I was very impressed by the capabilities that were possible, for a very low price tag. I'm predicting that in the next few years many of our higher-end edit suites will end up following the lead of this humble system in a number of ways.
The requirement
• My client purchased a reasonable quality DVD handicam (one that records directly to small DVDs rather than to tape).
• He wanted to be able to edit his footage, combine footage from a number of disks, add titles, and repackage the result with a professional front menu onto a DVD end result. He then wanted to make limited numbers of copies for distribution.
• I've experienced the many hours of import and export re-rendering that can be involved in getting the timeline from an Avid or Final Cut Pro back into a DVD authoring programme, and I wanted to find a system that worked efficiently, directly with DVD mpeg files, without re-rendering. I'm glad to say I found one.
The workflow
• Footage shot on DVD handicam. (DVD-RW disks in this case, though the system would work just as well with DVD+R systems). Disks finalised as DVD-Video disks that could be played directly on (most) conventional DVD players. A downside – my client used a handicam, at this stage I'm not aware of any professional or semi-professional cameras that record to DVD Things like decent lenses, good manual over-rides for focus, iris, shutter, proper XLR audio inputs, and settable starting timecode, would all be very welcome.
• Footage copied onto laptop computer using a free software utility* that combines the multiple 1GB files making up each DVD title into a single file on the destination hard drive, making subsequent editing easier. This process took about 6 minutes per disk. As each disk contained about 75 minutes of footage, that's a lot fast than digitising off DV tape!
• Footage edited in an editing application* designed specifically to work efficiently with DVD mpeg files. Cost of the application under $350NZ. Playback, scrubbing, and editing are easy. Timeline functions are familiar. Viewing is possible in the edit window, or full screen at the press of a key. Adding titles is easy (and transitions, audio levels adjustments, fades etc).
• The editing package has a DVD authoring module enabling menu creation, chapter adding, and various processing options. Most helpfully – it indicates which parts of the stream will need reencoding (for the production I tested, 98% didn't need encoding, it was only the areas where transitions and titles were added). ‘Encoding' – which was really more a process of copying the source material directly into a new DVD image takes about 10 minutes (for a 70minute master).
• Using a DVD burner programme that came packaged with the laptop, the final master DVD image is now copied to the laptop's DVD drive (and additional copies made subsequently). About 6 or 7 minutes per output.
*The software programmes involved are available on the web, though difficult to find. You can source or purchase directly on the internet – ring me and I'll be happy to give you the details.
Things that impressed me and musings on the future of edit systems
• High speed ingest. XDCAM and P2 offer this, but in the suites I've worked in there are still some rough edges (on Avid for example you don't have all functions available unless you own an Adrenaline, and even then I believe there are still issues.).
• The shooting format was the same as the editing format, no transcoding was necessary. (To get high speed ingest off XDCAM or P2 the equivalent would be necessary. If you shot in IMX50 you'd need to edit that way, editing in OMF 2:1 resolution would require that all footage be transcoded, potentially taking so long as to negate all the advantages of the high-speed ingest).
• It wasn't necessary to invest $20K in a VTR (or disk player system) to digitise from. In fact I think the DVD writer in the laptop was worth <$200. Equally the source footage (DVD) could be viewed on most computers or on most user's TV sets with existing equipment, that's something you can't do with digital betacam, XDCAM (except after proxy transfer), or even DV.
• Good quality pictures. Though not digital betacam quality, the higher quality DVD settings available in the camera certainly vie for position against mini DV.
• Editing software that could do all the main functions, reliably, quickly, even on a lowly spec'd 1.6GB laptop. (However you would have to choose the right kind of productions to edit this way – there are only a couple of video and audio tracks available, you'd need to use a ‘more senior' edit system if you want to use ganged clips, sophisticated keying, multi layered effects, or exotic plug-ins etc).
• Stock costing <$1 per unit is cheaper than DV and cheaper even than VHS. (However the handicam manufacturers do charge a premium for their small 8cm disks – a bit unfair it seems to me as you're paying more to get less!).
• DVD mastering was possible without transcoding or rendering.
• Output and duplication was possible to the same cheap DVD drive, and output was many times faster than real time. (I look forward to the day when XDCAM will be available as a DVD/CD internal drive equivalent that can be fitted inside your computer – and hopefully at a comparable price!).
The answer for real-time DVD recorders?
I've worked in a number of facilities where real-time DVD recording has become preferable over making VHS dubbs. The ease of pressing record and then dubbing at play speed, just like other tape formats, is greatly appreciated – versus the time and effort involved in digitising into a capture system, transcoding, and mastering to DVD. For many kinds of dubbs a real-time DVD recorder is fine. But for some projects you need more professional-looking menus than can be added on a real-time recorder, and things like 16:9 identification are not an option.
Using a system like I've described here may be the missing link. A real-time recorder can still be used (I would recommend a component input to keep the quality up – talk to us about arranging this if you'd like to). Once finalised this real-time disk could be ripped into a system such as the one described above, further titling / menus added, and then mastered back out (once, or multiple times as required), all much faster than real time.
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