Delivering
HD Discs: Roxio DVDit Pro HD
by
Douglas Dixon (www.manifest-tech.com)
Getting to Blue
MyDVD 9
DVDit Pro HD
Authoring
Customization
Burning
Blue and Beyond
References
Roxio is Introducing NEW DVDit Pro HD. Studio-Caliber DVD and Blu-ray Disc Authoring for Video Professionals
We can
shoot HD with today's pro and even
consumer camcorders. And we can edit HD,
as video editing tools have stepped up
to the higher resolutions and new
formats. But we still can't quite
deliver the final production effectively
-- as the ease of burning a DVD is still
not quite there for high-definition
discs.
The first
generation of tools for next-gen DVD can
at least dump video to disc, and now the
next generation, with Roxio DVDit Pro
HD, can author Blu-ray discs with
the full compliment of DVD menus and
navigation (www.roxio.com).
What we
want is pretty clear from the new
high-definition DVD formats is pretty
clear: at least the same kind of
functionality and workflow as we're used
to with DVD -- authoring to disc on a
PC, then sharing and playing back on a
set-top player.
But
unfortunately this was not the focus of
the Blu-ray Disc (BD,
www.blu-raydisc.com) and HD DVD
(www.hddvdprg.com)
camps as they brought their competing
blue-laser formats to market. Instead,
they were focused on playback of
store-bought movies, with set-top
players first to market (but not
recorders), and limited desktop burners
just starting to come into the market.
In
addition, the actual disc formats are
complicated, although they do support
more limited modes designed for set-top
recorders (called BDAV for Blu-ray).
These are designed for recording video
clips to disc, without menus or fancy
DVD interfaces. The first high-def DVD
authoring tools use these modes,
including CyberLink, InterVideo/Ulead,
and Roxio MyDVD.
More
DVD-like menu navigation then requires
more sophisticated authoring tools,
accessing Blu-ray's HDMV (Movie) mode,
or beyond to more advanced interactivity
with Blu-ray's BD-J Java mode and HD
DVD's iHD interactive mode.
Roxio DVDit Pro HD
is the first tool to offer full-up DVD
authoring for Blu-ray discs. (Roxio
implemented Blu-ray first because
burners for the format were available
first.) Meanwhile, Pinnacle has released
a HD DVD Authoring Pack for Pinnacle
Studio that authors to HD DVD format
with DVD menus (www.pinnaclesys.com).
But what
if you don't have a burner? After all,
just like the experience with the dawn
of DVD, the first burners are slower,
only support single-layer discs, and may
have other limitations. In DVD
authoring, we solved this problem in two
ways: We could author to disc folders on
hard disk, which allowed testing and
demoing without the cost of burning
expensive discs. And we could burn
shorter productions to older formats
(like Video CD), which could be shared
with the much larger installed base of
legacy machines.
For the
high-def formats, we'd like the same
options: authoring to hard disk to
experiment with the format, and burning
high-def format data to standard DVD, to
at least allow sharing short productions
to demonstrate the possibilities and
potential of the new formats.
Unfortunately, again, this has not been
the focus of the two competing camps.
The HD DVD specification does provide
for an HD DVD-on-DVD format, which
explains why the Pinnacle HD DVD
Authoring Pack would be useful even
without available burners. But
unfortunately the Blu-ray specification
is only belatedly adding this support,
and apparently just adding support even
for playing recorded discs in HDMV
format with menus.
In
addition, much like the early days of
DVD, some of the early authoring tools
do not support authoring to hard disk
folders -- and even if they did, some of
the early software players do not
support playback from hard disk.
Yes,
playback is another problem -- again,
the early burners and their bundled
software were focused first on data
recording (to take advantage of the
larger disc capacity), and then added
basic video recording. As a result, the
Blu-ray and HD DVD software players did
not necessarily support playback of
commercial movie titles, unless the PC
system and video display conformed to
the Hollywood content-protection
requirements, including an HDMI
interface to a digital video display.
The newer software recognizes that it's
legal to play personal content, and even
to play commercial content at least by
shrinking the HD content to standard DVD
resolution.
And
set-top players have the reverse
problems, with varying support for
playing recordable discs, and for video
vs. movie modes.
The bottom
line to all this: As you plan to move to
a high-def DVD authoring workflow, check
the hardware and software components
carefully to make sure they really do
give you at least DVD-like capabilities
from end to end.
Sonic
Solutions has refocused its consumer /
prosumer / corporate DVD authoring
software under the Roxio brand, with
Roxio MyDVD 9 as the entry level
authoring tool. MyDVD is designed for
automated drag-and-drop DVD creation:
import clips from camcorders, work with
both standard and high-definition,
automatically generate clip and chapter
menus, plus create slideshows with
transitions and music.
The base
Roxio MyDVD 9 Studio is US $49.99
(download), or step up to MyDVD 9 Studio
Premier for $69.99 with basic Blu-ray
burning (without menus). Roxio also has
rolled MyDVD into its flagship Easy
Media Creator 9 Suite for $79.99, with
video, audio, and image editing, data
disc burning, and more.
While
MyDVD is focused on automating the
authoring process -- for example by
automatically laying out linked menus --
DVDit opens up your DVD project for
extensive customization of both the look
(menu editing) and the navigation
(timeline editing). And yet it has a
clean interface that still retains
drag-and-drop simplicity for putting
together a project, applying menu styles
and adding and linking buttons.
The base
Roxio DVDit 6 Pro is $299.99,
with support for up to 8 audio and 32
subtitle tracks, plus Dolby Digital
stereo encoding (plus pass-thorough
support for 5.1 surround sound).
But we're
interested in the full Roxio DVDit
Pro HD for $499.99, which allows you
to author a project at full HD
resolution, and then deliver the result
as fullscren or widescreen, standard DVD
and/or Blu-ray. It's all the same old
DVD authoring stuff that you may
remember from the previous version,
except that you can now author menus
with full HD widescreen content, and it
outputs to Blu-ray format. Oh, and a
couple more useful things, including 3:2
pulldown support, exact frame-accurate
chapter placement, and Blu-ray mastering
capability so that you even can deliver
your productions to be manufactured.
So let's
step quickly thorough the DVDit
authoring process, and highlight the new
capabilities for Blu-ray authoring.
DVDit has
a clean interface design, with the main
Project window at the top left to
organize your project's components:
Menus, Titles (individual clips and
slideshows), and Playlists (linked
chains of clips).
DVDit Pro HD Project
Chapter menu in Preview window
Menu thumbnails in Project
window at left
Menu templates in Palette window
at top right
Timeline at bottom
Menu display Attributes at
bottom right
Then use
the Palette window at the top right to
access the elements used to build your
disc: Templates (for menus), Images
(stills and menu backgrounds), Media
(video and audio files), Buttons
(designs), and Frames (used around
thumbnail images of clips).
Both the
Project and Palette windows offer the
handy option to view the contents as
thumbnails, or as a hierarchical list
with details about each element.
To start
working on your project, import the
media clips that you want to use into
the Palette window -- video, audio, and
images. DVDit can import in most common
formats, including HDV, AVI, Windows
Media, QuickTime, MPEG-1,-2,-4, and
Dolby Digital AC3. It examines the files
when they are imported and warns if they
will require transcoding
(re-compression) to DVD and/or Blu-ray
format.
From there
the basic design of a disc is all drag
and drop editing in the top center
Preview window. You assemble the menus
by dragging a template design, adding
button graphics, and dragging titles to
create links. The Menu tab also includes
design tools to add title text and help
with layout and alignment.
And for
each video title, use the Timeline
window at bottom left to add multiple
audio and subtitle tracks, and to set
chapter points within the clip. Then
preview the results in the Title tab of
the Preview window.
DVDit Pro HD -- Menu editing
Title video in Preview window
Menu hierarchy in Project
window at left
Media listing in Palette
window at top right
Timeline at bottom with
multiple audio and subtitle tracks
Movie Attributes at bottom
right
As you
work, the elements of your project are
added to the main Project window, so
it's easy to review them, and jump back
and forth as you work on related items.
Ta-da:
Fast DVD authoring with straightforward
drag and drop editing. Albeit not quite
as automated as MyDVD: you do need to
manually lay out buttons on menus and
link together a chain of multiple menus.
DVDit does include a handy slideshow
generation tool, with up to 999
high-resolution images, transitions and
music.
While you
can do straightforward DVD authoring
with DVDit, the real power comes from
going further to customize your disc's
appearance and navigation, using the
options in the Attributes window at the
bottom left.
You can
build menus from the templates, or from
scratch using your own backgrounds,
buttons, and other elements, or
customize your own designs and import
from Photoshop (including navigational
buttons). You then can tweak the look of
menus with color effects, and buttons
with text, drop shadows, opacity, and
color effects.
DVDit Pro HD -- Menu editing
Chapter menu in Preview window
Menu hierarchy in Project
window at left
Button objects in Palette
window at top right
Button / link Attributes at
bottom right
For each
menu, you can control whether the
background is a still image or a video,
whether it is displayed forever,
displays for a specific length of time,
loops, or times out.
For the
buttons on each menu, you can set the
default button that is selected when the
user jumps to the menu, and the order in
which the buttons routed as the user
presses Up/Down and Left/Right on the
remote. You also can set buttons to
auto-activate, so, for example, the user
only needs to press Left or Right on the
remote and the disc will immediately
jump to the previous or next menu.
You even
can control the way buttons are
highlighted with what are called
subpictures, filled or outlined, shapes
or rectangles, and selected from
different sets of highlight colors.
Edit Slideshows
For global
disc navigation, you can set Remote
Actions -- the action to be performed
when the user presses the Menu or Title
buttons on the DVD remote control during
video playback -- both as defaults for
the disc (i.e., jump back to the main
menu), and individually for each title
clip (i.e., jump back to a sub-menu
within a logical section of the disc).
For each
navigation link, you can set not only
the link target (menu, title clip,
slideshow, or playlist), but also
specify the specific audio and subtitle
track to be displayed (i.e., for
choosing alternate languages).
You also
can control and override the
navigational flow between menus and
titles by setting End Actions to specify
where navigation flows when playback
reaches the end of a title or a (timed)
menu. You can use this approach to have
a disc play unattended if no user makes
a selection. Even better, when you link
from a menu, you can override the
default end action that was set for the
destination to instead have it return to
the starting menu. This allows you to
set up alternate paths through a disc,
so one menu plays through a long
sequence, and another just plays
individual clips and then returns.
With these
controls you can really do imaginative
things, including self-playing discs,
game discs with unlock codes, menus with
video transitions, and multi-access
discs that remix their content with
different menu access and playlist
orders.
Once
you're done designing your DVD, use
DVDit's Simulation tool to preview the
playback, checking the visual look,
navigation links, and details like
button highlights. Even better, you can
preview as you are working by simulating
from a selected point within the disc
structure.
Then it's
time to compress the video and audio
assets, build the DVD format, and burn
to disc. DVDit provides a general
control over compression quality, traded
off against the speed of transcoding. Or
you can dig into the Project Settings to
explicitly control the video and audio
compression and bit rate. For HD content
on Blu-ray, DVDit supports 1280x720p, as
well as full 1940x1080i and 1940x1080p.
It also supports Blu-ray discs with
mixed aspect ratio, resolution (SD and
HD), and frame rates.
How much
HD video can you fit on a single-layer
(25 GB) Blu-ray disc? Roxio estimates
that a disc with 720p assets at a 15
mbps bit rate can hold up to 2.5 hours
of HD content, and a disc with 1080p
assets at 24 mbps can fit around 90
minutes.
DVDit
currently can compress HD MPEG-2 video
at up to 40 Mbps, and audio in Dolby
Digital at up to 640 kbs and
uncompressed PCM. (Roxio notes that AVC
MPEG-4 and VC-1 Windows Media Video are
"not yet" supported.)
Then you
can burn your DVD direct to Disc, or to
a Volume on hard disk to preview and
test, or to a Disc Image on hard disk to
archive. If you save on hard disk first,
DVDit can then burn to a disc from the
Volume or Disk Image. Before you burn,
DVDit does warn you if there are
problems with your disc design such as
missing links or overlapping buttons.
DVDit Pro HD -- Standard- or
High-Definition encoding settings
It's then
only at burn time that you need specify
whether you want to create a standard
DVD or a Blu-ray disc. DVDit will
rescale the menu graphics, video, and
images as needed for the destination
format -- so you can author once in
high-def, and then burn the same project
both in full HD to Blu-ray and in
standard def to a DVD.
If you
don't have a Blu-ray burner, then you
can write to a Volume on hard disk and
play from there (i.e., with updated
player software from CyberLink or
InterVideo). DVDit also can burn in
Blu-ray format to a standard DVD disc,
but don't expect it to be playable right
now in set-top Blu-ray players (or even
with DVD player software). But at least
these options give you ways to
experiment with Blu-ray and even
transport short productions between PC
systems.
As with
its advanced design and navigation
features, DVDit goes beyond just burning
to support professional mastering
services so you can deliver your project
on tape to a replication factory to
manufacture discs. DVDit supports the
appropriate delivery formats for DVD
(DLT) and Blu-ray Disc (CMF) mastering,
including dual-layer discs. And you can
specify content protection features
(with appropriate licenses) including
region coding, Macrovision and CSS for
DVD, and AACS for Blu-ray.
Roxio
DVDit Pro HD is the beginning of the
next generation of DVD authoring, with
advanced DVD design and navigation
features for both standard DVD and
high-def Blu-ray content. In addition to
this customization, it goes beyond
entry-level tools with alternate audio
and subtitle tracks, and support for
mastering discs for manufacturing. And
with the new profusion of video formats,
resolutions, and aspect ratios, DVDit
can handle mixed collections of content,
and repurpose then as needed to either
DVD or Blu-ray.
DVDit is
designed for a wide range of audiences,
including the enthusiast who wants to go
beyond automated DVD creation, the
corporate user who needs a customized
look and the ability to provide
alternate uses for a collection of
material, and videographers who not only
want complete control of their discs,
but also the ability to create discs for
manufacturing.
The Blu-ray
support is a welcome first step in
authoring HD presentations with DVD
menus and functions. However, the Blu-ray
format currently has nowhere near the
ubiquitous playability we are used to
from DVD, so be careful to manage
expectations about how it can be used.
Expect to see similar support in
authoring tools for the HD DVD format as
burners become available, as well as
developing support for AVC and VC-1
video compression (to squeeze more
content on discs than with MPEG-2).
Then, as the professionals get more
experience with advanced HD authoring
with fully customizable interactivity
(such as menus that pop up over playing
video), we can hope to see these trickle
down to more affordable tools as well.
Meanwhile,
you can get started with DVDit Pro HD,
and begin to design HD discs to showcase
and share your HD content.
Roxio is Introducing NEW DVDit Pro HD. Studio-Caliber DVD and Blu-ray Disc Authoring for Video Professionals
Roxio - DVDit Pro HD,
MyDVD
www.roxio.com
Sonic - High Definition
www.sonic.com/HD
Pinnacle Studio
www.pinnaclesys.com
Blu-ray Disc (BD)
www.blu-raydisc.com
HD DVD
www.hddvdprg.com
Originally
published in Camcorder & Computer Video
magazine, 23, 2, April 2007.
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Copyright 1999-2007,
Douglas Dixon, All Rights Reserved
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