Where Worlds Collide

DVD authoring programs have moved from dedicated suites tomulti-function desktops, and in the process they’ve become morepowerful. Sonic’s new DVD Producer brings the capability to editfinished authoring projects over to its professional line.

When filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard said that making a good movie wasone-third getting video right, one-third getting audio right, andone-third getting them to work together, was he talking aboutintegration?

Is integration that certain je ne sais quoi that bringseverything together and separates the brilliant from the mediocre? Ordoes integration simply consist of the more mundane but essential tasksof connecting BNC and XLR cables to the right jacks, eliminatingelectrical hum, and building patch panels?

For Video Systems, integration means more than simplyconnecting devices. It's also understanding the options that newtechnologies offer, both for operating efficiency and distributingfinished work. Delivering a finished master is no longer an automaticprint to Betacam SP and VHS window dub. Today, deliverables can be atape, a DVD, or a bit stream, depending on the customer and audience.Understanding the integration options requires an ongoing commitment tostaying current. But this commitment also avails video professionals ofmore possibilities.

While DVD-Video discs represent an alternative distribution methodfor video, the authoring process of creating disc images that will playin consumer DVD players has always been prohibitively tedious,expensive, and time-consuming. What's more, the format has met an onlyslightly warmer reception in corporate and industrial markets than theVideo CD and CDi formats that came before. The only unqualified successfor DVD authors has been Hollywood, where DVD is now the preferredmedium for distribution of movie titles. Even with all those movies,only a limited number of authors and systems stay at work.

But now, several applications — including Apple's DVD StudioPro, Pinnacle's Impression, Sonic's Reel DVD, and Ulead's DVD Workshop— make the process of authoring relatively uncomplicated DVDtitles very simple.

And “easier” is essential to attracting videoprofessionals to DVD, especially when the alternative — printingto tape — is second nature. But it's only one trend among manythat should yield tighter integration between DVD authoring and therest of the creation process.

Among our NAB 2002 Pick Hits (see page 91 of this issue) is Sonic'sDVD Producer. It is available either as software or configured into anauthoring and encoding workstation. On the surface, it isn't really allthat new a product, effectively replacing, sharing features with, andtargeting the same users as Sonic's DVD Fusion.

However, Sonic has added a potentially revolutionary feature to DVDProducer.

OpenDVD is Sonic's technology for adding project and authoringmetadata to the finished DVD disc image, in addition to the usualvideo, audio, and navigation information. DVD Producer users will beable to leverage that metadata later to reopen finished projects forre-authoring, making changes, and even substituting assets. WhereDVD-Video discs are presently static, unalterable deliverables, OpenDVD introduces DVD as a possible medium for collaborative authoring, ifnot collaborative editing. Minimally, it makes DVD a very viable optionfor review and approval.

Interestingly, OpenDVD actually grew out of the consumer electronicsindustry, or rather the desire to reach that mass audience. Driven bySonic's potential partnerships with device makers, it aims to create adigital replacement for living room VHS decks — with all the samemedia reuse and appeal of that format. While those consumer componentproducts are slowly emerging, Sonic's sub-$100 MyDVD 3.0 authoringapplication has had the feature since its arrival last fall.

MyDVD also has Sonic's one-button solution for taking footagedirectly from the camcorder to the DVD burner. Using Microsoft's OHCIFireWire driver, MyDVD captures DV footage, uses scene recognition tocreate DVD menus, transcodes to MPEG, mixes, and burns the disc. Ofcourse, such an inexact process may well necessitate the ability tore-edit and re-author after the fact, but it does allow for immediateviewing and sharing of home movies like never before. So what doesone-button authoring do for professionals? Probably not much, althoughburning raw footage to DVD could be an alternative to linear logging.But that would require more fluidity from yet-to-be-seen software.

Yet OpenDVD's project metadata on the finished disc does potentiallychange the position of DVD authoring within the creative process. Whereauthoring used to be the last stop for finished, edited, and arrangedmedia assets, the ability to reopen projects should allow flexibilitysimilar to that gained from going from linear online editing tononlinear. Minimally, there could be more opportunity to experimentcreatively, and DVD-Video discs could be a convenient way to moveassets between collaborators separated by geography. Service bureauscould avoid storing entire active projects on a primary authoringstation, waiting for client decisions.

Editable discs would also be a boon for corporate titles, whichalways suffer the threat of imminent change. They could be updated withnew information without restarting from scratch. Even more intriguing,corporate titles could be updated in the field. Even a humble MyDVDcould theoretically make basic changes, such as text corrections orupdates. As of today, only MyDVD and DVD Producer support OpenDVD,although Sonic plans to integrate it throughout its product line.

Unfortunately, while Sonic calls OpenDVD a “standard,”it hardly fits the bill in any traditional way. It is a technologydeveloped by Sonic and currently only available in a minority ofSonic's own products. The company expects that to change and Sonic isoffering the technology for licensed use; however, no other productshave yet emerged. On the other hand, several companies, includingMicrosoft, have licensed it already.

Of course, for DVD discs to become more than just an output format,DVD authoring needs to become more than just an output process. Tighterintegration between authoring and editing is not only possible, butinevitable. Naturally, editing and authoring are two differentexercises that require different expertise and GUIs. Yet in the sameway editing and compositing were once thought to be exclusivedisciplines, authoring may partially become the domain of editors.

For complicated projects, dedicated authoring interfaces will remaina necessity. However, several editing timelines already have HTMLmarkers and web browser events, so it's no great leap to see thosemarkers connoting DVD chapter marks. Nonlinear editing interfacesshould also have little trouble creating tentative DVD menu buttonsfrom video clip still frames.

While timeline interfaces are not ideal for the navigationalprogramming of DVD-Video discs, they have always been used in DVD GUIsfor creating multi-angle videos. Nonlinear editors are easily capableof doing that and ideal for linking multiple audio and language tracksto a single video clip. That's not exactly what Godard was talkingabout, but the flexibility sure won't hurt.

As yet, there are few serious editing and authoring combinationtools today, but it's a clear direction for several companies. PinnacleSystems, Ulead Systems, and Apple Computer have all been offering bothediting and authoring applications in their respective product lines.Ulead's consumer DVD application, DVD MovieFactory, already includes avideo-editing storyboard, and several DVD authoring tools nowincorporate basic clip trimming. Sonic, the DVD leader on Windows, hasno editing products but licenses its Author Script, the effectiveback-end DVD engine to its own authoring tools, to editing companies,allowing them to integrate DVD authoring functionality moretightly.

In the old days of overly capable but practically prohibitiveauthoring interfaces, integrating DVD into a studio needed to be acalculated opportunity, risk, and reward decision. With the success ofDVDs in the living room and the accompanying comfort Americansincreasingly have with the format, DVD delivery should now be a seriousoption for almost any video production business. Thankfully, the hardand soft costs associated with DVD tools and learning to use them arediminishing at an amazing rate. At the same time, features like OpenDVDmake DVD more practical, if not indispensable. And integration willonly get tighter.