DVD's rave or rant??

[sheilaorsi]

Do you test EVERYONE of your DVD's before they leave your studios? and If so - what is your test??

[RatVega]

Do you test EVERYONE of your DVD's before they leave your studios? and If so - what is your test??
We test every "master" at multiple levels, then randomly test all duplicates.

Our experience is that correctly duplicated DVDs have an incredibly low error rate (way less than 1%.)

For masters, we simulate in the authoring system, play back the built DVD disk image using a software DVD player, play the burned DVD on the producing system, then play the DVD on an "older" DVD player that will skip or lock even with major studio releases if the bitrate gets too high. It is our belief that at this point we're down to "problem players" even funkier than ours...

[ringkingstudio]

We test the master copy in a laptop and two DVD players, one of which is an old Apex. (we figure if it plays in the Apex it will play in anything). The copies that are going out we just do quick test, if that. From the Menu we select one chapter to make sure it starts, and that is it.

We have only had to replace 3 DVD's in 5 years. They were from the same bride, and to this day we don't know what was wrong with them. She claimed they started skipping, after watching them 6 or so times. When we received them back they worked for us, so who know what happened there.

[dpx]

Playstation 2

If it plays in there, it'll play in anything.

[kirklandvideo]

I test the first copy I make and then duplicate that. I test it in three DVD players including an old pre dvd-r player. I figure if a player that has no idea what a DVD-R is can play my disc from start to finish, it's good enough for me.

I don't necessarily watch the dvd from start to end, although I try to watch as much as I can of the important stuff - depends on how long it runs for and how much time I have. I make sure the client knows that I'll make new copies if they spot any errors and get back to me within a week.

[sheilaorsi]

Interesting...

I have had B & G's tell me that some skip - or stop - ( once in a while) I test pretty much the same way - I put the master in my DVD player and make sure it plays .. then pop the dups in to make sure they start as well... I was just curious if there was another way to do this that I didnt know about... thanks all !

[MediaConcepts]

Sheila,

What bit rate are you using when you encode to mp2? You shouldn't go above 8mbps. Also, are you using AC3 audio files?

Joe

[RatVega]

Interesting...

I have had B & G's tell me that some skip - or stop - ( once in a while) I test pretty much the same way - I put the master in my DVD player and make sure it plays .. then pop the dups in to make sure they start as well... I was just curious if there was another way to do this that I didnt know about... thanks all !

Sheila... (btw, love the name, I have a sister with it)

Joe raises an excellent point; maybe you need to start your QA work futher back in the workflow if you are having problems on a frequent basis. I've run across a number of good producers who were taught that making a DVD was just a matter of running the footage through some software. This is true in the basic sense but not the way to play if consistant quality and playback reliability are goals.

I'm betting that most of the people responding here practiced are DVD authors who know how to prepare and encode their footage as well as how to make a menu, etc.

I'm not saying that you're doing anything wrong or don't know these things, this is more rhetorical for the good of all.

Good authoring starts with understanding what it is you're doing to the footage, extends through the methods used in compression, and usually ends with either a reliable, quality DVD or a diagnosable problem that can be corrected. Along with knowledge, you need the right tools. Encoding and authoring tools are definitely not all the same. There is a reason why some are given away with hardware of the NLE while others carry a significant cost.

I'm a Mac guy so I'll use a Mac example, I know that a PC analog will be easy to find. Apple provides a free DVD authoring system called iDVD with all its new machines. It is easy to use and has some very attractive templates, etc. but simply doesn't provide the quality and reliability of their DVD Studio Pro application. A number of years ago Bruce Nazarian (noted DVD guru) remarked that many of the common playability problems with DVDs stemmed from audio, not video. He pointed me to systems that use Dolby AC-3 audio encoding (such as DVD Studio Pro) as a first step. From the day I started with DVDSP my reject rate dropped drastically and as I learned the application it dropped to virtually nothing I couldn't blame on myself. There are several good DVD authoring systems for PC, I know that Sonic Scenarist is used by many professionals.

My point in all this is that (just like video in general) there's not much magic, just knowledge, hard work and good equipment. QA is part of the hard work, but gets easier as the early workflow gets smarter.

[Chuck_e7]

Do you test EVERYONE of your DVD's before they leave your studios? and If so - what is your test??

Both I and the wife QC the whole video master, and randomly each copy briefly.