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The Videoguys' Insider Vol 2 Issue 1
Videoguy: First, I'd like to congratulate you guys on the great job you've done establishing DVDit! as the dominant authoring software in the market. At this point, I'd have to estimate that over 90% of the DVD burners shipping in the world come with some version of Sonic Software, most notably MyDVD™. While MyDVD is a great app for getting started, we feel that DVDit! is a much better fit for our customers. Can you go over some of the key benefits of upgrading to DVDit!? |
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Videoguy: Speaking of encoding MPEG2 files for DVD, can you tell us about the new MPEG encoding technology in DVDit!?
Videoguy:Wow! The new encoder in DVDit! is a major advantage for customers! Now we understand what DVDit! does that MyDVD will not. What about the difference between DVDit! SE & PE
Sonic: A lot of authoring tools can put video on a DVD. But what makes DVD unique, and valuable for client and users, is the ability to customize the navigation. Take a kiosk, for example. You want the DVD to have a great intro, go to a menu and pause for 5 minutes, than, if no one pushes a button on the kiosk, automatically do a tour of the DVD. If someone passes by and presses the menu button, you want to take them to the “interested customer” menu. And so on… While this seems intuitive, it is amazing how few authoring tools out there really give their users the ability to make a “Hollywood” title easily. DVDit! PE makes a lot of what you see on a Hollywood DVD (even more than most Hollywood DVDs) possible on your desktop. Videoguy: That's really cool. The better the navigation tools you have the easier it is to author a fully interactive DVD. One of the most confusing things about DVD authoring is the various audio formats. Could you shed some light on this for us? Sonic: Sure. The DVD-Video format supports Dolby Digital audio – mono to 5.1 surround as well as PCM – Compact Disc style – audio for NTSC countries. In Europe and other PAL countries, DVD-Video adds support for MPEG-2 audio – which is essentially MPEG-1, layer-2. In addition to the audio formats, DVD's can have up to eight streams of audio per video. These audio streams can be switched on-the-fly so that a user can listen to a “director's commentary” or an alternate language track. In our ReelDVD product, we give users the ability to include up to three audio streams per video in their DVD disc.
Sonic: ReelDVD is the next step beyond DVDit! and introduces a new level of flexibility – as well as power – for professional videographers. Some of ReelDVD's many advantages are multiple audio streams, multiple subtitle streams, motion video menu support and slideshow support. ReelDVD also introduces the notion of a project flow-chart. With this flowchart overview, DVD authors can design complex DVD titles. Left - the ReelDVD interface
Videoguy: WOW!! Looks like Sonic is well on its way to conquering the world of DVD authoring. What new goodies and features can we expect down the road: Sonic: Without getting into details, I can say that we have a lot of great technology in the pipeline and you will see significant new functionality across our product line in the coming months. As always, we make an effort to build-in the features, functionality, and reliability that our customers demand. Videoguy: I can't wait!! In the meantime, can we offer anything special to our readers who decide they have to have one of your authoring products after reading this article?
Sonic: We'll offer all your customers & readers a special upgrade price on DVDit! How about DVDit!PE for only $399.95 or DVDit! SE for only $199.95!! Videoguy:That's a great offer! I'm going to make another one for our more experienced DVD producers who are looking for something more powerful then DVDit! Our special ReelDVD burner bundle!! YOu canget ReelDVD with a DVR-A05 burner and 20 DVD-R 4x for $899.95!! Sonic: WOW!! The Videoguys' sure do offer your customers the best values in the business for DVD authoring and creation!! |
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Sonic: Based on feedback we received from our user base, we built a high-end real-time MPEG-2 encoder into DVDit!. The goal was to maximize quality when moving from DV or Motion-JPEG to MPEG-2, but at the same time do it quickly. With DVDit! 2.5, we have achieved this. In fact, on fast enough machines – like 1.7 to 2 GHz, we are seeing trans-coding speeds faster than real-time, so a 60 minute DV file converts to MPEG in less than 45 minutes. Beyond MPEG-2 encoding, however, the real advantage that DVDit! has is in giving users more room to be creative with their DVD title design. 
Sonic: PE stands for Professional Edition. The goal with PE was to give DVDit! users the ability to do Dolby Digital encoding, add full widescreen support, add expanded navigation – beyond what was possible in the standard edition of DVDit!, and finally, output their projects to DLT tape for industrial-scale replication. With Dolby Digital, our users get a lot additional flexibility – not just in creating Dolby Digital audio files, but in the ability to increase the average bit-rate for their video, or to increase the amount of time they can put on a DVD. This is because uncompressed audio takes up a lot of space. Two hours of uncompressed stereo audio can take 1.3 GB – that's 30% of your whole DVD disc. By compressing it with Dolby Digital, you can get that down to around 100 MB. That's a huge advantage. Also DLT output gives PE users an easy way to send their final DVD titles to the replication facility.
Videoguy:I didn't realize how important AC-3 audio support was. You can store an extra 26 minutes of video on your 4.7GB DVD using AC-3 audio compression. One of my favorite features of DVDit! is the ability to use timed menus. I think being able to open your DVD with a menu, then have it automatically start playing your first video clip a few seconds later is a great navigation tool. What other navigation tools does DVDit! give you that other authoring programs may lack.
Videoguy: I'm glad you mentioned ReelDVD. While DVDit! PE is great, we have seen that some of our customers really want the more advanced features you can get in Reel DVD. While DVDit! has become the prosumer's authoring tool of choice, our more professional customers are upgrading to ReelDVD. Can you tell us why?
Sonic: Adobe and Microsoft are going to be great partners for Sonic and these relationships will definitely benefit our users. At the core, each of these relationships revolves around Sonic's AuthorScript technology – which is the underlying DVD authoring engine for DVDit! and MyDVD. You can imagine the advantages that might have for future AuthorScript-based authoring systems.