• Blogs
• Forums
• Tradeshows
• Partners
• White Papers
• Events

Print to DVD

Jul 28, 2005 11:00 AM, D.W. Leitner

Allow me an Andy Rooney moment…

Have you ever noticed that DVDs are a lot harder to record than tape, particularly from an editing timeline on a personal computer?

Must this be the case?

On a typical video recorder, they make you press a record button, sometimes a record button and a forward button together. That’s it. You got recording.

Borrowing a sentiment from Apple, aren’t computers supposed to simplify routine tasks, bury all the necessary spit and bailing wire under a slick ease-of-use interface in the name of positive user experience?

So why does popular nonlinear software feature a “Print to Video” command but no “Print to DVD”?

How cool would it be if, frantic to make FedEx before closing to overnight my latest edit to the other coast, I selected Print to DVD from the menu and heard the DVD drawer instantly slide out?

Yes, I know that a Print to Video command is simple, that the editing system need only output a DV stream or video signal, which the VCR routes to tape without the fuss of non-real-time MPEG-2 compression.

But admit it, how cool would that be?

Sophisticated software for both pro and consumer DVD authoring is peachy, but I don’t require software to record a videotape. Likewise, I don’t wish to jump through hoops when all I want to do is make a simple DVD dupe of my timeline.

In other words, I don’t want to export my timeline. I don’t want to open a separate DVD program. I don’t want to import my compressed timeline into the separate DVD program. I don’t want to add chapters. I don’t want templates. I don’t want buttons.

All I want is a dupe of my timeline, maybe color bars, a slate, or a countdown, just like Print to Tape.

And when I insert the finished DVD in a player, it starts to play. What could be simpler?

Call it burn, print, or record: why can’t nonlinear editing programs offer a one-button or one-command “solution” for creating scratch DVDs?

Given the choice, this is what pro video editors want. Keep the geek-details of compression away from us.

Faster than real time would be nice, too, especially for long-form timelines, but it’s no more or less necessary than 4x real-time videotape recording from an NLE. While such technology exists, it’s rarely encountered in working editing rooms.

The notion of simplified DVD recording was actually introduced five years ago when Pioneer, Panasonic, and others introduced DVD home video recorders. The marketing conceit was simplicity itself: insert a disc, press a button, make a recording. Just like VHS.

Granted, these devices relied on dedicated, hardware-based MPEG-2 codecs with horsepower to achieve real-time compression. (GOP-based MPEG-2 compression is asymmetrical—takes considerably longer to compress than decompress—unlike DV, a symmetrical compression whose discrete frames are compressed and decompressed at the same rate.)

Real-time, hardware-based MPEG-2 codecs also underpin recent popular PVRs (Personal Video Recorders) like TiVo, which are hard drive based.

Home DVD recorders additionally introduced DVD Video Recording (DVD-VR, DVD+VR), a rewritable DVD Forum standard tailored to real-time recording. While models from Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic, Toshiba, Emerson, etc. feature it, it lacks critical mass. PC and Mac support remains spotty.

Real-time, hardware-based MPEG-2 compression is also the foundation of Sony’s MPEG IMX format.

The point is, real-time MPEG-2 compression is happening all around.

Except, it seems, in software, on personal computers. But with multi-core CPUs obeying Moore’s law at ever blazing speeds, why not? We’re talking, at most, 6 Mbs for best (lowest) compression. That’s not impressive these days.

What an over-caffeinated editor (more likely their assistant) cares most about is making that FedEx deadline in one hour. Informing him or her that someday H.264, Quicktime, or some such, uploaded to an FTP site (time consuming), will make last-minute DVD burning and FedEx nail-biting a thing of the past will not be appreciated as helpful. Not tonight.

Only a single hitch during exporting, compressing, importing, or burning, and all is lost. No time to dive into manuals or re-start the process.

That’s why: Make it simple. One button. Real-time. Codec integrated into the NLE. Cheap & reliable DVD-R or DVD+R.

Soon. Please.

© 2008 Penton Media, Inc.