Q: Producing an Indie film
My friend and I are looking into producing a ski film (a.k.a indie film) this year and we have a couple questions, we didn't really know where to post them so we figured since we use most of apples programs to edit our films we would start here. Some of the specifications about our film are that it will probably be no longer than 45 minutes, it will consist of both nordic skiing and alpine skiing, All of the footage will be shot in HD and edited in Final Cut Pro 7, we would only like to print 100 dvds, and we will sell the dvds online from our online store. Below are all of our questions.
1.) Where is a good place to get dvd's printed? we would like to print 100 dvds with custom artwork on the discs and cases along with shrink wrap over all the cases.
2.) What dvd burning program is somewhat cheap but also has plenty of templates to choose from or is idvd professional enough to create the master of your film? We do not have DVD Studio Pro but if thats what most people use when creating films on a mac then we could invest.
3.) Do you have to lincense your music in your film if so how do you go about this? We have done a bit of research on this topic but havn't found any solid post anywhere explaining exactly what you have to go through or if you even have to go through anything seeing that it will not be a film hitting the big screens.
Thanks,
Tyler
Mac OS X (10.5.8)
Posted on Dec 29, 2011 12:17 PM
Heya Tyler:
Congrats on having your project at the point where you're ready to make and sell DVDs.
There is a huge difference between a replicated DVD and a duplicated DVD.
By replicating, you are creating a DVD-Video disc. A replicated disc is stampled from a "glass master" or "gold master" that is made from the DVD disc image on DLT tape. Anything that has the "DVD-Video" logo has been replicated. The main thing that going with DVD-Video is that just about any DVD player should be able to play the disc. Also, the replicated discs match the master disc perfectly. As long as the master disc is to DVD-Video spec, all of the copies are to DVD-Video spec. Also, if you opt to use CSS encryption or Macrovision, these are availalbe through replication.
By duplicating, you are burning the DVD-Video data structure (the VIDEO_TS folder) to a writable DVD format (DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+R DL). On a side note, as this is not a DVD-Video disc you can't legally use the DVD-Video logo. Since each disc is burned from the source data, there is always the chance of a write errror that will result in a disc that won't play (I find that about 1 in ever 100 burns won't play because of a write error). Furthermore, the DVD format you choose to write to may or may not play in someone's player. Players made since the "DVD-Multi" logo came into effect will play just about anything that starts with DVD; however, there are DVD-Video set top players made from around 1996 or so to 2003 that won't play DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD+R DL at all. Then, there are a few generation of Apple computers that will only play DVD-R and a few generations of Windows computers that will on play DVD+R.
To jump to your prior question about Encore: all DVD-Video streams wind up being 720x480. Your edited master can be 1280x720, but the picture will need to be encoded as an MPEG2 stream prior to multiplexing your DVD-Video data. If your source video is not already MPEG2, DVD Studio Pro and Encore will both convert it before it allows you to build the DVD. I recommend using Compressor (part of Final Cut Pro Studio) at one of the "DVD Best" settings to creat your MPEG2 stream. You'll get great picture quality and have your MPEG2 file ready to go while authoring your DVD.
- Warren
Posted on Apr 5, 2012 9:49 PM