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DVD Movie Making

DVD Home Movie Making
A Beginner’s Guide

Here’s what the blurb tells you you’ll get from this DVD:

“Learn to make professional looking DVDs at home! From shooting and editing to encoding and authoring, our experts offer a step-by-step guide to creating easy and entertaining DVDs using home videos, photos, slide shows, graphics, music, fun menus and more.”

And that’s what you get, too, though ultimately it’s a little dry and a little superficial. Still, it’s an interesting introduction not only to DVD technology but to shooting home videos in general, even if you don’t plan to burn them onto your own DVD’s.

But most of the focus is on DVD’s (hence the title, we reckon!) and how to create your own masterpieces on your home equipment. And this means you need to think about more than just the angles and lighting of your shots. It means you need to think about what hardware and software you need to get those pictures into your computer, what you need in order to create the DVD itself on the computer, and what hardware and/or software you need to get the fledgling DVD onto a disc you can then inflict on your friends and family.

This disc covers all these topics, and more - and it includes DVD ROM components including templates and backgrounds and other stuff you can use in your own productions. It even throws in a “freeware” DVD authoring application to get you going - or at least to whet your appetite.

The disc kicks off with the basics - basically “what is a DVD?” It shows you the different types of DVD and why they’re different, then moves on to tell you what you need if you want to create your own “digital versatile discs".

You also get tips on shooting the video, from lighting and the use of a tripod to establishing shots and close-ups and the like. Then the disc moves onto Encoding and transcoding the DVD (which is where you take your video footage, put it into the computer and then work your digital magic on it), and finally authoring (where you actually create the disc).

The information is good and it’s well presented - and there are plenty of special features to sweeten the deal.

For example, you get a DVD glossary, checklists you can use to prepare for making your DVD, as well as tips and tricks from the pros, Web links and, as mentioned, some trial versions of DVD authoring software.

You even get a “Bit Budget Calculator,” which you can use to figure out how much disc space you’ll need (or, conversely, how much of your valuable stuff you’ll have to dump to make it fit onto the disc!).

It’s a very good introduction, well presented for the most part, and on a good quality DVD. We were surprised to see it presented in 4x3 format, which is so old tech, but other than that the production values are low budget but more than adequate for the task at hand.

DVD Home Moviemaking: A Beginner’s Guide, from DVD International

 

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