You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
labs<br />
Adobe Encore DVD 1.5<br />
format Windows<br />
price £385 plus VAT, upgrade £69 plus VAT<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany Adobe, www.adobe.<strong>com</strong><br />
contact Adobe, 020 8606 4000<br />
minimum specs Pentium III 800MHz or<br />
faster processor, 256MB of RAM, 1GB hard-disk<br />
space, DVD-ROM drive and supported DVD<br />
burner, QuickTime 6.5 software<br />
digit rating ★★★★★<br />
Encore has a similar look to Sonic’s DVD Producer, with an initially rather dull interface<br />
of empty floating palettes. All assets are imported into the Project Window, and as you<br />
do so the corresponding monitor, menu editor, or timeline pops up. This all makes for<br />
rather cluttered viewing, especially on a small monitor, and as there is no preset<br />
workspace facility, users need to set their own default arrangements.<br />
When you drag a video clip to a menu, Encore automatically creates a video<br />
button for the clip, creates a link from the button to play through the video, and<br />
then sets the End action to return to the menu. In a view option similar in style<br />
to Photoshop, you can check button routing using a floating overlay.<br />
Encore DVD integrates extremely well with Photoshop, Premiere, and After<br />
Effects 6.5 or later. If you have an Adobe-heavy PC, you’ll be able to export motion<br />
menus as AVI files in After Effects, create backgrounds and buttons in Photoshop,<br />
and add markers for Chapter points in Premiere movies. You can use the Edit<br />
Original <strong>com</strong>mand in Encore to edit the files in their native applications.<br />
The Styles palette allows pre-designed effect styles for Text, Shapes, and Images<br />
to be dragged-&-dropped onto elements in the Menu Editor. A Check Project feature<br />
can be used at any point in the process to identify and solve problems in the project’s<br />
structure. QuickTime is now supported as an asset, meaning that Encore, though still<br />
confined to the PC, is now more of a cross-platform contender than the Apple offering.<br />
ALL DVD<br />
AUTHORING<br />
FOLLOWS THE<br />
SAME BASIC<br />
PROCESS<br />
96 d<br />
process. This is due to the<br />
applications, hardware, and<br />
media all adhering to the DVD<br />
Specification, a standard set<br />
and adhered to by manufacturers<br />
such as Sony, Philips, and Pioneer.<br />
Basic ‘collect and burn’<br />
programs such as Roxio Toast and<br />
NTI Dragon Burn on the Mac and<br />
the likes of Ahead Nero on the PC<br />
have the ability to add perfectly<br />
adequate navigation to your discs,<br />
but for anything more <strong>com</strong>plex you<br />
Apple DVD Studio<br />
Pro 3<br />
format Mac OS X 10.3.2 or later<br />
price £297 plus VAT<br />
<strong>com</strong>pany Apple, www.apple.<strong>com</strong>/uk<br />
contact Apple, 0800 783 4846<br />
minimum specs 733Mhz G4 or G5 Mac,<br />
AGP graphics card with 8MB of video memory,<br />
256MB RAM (512 MB re<strong>com</strong>mended),<br />
QuickTime 6.5, 4.4GB Disk space, DVD drive<br />
digit rating ★★★★★<br />
The closest thing to a professional DVD authoring suite you’ll get on a Mac, DVD<br />
Studio Pro is closely integrated with the rest of the Mac OS media packages (Motion,<br />
Soundtrack, Final Cut Pro, iTunes, and iPhoto). The best thing about DVD Studio<br />
Pro is the level of user control available – Apple gives the author access to some<br />
in-depth <strong>com</strong>mands from the user interface and allows scripting for more <strong>com</strong>plex<br />
programming. For example, you can notify a DVD player if a user has viewed a certain<br />
First Play menu before and get it to jump ahead accordingly.<br />
The authoring process is fairly simple and can be carried out in any of three<br />
workflow configurations ranging from basic drag-&-drop elements to full outline<br />
views and scripting windows. Assets are imported into the application and can be<br />
encoded to MPEG format in the background as soon as they arrive in the Assets<br />
tab. Multi-layered graphic files can be imported as menu backgrounds and the<br />
product has tight integration with Photoshop – allowing live updating of edited files.<br />
Extra templates and interface elements, extra workflow enhancements and wider<br />
format support all arrived in version 3. Other enhancements include new transitions,<br />
buttons and slideshows, as well as extended support for video and audio formats.<br />
You’ll need a large drive to store all the templates and extras. Recent updates have<br />
allowed this tool to burn directly to dual-layer DVD-9 discs as well as encode HD<br />
material using the bundled Compressor application.<br />
need a dedicated DVD authoring<br />
application. All of the applications<br />
tested here offer designers the<br />
ability to create varying levels of<br />
<strong>com</strong>plexity in their menus. Most<br />
have some facility to import layered<br />
images from a graphics package<br />
– normally Photoshop – or provide<br />
tools for adding text, images, and<br />
shapes (for buttons) within their<br />
own workspace.<br />
If you are designing your menus<br />
in an external editor, be aware that<br />
you should save screens as<br />
multi-layered files if you want<br />
to use button highlights.<br />
Author’s specials<br />
For motion menus it’s best to<br />
create <strong>com</strong>plex transitions in an<br />
application such as After Effects,<br />
before importing the rendered<br />
project into the DVD project.<br />
You need to leave at least<br />
double the hard drive space<br />
required for authoring each project.
Change language