Digit 2005-04 - Clevernotions.com

APPLE DVD STUDIO PRO IS THE CLOSEST THING TO A
PROFESSIONAL AUTHORING SUITE AVAILABLE FOR THE MAC
Pinnacle Liquid Edition 6
format Windows 98/2000/XP
price £153 plus VAT
company Pinnacle Systems,
shop.pinnaclesys.com
contact Pinnacle Systems, 01895 442 003
minimum specs 800MHz processor, 256MB
RAM, DirectX 9 compatible graphics and sound
card, 500MB disk space, CD drive
digit rating ★★★
★ ★
Pinnacle’s Liquid product is a full video editing and effects suite with an integrated
DVD authoring component. The tools resemble a basic program such as Intervideo’s
WinDVD, so if all you are looking for is some quick editing and simple transitions to
prepare your disc, Liquid may be a bit of overkill.
There are a number of wizards to make the process of assembling your assets
easier – including a media search tool. The wizards are helpful, as Liquid is not a
product you can pick up and run with, as you need to understand Liquid’s editing
conventions first.
Liquid is another package with one video track, but it allows users to assemble
clips consecutively on the timeline. There are a number of menu templates to choose
from – you can follow a wizard to add the menu asset to a sequence in the timeline,
then create links to chapters. You can customize the menu in the Menu Template
Editor, importing background graphics or adding or editing text. End actions are
installed using jump markers in the Timeline, which return users to the main menu
after every clip. You can save the finished project as an ISO file prior to burning.
It may possess confusing proprietary quirks in some places, but Liquid Edition
includes Hollywood FX Plus RT and TitleDeko RT for effects and titles. Having your
effects, video, and authoring package in one suite is certainly of use to the DVD
author, allowing you to create complex motion menus with transition effects before
adding them to your DVD project.
When you are working through a
slew of DVDs, this probably means
using a fast external drive. Some
DVD writers do not support DVD+R
discs – the Apple Superdrive is a
notable example.
DVDs have limited interactivity
when compared with Web sites
or games consoles, due mainly to
the basic nature of consumer DVD
players. The DVD specification is
meant to ensure that the disc you
author will play on all platforms.
As the specification was set some
time ago, many of the strictures
imposed seem backward in
today’s consumer market. However,
developers have added some
special features to applications to
extend the use of the format, and
a good designer will always be
able to create some interaction
using scripted behaviours, animated
motion menus, and transitions and
button routing.
Button routing allows you to
Sonic DVD Producer
Authoring 5.0
format Windows XP Pro
price £1,125 plus VAT
company Sonic Solutions, www.sonic.com
contact Sonic Solutions, 020 7437 1100
minimum specs 1.7GHz Pentium IV CPU,
512MB RAM, CD or DVD-ROM drive,
1,024-x-768 resolution, 24-bit colour,
200MB hard drive space
digit rating ★★★★ ★
Sonic Producer goes some way to bridging the gap between high-end dedicated
systems and the desktop DVD author. It ships in three versions – the option tested
here ships with a 128MB Matrox Parhelia video card. The interface includes a timeline,
a viewer window, a Palette for storing assets, a list window for adding menus and
movies to a project, and a menu editor window.
A large library of assets in the Producer folder is available to the Palette on
opening. Menu graphics and imported assets are dragged onto the List Window
to bring them into the project – along with any audio associated with the video.
The menu building process is a straightforward case of drag-&-drop, with
automatic linking of buttons and tracks. Button highlights can be set in the Properties
window – though the application doesn’t support imported graphics with Alpha
channels. There are several choices for menu button routing, including an AutoRoute
choice. Support for burning DVD-9 discs directly came with version 4.5, so Sonic was
ahead of the pack with Producer and you can also add a jacket picture for the project.
Illegal formats for DVD use such as AVI are transcoded just before the build
process, so be prepared for a long wait if you haven’t prepared your assets
beforehand. Other products in the roundup share this lack of background encoding,
but given the price here it could be seen as an omission. However, the application
does ship with Sonic Audio Transcoder and MyDVD, a real time MPEG encoder.
specify the behaviour of the cursor
and remote control. Many packages
allow both manual and auto-routing
of buttons for greater flexibility, but
it’s wise to keep to convention if the
DVD is for the wider market.
On the button
To avoid unsightly jumps when
the disc is accessed, you can set
transitions between menu screens
to play when buttons are pressed.
Similarly, End actions are assigned
to movies and menus to take the
user back to a main menu screen
after the movie has finished playing,
or when a menu has cycled for
a specified amount of time.
Special features can be built
into menus by accessing the
parameter register memory values
of a DVD. These are machine level
commands that the player
understands and can control
parental management features,
or whether to play a certain menu
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