Hi Guys,

Just a question as I've had not much experience in DVD delivery.

I have a load of MiniDV projects that I do not want to author to DVD as yet, but would like to encode as whole tapes into MPEG2 (for storage purposes), and also so that I can later author them how I like once I decide on the menus and etc.

My question is whether it is a fairly easy step to take the MPEG2 encoded files later and author them to DVD, keeping in mind that I may want to cut out some of the footage and also add chapters...

In the past I have always thought once files were encoded, that's how it's going to sit on a DVD.

Any advice?

Cheers,
Jack

the problem is that you are talking about doing mpeg2 editing, which most common editing software can't handle correctly.

if your stuff is a finished edit, you can go ahead and encode it all to mpeg2, but some of the problems you could run into later include no ability to manipulate the mpeg2 bandwidth to fit the disk... there are also audio issues.

i would pack the finished edited footage back onto minidv, which will allow you a lot more flexibiliity later.

I thought that may be the case... one more question... to have chapters, do I need to encode each chapter as a separate MPEG2 asset, or can I encode a whole 1 hours worth and then make chapters anywhere with an authoring app?

Jack

DVD authoring applications that support chaptering will work with
one long video (or multiple pieces) and create chapters there. That
is how it is usually done, so you can use a 1 hour movie file for
example.