Hi Guys,

I've just finished the video and editing of my first full-length movie which is going to be released on DVD. It's an extreme sports video incorporating a lot of artistic and scenic shots. This is my first time producing a commercial DVD and I have a few questions about the workflow, Its shot on a Sony VX2100 PAL camcorder and I'm using Premiere pro 1.0 and also have after effects 6.0, running time is 1.5 hours.

I'm mainly selling this in Australia but would also like to sell some via mail order to Europe and the USA, will I need to make an NTSC version or will people be able to view the PAL version overseas? To make an NTSC version I assume I would just select NTSC settings in Premiere's export settings.

Do you think I should make the DVD into 16:9 widescreen or just leave it in the standard 4:3, would it be worth the trouble is what I'm asking here? I assume I would have to import the footage into after effects and crop it somehow if I wanted to do this. I'm thinking widescreen looks good on all TV's but 4:3 looks squashed for those people with widescreen TV's.

I have done some colour correction to a lot of the footage in Premiere just to make sure certain shots would be usable and not need to be discarded. Do you think I should undo all the colour corrections in Premiere and import the entire project into After effects and do my colour correcting there or just continue correcting in Premiere?
I don't have a proper video monitor I'm just using my computer CRT display which I calibrated with one of those spider things, I know this is not the best way to do it but cost is an issue here. I have watched the footage on a number of TV's now and it looks pretty good especially on LCD TV's.

My last question is about encoding and getting the DVD duplicated. My current workflow is to first export the audio as a windows wave file and then export the video from the Premiere timeline into TMPGenc 2.5 via a frameserver and encode to MPEG2 using TMPGenc's field adaption deinterlacing filter. This method seems to give a nice picture which I am happy with. Next I would usually import the MPEG2 file and wave file into TMPGenc DVD author and create a basic menu then author and burn to disc. This is ok to show my friends but I plan on creating a nice menu in Encore for the version to be released. I am yet to use Encore but I assume its a similar process to TMPGenc but with the ability to create much more complex menus. Does anyone see a problem with this workflow? Once authored is it ok to give a duplicating house a burnt disc or is this going to create problems? Should I just let them do all the encoding etc.?

I know I'm asking a lot of questions here but any advice or help that could be offered would be very much appreciated.

Joel.

Hi Joel:

I can at least try to answer the first few of your questions for you...perhaps other people on here can answer the rest of them.

I would put it in NTSC format if you plan on releasing this DVD in the USA. Also, was it originally filmed in 16:9 Widescreen? If so, I would suggest maybe letterboxing your video (i.e., the video with black bars on top and bottom so that it comes out as 16:9 on a 4:3 screen). Not everybody here in the USA has a widescreen TV; 4:3 TV's are still rather prevalent around here. If it was originally filmed in 4:3, then I would just leave it as is (don't stretch it to 16:9).

As far as your other questions (regarding colour correction, and encoding/duplicating the DVD), hopefully other people here on this forum can help you...because I'll be the first to admit that I don't have a clue.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

Adam

Joel,

I can point you in the right direction to get some of your questions answered. Look at discmakers.com. You will find information on submitting your dvd master and graphics for packaging. If you want your dvd to look good then get it replicated and not duplicated. This will assure better compatibility with differnt dvd players. There are al ot of things you have to do to put together a good product. They will guide you thru the process. Putting together my first DVD project was difficult but now that I know the process its not that hard to do. You just have to follow the correct proceedures.

Regards,