WARNING: DVD is not the answer.

Post by **tim** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 9:21 am

Although most of us realize that most electronic imaging and recording kit is a short-term investment, and that manufacturers are already planning to make the purchase obsolete as soon as possible, some obviously don't. The item below was taken from the enews letter of the Widescreen Centre (received 13-1-03):

"If I've learned one thing working at The Widescreen Centre, it's that standardisation is rare in the world of DVD's. Even when one brand of machine is supposed to play back any disk, we often find that there is incompatibility. You'll appreciate that this can be a nightmare when offering a service such as our 'Cine-to-Video/DVD transfer. However, George Epsom, our man on the ground and at the sharp end of doing these conversions, came up with an excellent idea which I commend to you. We decided that prior to carrying out any conversions for our customers we would lend them a special 'Test Disk' to check the compatibility of their particular machine: once they have run this on their own brand of DVD player we know that the transfer is going to be fine."

Tim.

YouTube · Post by **Andreas Wideroe** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 11:08 am

Also, DVDs use compression which will ofcourse degrade the quality of a film.

Maybe someone has more info about this?

As far as I'm concerned you can choose different encoding schemes when making a DVD based on the length and quality you're after.

Andreas

Post by **avortex** » Thu Jan 16, 2003 4:15 pm

DVD's can really look like film if they are made from a progressive source. Some movies are encoded at 24 fps without any interlacing artifacts or compression defects. When projected with a good digital projector, they look very very nice. Like film itself (as good as a theater projection)

On the other hand, it's more difficult to obtain an artifact-free compression DVD made at home with interlaced material. Anyway, there are very good encoders out of there: Tmpgenc ( http://www.tmpgenc.net ) and Cinema Craft Encoder can yield impressive results when used properly.

If you're tranferring Super8 or some kind of filmlook stuff, Tmpgenc has an excellent system for turning your video into progressive.

Post by **Sonic Truth** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 1:08 am

Many cinematographers view their dailies on DVD.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 3:52 am

Sonic Truth wrote:REGARD ALL ART CRITICS AS USELES AND DANGEROUS

Regard all art instructors as future art critics.

Seems to me talking DVD in a film forum is comparing apples to bananas. You can live on both of them, but they are not the same. They don't taste the same and don't look the same. Personally I don't like the looks or taste of a banana, but it's a very convenient package. I like the idea of using DVD in film work in much the same way. It's a nice way to preview what you have accomplished in a fairly quick format to produce (assuming you have transferred your film to a computer for edit).

Post by **mattias** » Sat Jan 18, 2003 12:51 pm

Sonic Truth wrote:Many cinematographers view their dailies on DVD.

source please. sounds really strange...

/matt

Post by **Sonic Truth** » Sun Jan 19, 2003 3:33 am

how is it strange? the dailies get transferred to DVD. Easy to watch in hotel rooms on location etc.....the source for this info was from some article written by the cinematographer on the film XXX if i remember correctly. I think he mentioned it being a treat for the crew at the end of the day to pile into a hotel room and watching through the shots form that day....rather than it just be the DOP and the Director or something....

anyway....

Post by **tfunch24** » Sun Jan 19, 2003 8:58 am

The computer I bought last spring came equipped with a Hewlett-Packard DVD burner. According to the instructions, the DVD burner will record to any brand DVD-RW DVDs. As it turns out, the burner can only record to Hewlett-Packard DVD-RW DVDs--I found this out the hard way.

If you have to transfer to video and need to be able to show you transferred films to a wide variety of audiences, I would stick with VHS tapes.

Tom

Post by **mattias** » Sun Jan 19, 2003 10:29 am

Sonic Truth wrote:how is it strange?

well, a dvd isn't as good as a print or even a beta transfer. i would never try and make judgements of exposure and focus based on a dvd.

I think he mentioned it being a treat for the crew at the end of the day

see that's a different thing. you said that *cinematographers* view *their* dailies on dvd, which is what i didn't quite believe in. if this is not what you meant i'm sorry...

/matt

Post by **Sonic Truth** » Sun Jan 19, 2003 2:52 pm

Yeh, i meant the DVD dailies were just for easy viewing for the whole crew etc....of course to view proper dailies, any decent cinematographer would want Film dailies. In an article in the L.A times it said that watching film dailies is a nervous time for DOP's, was the camera loaded correctly? is there a continuity error? that sort of thing. Of course this is wrong. Film dailies allow you to see the true colours, how certain lighting set ups worked, and as you said, the exposure and focus. Apparently studios prefer the low cost of having HD dailies or whatever, but compared to watching real film, it cant compare.