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Let's examine the skills and the steps needed to create a quality DVD-Video product.
With the rapid growth of the DVDVideo format over the past two years or so, there has been an accompanying need for qualified production teams to manage and create the titles. Most of the companies that entered the DVD-Video authoring and compression business in the early stages of the format were traditional postproduction video facilities. Because they already owned the expensive video equipment and had experience with the movie industry, adding authoring and compression to their service cards seemed a natural next step.
Other early adopters had already built successful businesses supplying CD-ROM production services and saw the DVD format as the next step in the world of interactive optical discs. Dedicated graphic design firms also entered the field, producing menus and handling all of the visual components of a DVD title. And now with the emergence of the DVD-Audio specification, professional audio recording and mastering studios are contemplating entering the business of DVD production. Each of these types of enterprises possesses a part of the puzzle, but none can fulfill all of the aspects involved in producing a DVD-Video title. This month we're going to examine the individual skills needed and the steps required to create a quality DVD-Video product.
As with any other complex production process, the primary production imperative is planning and coordination. There are dozens of individual steps that are required to produce a creative and properly functioning DVD-Video title. Each one needs to be carefully tracked and scheduled in relation to all other steps to insure efficient use of resources.
The Production
The producer and production coordinator share the responsibility of making sure that the project is properly managed. The producer contributes to the overall design of the project and defines the scope of the interactivity and delegates the...