Video Editing : DVD Menu Authoring (page 2)

One of the big successes of modern DVD authoring programs is the use of the graphical interface to make the process of linking DVD assets easier and more logical.

Once upon a time, a DVD author had to write code in order to instruct an authoring system how to playback a video or audio asset or how to jump between chapters or other content divisions. Today's software allows those same links to be accomplished by simply dropping an icon onto another or dragging a visual line between two boxes representing programming actions. Still, no matter how easy the software designers try to make the process of authoring the typical DVD, it will always remain more complicated than the old fashioned process of popping a tape in the VCR and pushing the Record button.

DVD authoring will always be a combination of the technical and the aesthetic. In order to do it well, you need to pay attention to both. While you might be tempted to express extreme creativity in your screen designs, there are plenty of DVDs out there that are so clever that it's nearly impossible to use them no matter how hard you try.

Edgy designers, in their quest to make a hip or edgy title, often bury buttons and menu choices in a forest of design elements, reducing the user interface to a matter of guesswork. Until very recently, authoring DVDs was the province of professionals. Today, it's a task that is only a DVD burner and some inexpensive (or free!) software away.

The challenge is to look around the world of DVD authoring, learn the techniques that make a DVD successful, then adapt those lessons to your own authoring. If you do, your reward will be DVDs that you're proud to build and others are happy to use; better still, they won't become a handy coffee-table coaster instead of a prized DVD.

Back when nearly all DVDs were professionally authored with the goal of duplicating massive numbers of discs, authoring was a complicated process. One necessary part of the complication came in the form of an elaborate series of checks and balances that were put in place to make sure that before the DVD stamping machines began churning out literally thousands of discs, the authoring of those discs was as flawless as possible.

Fast forward to today with desktop DVD burners selling for well under $100 and easily capable of creating "one-off" discs for a variety of purposes -- and there's not the same sense of urgency about getting things just right before you burn your DVD. The downside is that by eliminating the checks and balances steps, more errors tend to creep into the DVD authoring process.

Ask anyone who's taken the plunge into home DVD authoring how many useless silver coasters they've created while learning to burn their own DVDs and you'll understand why it's still important to check and double-check your authoring work.

Part of the Check Disc process that exists in most authoring programs is to proof all the navigation functions and make sure that every action leads to another so that the user doesn't get stuck in an annoying navigational blind alley. With today's shift to simple DVD authoring programs and home DVD burners, many of those checks and balances have been removed for simplicity's sake. This, of course, puts a greater burden on the author to make sure things are just right before pushing the convenient Burn button on your DVD authoring software.

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