Beyond the Office
September 14th, 2004
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PC World
Technology Advice You Can Trust
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Our editors' favorite PC and console games and hardware, a look at the
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September 14th, 2004
Making Movies: Your Video Questions Answered
Sr. Assoc. Ed. Richard Baguley
I'm pleased to report that my newsletter is generating a good amount
of feedback from you, dear readers, with several people asking
questions or offering comments or suggestions on subjects I have
written about. This month, I'm going to address a few of these
comments and suggestions.
Digitizing Analog Video
In "Copy Your Old Videos to DVD," I wrote about the various ways that
you can take an analog video and copy it to a DVD, including using
set-top DVD recorders and analog-to-USB capture devices:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/220415/21421685/755091/0/
A couple of readers e-mailed me to point out a way to capture analog
video without necessarily having to buy any new equipment: Use a
digital camcorder.
Many MiniDV camcorders have an input for taking content from an analog
video source (such as an analog video recorder) and converting it into
a digital format. The name that manufacturers give this feature
varies, but most call it something like "analog pass-through."
Basically, if the camcorder has a video and audio input, it should be
able to do this conversion--but check the specifications before you
buy. The way this works is simple: You connect the video source to the
video- and audio-in ports of the camcorder, and then connect the
FireWire output of the camcorder to the PC. Put the camcorder into
recording mode; launch your video software (any program that can
record digital video, such as Adobe Premiere, Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3
or most DVD authoring programs, should do); and then save the video to
disk. The camcorder deals with the analog-to-digital video conversion.
You can then edit the video and output it to DVD using the techniques
I described in "Copy Your Old Videos to DVD."
Adobe Premiere:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/220415/21421685/755092/0/
Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/220415/21421685/755093/0/
For more DVD authoring programs, browse the Video Tools section of PC
World's Downloads library:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/220415/21421685/755094/0/
Super Subtitles
Another reader sent me a simple question: What DVD software lets you
create subtitles? If you are creating educational or commercial DVDs,
subtitles can make your productions more accessible to viewers who are
hard of hearing or who don't speak English.
The answer is that the basic programs bundled with rewritable DVD
drives (such as Sonic Solutions DVDit or Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator)
can't create subtitles. To add this capability, you'll need to upgrade
to a professional DVD authoring program such as Adobe Encore DVD or
Sonic DVD Producer, both of which can create subtitles on a DVD. Adobe
offers an online tutorial showing how the procedure works in Encore
DVD.
Sonic Solutions DVDit:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/220415/21421685/755095/0/
Roxio Easy CD & DVD Creator:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/220415/21421685/755096/0/
Adobe Encore DVD:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/220415/21421685/755097/0/
Sonic DVD Producer:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/220415/21421685/755098/0/
Adobe's online tutorial:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/220415/21421685/755099/0/
Making Beautiful Menus
One of my readers is generally happy with the process of making her
own DVDs, but would like more control over how the menus look. At
present, she is using CyberLink PowerDirector 3, a program that does
not allow much control over the final look and feel of the menus: You
can choose a template for your menu, but not much else.
Slightly more sophisticated programs like DVD MovieFactory 3 allow you
some control over the appearance of the menu: You can add your own
pictures as backgrounds; change the font and appearance of the text on
the menu; and add your own background music.
However, if you really want to control every aspect of the menu,
you'll need a professional DVD authoring program like Adobe Encore DVD
or Sonic DVD Producer. These are the sort of tools professional DVD
producers use, and they allow you to create the type of menu that you
see on commercial movie DVDs. But beware: This level of control makes
these sophisticated programs much more complicated to use.
Doing Dual Layer
I received an e-mail from someone who's seen some of our online news
stories on the new dual-layer (also known as double-layer) DVD discs:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/220415/21421685/755100/0/
He wonders if he can use these discs in his existing recordable DVD
drive. The answer, unfortunately, is no. Unless the drive was designed
to write to dual-layer DVD media--and such drives have only become
available in the past month--it cannot write to the new discs. This is
a pity: Dual-layer media can hold twice as much data, and thus twice
as much video content, as their single-layer siblings.
But it's not just the drives that need to be updated. In order to
write to the discs, and keep track of how much data has been written
to them, DVD authoring software has to be updated as well.
Fortunately, many of the companies that publish this software have
already prepared, or are working on, updates that allow their programs
to work with dual-layer rewritable DVD drives.
Have a question or comment? Write to Richard Baguley:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Read Richard Baguley's regularly published "Making Movies" columns:
http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/220415/21421685/364370/0/
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