Reprinted from the Sep/Oct 2003 issue of Church Production Magazine
The race is on to incorporate DVD technology into media ministries everywhere. DVDs are extremely versatile; “versatile,” after all, is their middle name (“DVD” stands for “Digital Versatile Disk”). It’s this versatility that makes DVDs valuable tools for almost any ministry.
Before applying this technology to your church, however, you must analyze how DVDs fit into the ministry’s mission statement and technology plan. (A technology plan should provide the road map of all the technology requirements for each aspect of the ministry at large. See: “Plan Before You Purchase” on page 70.)
Once you determine where in your ministry you plan to use DVDs, you can then develop your DVD authoring process. Conventional wisdom tells us DVD authoring is limited to the final step of production. However, DVD authoring actually starts long before you compile all the media elements that you will be including on your DVD.
DVD authoring is much like book publishing: a publisher takes the writer’s text, adds the copyright page, table of contents, etc. Then the book is laid out with photos and graphics. Once this is complete, the book is sent to the printer.
With DVD authoring, audio, video, graphics, and animation are put together in much the same manner as a book; the result, however, is a DVD rather than printed pages. It is important to note that DVDs are not to be confused with CD-ROMs because they have a different architecture: the lasers use a shorter wavelength, thus increasing data capacity.
The first step in DVD authoring is planning. You need to determine the goal of the particular project on which you are working. The versatility of the DVD requires that you decide whether the project requires mono, stereo, surround sound, or all the above. Does the program require interactivity, or are you simply trying to use the DVD as a modern medium for distributing a video of the service? After the all the requirements are determined, it is time to design the DVD. During this aspect of the process, you would create a flow chart detailing what items will be included on the DVD, and the storage required for each element.
DVD authoring, in its simplest form, requires some hardware including a video source (computerenabled with 1394/Firewire) and a DVD burner. This hardware, including a digital camcorder, can all be purchased for well under $3,000 (all prices in U.S. dollars). Specialized software is also required; most non-linear editing software provides the ability to capture and edit the video.
After the editing is completed then you will need additional software such as DVDit! by Sonic Solutions to put everything together and burn the material onto a disk. The software required for DVD authoring ranges anywhere from several hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars. Less expensive software provides simple templates for creation, while the more expensive software provides the user complete control over the creation of the DVD. Each month, software developers that specialize in audio and video production applications are making the DVD authoring process easier and more integrated into their products. A full-featured DVD authoring software package that includes editing, encoding, menu creation, interactivity, and burning can be purchased for $1,500 to $2,000.
After the initial planning process is complete, there are five steps to creating a DVD.
Step 1. Shoot the elements required for the project. Create the music or obtain selections from production libraries. After all of the elements are recorded, it is time to capture the required elements into the computer. Most video editing software provides fairly sophisticated capture features. Once these items are captured and stored on the hard drive of the computer, it is time to edit the video into a polished product and save it as an AVI file.
Step 2. Convert the AVI video that is stored on your hard drive to a DVDcompatible MPEG-2 file (.mp2). This is typically achieved within the video editing software. If your software does not offer the ability to convert the AVI file to MPEG-2, you will need to acquire encoding software. Once all the audio and video files are properly encoded, it is time to move to Step 3.
Step 3. As mentioned before, most people improperly consider this step as “DVD authoring” when this is actually the final step of production. For this step, take all of the elements and add menus, chapters, and pictures to provide proper navigation throughout the DVD content. If, during the planning stage, you created a flowchart or map, most of your work is done. If you didn’t plan properly, this becomes a lengthy step in the process and you will often find you don’t have all the proper elements or enough space to complete the project.
Step 4. You are now ready to burn the content onto the DVD. The DVD software will take you through this process.
Step 5. After the content is burned onto the DVD you are now ready for playback. Some older DVD players are picky about what kind of DVD formats they can play, as there are many different types. If you are serious about making DVDs for the widest possible audience, it is recommended that you get several inexpensive DVD players from Toshiba, Panasonic, Pioneer, and Sony to test the DVDs for compatibility.
Whether or not your church’s focus has moved from web development to DVD authoring, the media ministry should consider the production process for all mediums at the same time. Tools like those mentioned above make it easy to produce and publish in multiple formats.
DVD authoring can fill many needs for a variety of ministries, such educational DVDs with interactivity and mini movies with full surround sound. It is important to make sure the DVD fits the production environment and the end user. If the majority of the people that are going to use the DVD don’t have surround sound, don’t spend thousands of dollars to include surround sound on your DVD. Again, a good technology plan will assist in making the right choices for each ministry’s needs.
If your current technology plan doesn’t include DVD authoring, carefully re-examine the needs of your various ministries and then slowly start the process of incorporating DVD technology into your production environment. DVD technology is here and growing rapidly. Embrace it, but do it wisely.
Brent Harshbarger is the founder of m3tools™, a company whose sole purpose
is to develop and support multimedia ministries. Brent can be reached via email
at brent@m3tools.com.