On Mon, 2 Sep 2002, K.T.Kutani wrote:

> No, I know.  But I mean, if you know what the heck you're doing, and
> make an effort to fix any mistakes while you're working, then it's not
> hard to come out with good product.
>
> Ok, let's see.
>
> 1. Digital Master
> 2. Transfer of digital master to hard drive in some format, either
> uncompressed or DV (5:1), maybe somewhere in between.
> 3. Chopping the video up for chapters.
> 4. Encoding each chapter into MPEG-2.
> 5. Encoding of the audio data.
> 6. Encoding of any extraneous data.
> 7. Creation of a master disc or ISO/whatever DVD images are called.
> 8. Proper printing from the master.
>
> This is simplified a bit and off the top of my head (don't bother
> correcting any of it, I just wrote it to make a point and not to be even
> 80% correct), but the basic idea is there.  If you just take your time
> and watch what you're doing, it's hard to end up with crappy product
> when you're dealing with a digital master, which is my point.

Easy to say, but there's just too much that can go wrong. You gloss over
a lot, especially in step 5. Case in point: Ghibli's most recent
movie, "Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi" was released on DVD in Japan
with a very noticeable red tint. They claimed that this was in fact not
a mistake, but a feature, intended to optimize image quality for
beamers and LCD displays. Apparently the movie was mastered on such
a display and nobody bothered to check it on a normal TV set, then
someone higher up took responsibility for it and everyone else
in the companies involved didn't dare criticize him and went along
with the "it's a feature!" excuse.


> Alas, time and money make people rush things, or people just don't feel
> like putting in the effort needed to do a real nice quality job. (Or
> there is crappy QC.)

If it were really hard to screw up, this would be different. What you're
basically saying is "It's hard to make a mistake if you take all possible
precautions that could prevent you from making a mistake", which is kinda
redundant. Fact is, there is ample opportunity to make mistakes in DVD
mastering, totally independant of whether you have a digital or analog
masters. And such mistakes inevitably *are* made. And it's easy to say
that companies should invest the time and money to make a quality product,
but the same people who say this are the ones screaming bloody murder
about every delay and every dollar the price is above average.






Michael "Brazil" Borgwardt --- Member of #WASHU# and Her would-be guinea-pig.
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