After Video Editing Comes DVD Authoring

After Video Editing Comes DVD Authoring

Using your computer to make a bunch of home movies look like one Hollywood blockbuster takes more than good editing. You'll want effects, transitions and a menu that lets you instantly access different chapters. And it has to work with your player.

A number of entry-level software programs can help.

Windows:
Pinnacle Studio 9 ($99.99) http://www.pinnaclesys.com
Roxio Easy Media Creator 7 ($99.95) http://www.roxio.com
Ulead VideoStudio 8 ($99.95) http://www.ulead.com

Macintosh:
iDVD ($49.99, part of iLife) http://www.apple.com
Roxio Toast 6 Titanium ($99.95). http://www.roxio.com

When you're done editing, the authoring process begins. This is when you actually make, or "burn," a disc so it can be viewed. Here are three important steps:

1. Build a menu. Most commercial DVDs include a menu. Using it, you can play the entire movie or select specific scenes.

The menu for your home movie won't be as elaborate, but it will help viewers jump around. This is done by creating chapters. Each chapter is represented on your menu.

Simplicity is key. If you have too many chapters, the menu will be several pages deep and navigation will be difficult. It's best to place chapter points where there are natural breaks in the movie. For example, your vacation video might consist of time at the beach, a day at an amusement park and a trip to the zoo. You now have one movie with three chapters.

2. Understand authoring options. You don't need a DVD burner to watch movies on a standalone DVD player. There are other standards of video that will play on many DVD players.

VCD (Video Compact Disc) has a picture quality similar to a VHS tape. VCDs are burned onto compact discs and hold about 80 minutes of video. This format is fine for creating picture slide shows. Avoid using it for video. The picture tends to be blurry.

SVCD (Super Compact Disc) has a better picture than VCD. SVCDs are burned onto compact discs and hold about 60 minutes of video. The picture quality is good, especially if you have a small amount of video. The fewer minutes of video you have the less it is compressed and the better the picture.

DVD has the best picture of the three formats. It can store up to two hours of excellent-quality video. If you have a DVD burner, you'll want to stick with DVD format.

You can store several hours of video with DVD if you want, but the compression will be so great that the picture quality will suffer.

3. Know the format. Not all standalone DVD players will play VCDs, SVCDs or DVD-Rs and DVD+Rs. Check to see if your model will play one (or all) of these formats. Although your DVD player may be compatible with one or all formats, you can still run into problems. Some players have difficulty reading different brands of discs. You may have to experiment to get consistent results.

After you become more experienced, you may find entry-level video suites limiting. There are professional authoring programs such as
Adobe Encore DVD (http://www.adobe.com; $549)
Pinnacle Impression DVD-Pro ($199.99)
Ulead DVD Workshop ($495).

The prices of these programs are hard to justify unless you're a true video buff. At the other end of the scale is MovieMaker, which is built into Windows XP

This Land Will Surely Vote For Me

Sorry, I've got this little ditty stuck in my mind. It's from an animated cartoon featuring George Bush and John Kerry, which is justwonderful. I've watched it a dozen times, and it still seems funny.

The cartoon's title is "This Land." It features the two candidates trading barbs to the tune of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." The lines and drawings are very, very clever.

NOTE: There are few lines in here that the kids shouldn't hear. So shoo them out of the room before playing the video.

The two brothers who produced the cartoon, Greg and Evan Spiridellis, maintain a weblog (or blog). In it, they say demand to see the cartoon has occasionally swamped their server. So if links to the cartoon don't work, try later. You'll find the cartoon and blog at, respectively:
http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/af/content/this_land_af
http://jibjab.com/

UPDATE: The owners of the copyright to Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." have sued to prevent further infringement. The above links may not work.

Bloopers and Blunders Of the Cinematic kind

Have you ever watched a movie and caught a mistake (anachronisms, continuity problems, disappearing props, etc)? If you have, come over to today's site and share your knowledge.

Movie Mistakes documents the mistakes in movies. For example, Spiderman 2 was a killer at the box office but viewers have found 45 mistakes (maybe more by the time this reaches your inbox).

Movie Mistakes also has a huge collection of Easter eggs (those little surprises hidden in DVDs).

What movie has the most mistakes? Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl has 251 mistakes--and still counting!

Manage Your Portfolio

Manage your portfolio

Smartmoney.com has a great tool that allows you to manage your portfolio online--and it's free! Create a new portfolio by inputting the names of your stocks and number of shares invested.

If you have your portfolio in a different program, such as MS Money or Quicken, you can import the file.

You do have to register with the site, but registration is free.

What Is Your Ride Worth? How much should you pay for a new one?

The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) publishes appraisal guides for automobiles, motorcycles and boats.

Its Web site lets you instantly appraise your used vehicle. Enter the year, make, model and mileage.

You can search for new and used vehicles in your area. Reviews and ratings for new and used vehicles are provided as well.

Other good appraisal guides: Kelley Blue Book, Edmund's. Both web sites have huge amounts of really good information on new and used cars.

If I were going to buy a new or used car, I'd spend some time at Consumers' Reports. When my Head Lady was preparing for the ordeal of car shopping, she got a one-month subscription to the CU website for a few dollars. There she researched and compared vehicles, true dealer's invoice costs, dealers' rebates, frequency-of-repair records, ratings (as determined by owner surveys), and so on. She drove off the dealers' lot in Molly, her '04 Chevy Tracker; the dealer's staff never knew what hit 'em.

Free, As In Beer

Picasa is software for editing, organizing and sharing photos. It scans your computer, looking for all of your digital images. Then it enables you to add keywords to pictures to help organize them.

Crop images, remove red-eye, and enhance color and contrast. Then print or e-mail directly from the program.

Picasa used to be a commercial program, but now it's free. I've paid big bucks for image editors that do less, and do it badly.