Planning for DVD production

The pixel dimensions of a DVD frame are only 720 x 576. Therefore, displaying small text and detailed diagrams can be problematic. Use a resolution of 72dpi and keep your text point size above 16ppt. Text below 16ppt will be illegible.

When designing menu buttons, keep things simple. The DVD specification only allows for 4 colours in the menu overlay and one of these is background, so, effectively you only have 3 tones available for buttons.

DVD is generally viewed in one of three ways; on a TV, on a computer or via a projector. When viewed on a computer or through a projector, all of the frame, sides, top and bottom, is visible. You will therefore want to keep these areas clean. Mask off any scarring around the edges of your frame or resize the image to lose it.

“We have finished the program, now let’s just run off a DVD”. Unfortunately, properly authored DVDs cannot be produced in real time. For example, a 30 minute program will have its material reviewed at least 4 times i.e. 2 hours of viewing; twice for dual pass encoding and twice while proofing on a DVD player and a PC. Add in time for set up, authoring, disk burning and spot re-encoding to fix problems and half a day will have passed. Any major problems will take longer.