Target Areas:
Post Production Facilities and specialist DVD Boutiques
Description:
Disk systems from Edifis can play a major role in DVD Mastering
workflow by reason of their high storage capacity and multi-purpose
utilisation.
Prior to DVD Encoding, original source material whether original film or tape master must be cleaned of scratches and blemishes and to a higher standard than is normal for broadcast transmission. Scratchbox is used to record material and subsequently remove scratches, more quickly and easier than any other system available today.
As implemented for DVD, MPEG-2 encoding is a two-pass process. During the first pass, the encoder scans the video source, detects scene changes and determines the optimal bit rates for each frame. During the second pass, higher bit rates are assigned to complex frames and sequences with more activity and lower bit rates to "simple" frames. The two-pass process guarantees the best possible picture quality for the given video clip and disk storage. Unfortunately, it is very demanding on VTRs as well as being time-consuming and expensive in maintenance.
The solution is simple; keep the restored video within Scratchbox and use that system as the video source for the MPEG-2 Encoding process. Disk systems are ideal for repeat playing and there are no heads or drums to constantly replace.
A simple diagram of the process is shown below: