Hi Editors:
I have always had long lasting questions regarding Avid DVD by Sonic. - Image may be NSFW.
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1. Whenever I load Avid DVD from my desktop it always seems to take a long while before it finally opens. I always wondered if this wasn't some kind of symptom of a not perfectly configured installation of the program ? Here's what I mean. I once had Avid tech support have me re-tweak something in my old Win XP Pro OS which caused Avid DVD to load super fast, but I lost those configuration notes long ago and cannot remember what to do about that ? Does anybody on this forum remember anything about specific configurations tweeks for Avid DVD?
2. I remember several years back, when Avid DVD was at 6.1.1, then an update was finally released after we all screamed aloud about the wonders of the application insisting on re-encoding audio and video files, which were already encoded, such as anything in MPEG 4 or Microsoft's VC1 codec (Which I still think looks better than anything ever encoded in MPEG 2 !) I have authored a few Blu-ray disks which were encoded in VC1 from Squeeze, and was finally able to get Avid DVD to pass them straight through to authoring and burning without Avid DVD insisting on re-encoding them in version 6.4.4 ! The thing was if you encoded files from the timeline edit in Sorensen Squeeze 5, then it would import into Avid DVD just fine. If you did an encode in VC1 codec using anything higher than Squeeze 5 to do it with, then Avid DVD either would not import those files, or import and re-encode them into MPEG - 2 !!! I never tried encoding DVD using Sorensen Squeeze 8.5 in VC1 to see if Avid DVD still insisted in an import and MPEG - 2 re-encode ?
Anyone have any thoughts about Avid DVD ? I was always rather dispariging of the application, and thought it had allot of potential to evolve into a great DVD authoring application. I still think it would be great if we had some kind of built in MPEG - 2 encoding engine in Media Composer, which would allow Blu-ray and NTSC DVD titles to be authored straight from the timeline. We still get a surprising amount both NTSC and ever increasing Blu-ray 1080 p 24/4K Resolution DVD requests from our customers lately. I would certainly agree online streaming is King, but DVD is long from being a dead format folks. Churches, Ministries, Teaching institutions, and trade show Kiosk DVD's and Blu-ray make up 40 % of our business demand. Many would be surprised at how many folks own DVD and Blu-ray and even 4K Blu-ray players out there.
I am located in a rather rural, semi-isolated area of North America, but the folks up here along with buisnesses up here are all still very much NTSC DVD and Blu-ray/Blu-ray 4K. Even out here in the boonies. I haven't got my fingers on the pulse of the Urban Canadian Market in Vancouver or Toronto, or New York, but especially in areas where internet availability is spotty and where it is available it is not anywhere approaching the bandwidth's available in urban areas, folks will be happy to pop in a DVD or Blu-ray of their favorite movie.
Just pondering while I'm rendering,
Mark Job
ICT Productions & Post,
Northern Tip of Vancouver Island,
Canada
