Some terms and phrases useful in the DVD creation process... DVD LOGO Clients often have questions (or more often, don't when they should!) about who can use the "DVD Video" or "DVD ROM" official logos. This logo is licensed and can only be used on projects that are replicated. The replication house pays a licensing fee and meets certain minimum quality standards in order to be legally allowed to use that logo. DVD Video logos CANNOT be used on duplicated DVDs legally, and doing so leaves a client open to liability, or at best an appearance of unprofessionalism. ArtOfDVD.com cannot, for these legal reasons, duplicate discs with the DVD Video logo on them. In addition, logos indicating burned disc formats such as "DVD-R" or "DVD+R" cannot be used on the label. Those logos are reserved for player manufacturers and blank disc manufacturers in a similar way. So what to do if you want to let your viewers know you are making a DVD video disc? ArtOfDVD.com has an answer. Click Here for information. DUPLICATION Refers to the process where premade blank DVD discs are created or "burned" in specialized DVD recorders. Special inks are impregnated into the discs, sandwiched between plastic layers. The laser in the DVD burner heats the ink, which upon cooling becomes opaque. This prevents light from being reflected back to the drive's reader, thus registering the spot as a bit of data. Flavors of DVDs that are duplicated are DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW. Discs made in this way play on most DVD set-top players, and should play on all PC DVD players. However, not all burners can burn all formats. Also, there is a chance that some set-top players will not play these kinds of discs. This method is best for short run DVDs, in quantities 100 or under. REPLICATION Refers to the process where a project is first authored to a mastering media, like DLT tape or DVD-Authoring disc, and then is made into a glass master. This master is used to physically create the copied disc. Discs created in this manner will play on all set-top and PC DVD players without exception. This method also allows for copy-protection, not available in duplication. Typically, the cost is lower per disc when replicated, but more discs must be made. The glass master is usually the limiting factor, as there is a high cost in creating it. This method is best for disc runs of 500 discs or more. AMARAY CASE This is the product name for the case usually used for theatrical DVDs, as opposed to "Jewel Case", the case style more typical of music CDs. This style case supports a cover, which can be inserted into a plastic sleeve on the outside, and typically also includes clips on the inside for an insert booklet, useful for instructions or other information relating to the DVD. (4/0) This notation refers to the number of colors per printed side of a product. For example, in a DVD Amaray case cover, the notation would be (4/0) for four, or full, color on the front and no colors on the back. This makes sense, as the back of your cover on an Amaray case would never be seen! Another example would be a one page jewel case insert. This could be (4/0) or (4/1) or (4/4). In this case, printing on the back would make sense, since you would see the back when you open up the jewel case. GLASS MASTER This is the physical master used to create discs when replicating CDs or DVDs. Basically, the pits and bumps which indicate ones and zeros to the laser in the player are actual physical features of the glass master, as opposed to inks which are used in CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. This is the way both CDs and DVDs were originally designed, and therefore when a glass master is used, discs made with it are guaranteed to work on all players, assuming the source master was correct in the first place! MPEG2 VIDEO When preparing video for use in DVDs, it must be highly compressed in order to fit onto a disc. The standard used on DVDs for high-quality video is MPEG2. The challenge with MPEG2 encoding is to balance quality with performance. MPEG2 compares each video frame with the previous frame to determine which pixels have changed and which haven't. At lower qualities, pixels which are close in color instead of exactly the same are treated as though they were the same. This can result in blocky fetures not in the original video. Thus, the most challenging footage to encode is fire, water, and moving trees with small leaves, or fast moving video. Variable bit rate, multi-pass encoding (the type used byArtOfDVD.com) ensures that the encoding is optimized as much as possible. This process reviews the video once, then re-reviews it to insure that the video is compressed as much as possible with the least quality loss for the quality level selected. It also evaluates large blocks of video, encoding scenes with little change at a lower rate, and scenes with more movement at a higher rate. This helps to attain a lower average rate, while still providing consistent quality throughout. With proper planning, over 2 hours of video can be encoded to fit on a single DVD. AC-3 AUDIO Sound can make or break a video. AC-3 audio is the sound encoding format of choice for DVDs. AC-3 audio can be encoded with no discernable loss in quality, but at much higher compression than say AIFF, which is a format also supported by DVDs. This is crucial, as video needs as much bandwidth as possible, and AIFF audio can be as much as 5 times larger than AC-3 audio. This is especially important when using multiple audio tracks. The AC-3 format also supports up to 6 channels of sound, making surround sound available in DVDs.