Desktop DVD Authoring [Paperback]

Douglas Dixon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 11, 2002

Desktop DVD Authoring opens up the world of DVD at your desktop -- for playing movies, archiving data, and authoring video productions. Whether for business presentations or family events, the medium of DVD offers an exciting new way to create and distribute video material as high-quality interactive presentations.

With this book, you can easily create and share great-looking productions on DVD and even CD, with real, full-quality digital video and audio, complete with professional-style menus. Even better, the DVD discs that you burn at your desktop can be played almost anywhere -- not only on computer DVD drives, but also on consumer set-top DVD players.

This book will help you make sense of DVD -- discs and formats, consumer and computer products, computer systems and peripherals, for playback and authoring, across both the Windows and Macintosh platforms. You'll see the range of possibilities for desktop DVD authoring, from transferring some videotapes to DVD as easily and simply as possible, to designing your own interactive presentations.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A well-focused introduction to all the popular DVD authoring applications." -- Jim Taylor, Author of DVD Demystified, Chief of DVD Technology, Sonic

"Clear, concise, balanced. No matter what hardware and software you buy, read Desktop DVD Authoring first." -- Tony Jasionowski, North American Program Director, Recordable DVD Council (RDVDC)

About the Author

Douglas Dixon is a technologist and author who has worked in the "Video Valley" of Princeton, N.J. for more than 20 years, at the bleeding edge where advanced consumer video applications meet personal computers. He recently authored How to Use Adobe Premiere 6.5, and also writes regularly on technology and business for Camcorder and Computer Video magazine and the U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton.

As a technology leader at Sarnoff Corp., and previously as a software product manager at Intel Corp., Doug has extensive experience developing multimedia and web technology into consumer products. As a technology writer, Doug is a contributing editor for Camcorder and Computer Video and Digital Photographer magazines.

Although he writes about new and cutting-edge technology, Doug's focus is on making technology understandable and useful for real people. For more on these topics, see his Manifest Technology web site at www.manifest-tech.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 552 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press; 1 edition (October 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789727528
• ISBN-13: 978-0789727527
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,150,863 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Weak learning tool good introduction to software choices, November 7, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Desktop DVD Authoring (Paperback)

Do not purchase this book if your intention is to learn the technicalities of DVD authoring. It is only an introduction to most of the software products out there right now.
Purchase this book if you intend to attain a software product and are unsure which to select among the many choices out there.
It is a good overview of these products and would be a very useful book for this purpose.
There is discussion about DVD authoring but it is weak and vastly incomplete. As a long time author and owner of several products, and all books on the subject I am dissappointed with this book. I would have liked to have seen at least some command sequence examples. There are none. If you wish to learn the intricacies of DVD authoring,do a course.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Companion for DVD Video Authoring, October 21, 2002

By 

ROBERT W. SAINTJOHN "I am The Pumpkin King" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Desktop DVD Authoring (Paperback)

Dixon and Matey have done an excellent job in putting together a text that will certainly help those who are new to this complex subject. Although there are other well-written and broader books on DVD (most notably as DVD Demystified by Jim Taylor), I'd recommend this book first to anyone looking to specifically get started in creating personal DVD-Videos. In fact, if at all possible, buy this book *before* investing in any hardware or software for the task!!

"Desktop DVD Authoring" really cuts through the complexities of DVD, focuses exclusively on what matters, and provides a remarkably up-to-date breakdown on what is available in the market as of late 2002/early 2003. The authors are also to be commended for taking a very "platform independent" approach to the topic, with equal weight given to both Windows and Mac platforms.

Also impressive is the logical way the material is organized, and the way it scales from "Automated DVD Authoring" for absolute beginners, to "Personal DVD Authoring" for those who crave more customization in their work, to "Professional DVD Authoring" for professional and feature film production. Considering that companies in the digital video and DVD authoring application industry do such a poor job in their marketing and dissemination of this information, "Desktop DVD Authoring" is an invaluable and unique resource for getting through the hype, and understanding exactly what is required to do your own high-quality productions.

Again, I cannot recommend highly enough that you pick up this book *before* heading off to the store to buy anything to make your own DVDs. Doing so will save you a great deal of the time, money and pain currently associated with trying to get your own videos onto DVD. And unlike many technical books, this is an easy and pleasurable read without any hardware or software in front of you.

Kudos to the authors and New Riders Publishing for delivering a fluff-free, timely resource for DVD authoring, and for filling a gap that exists right now.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful, entertaining and easy to read, October 18, 2002

By 

Chris Cutter (Framingham, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Desktop DVD Authoring (Paperback)

The key to any good technology book is its ability to teach the reader something new and complicated in a way that is entertaining. Some tech books read like high school Calculus books, this isn't one of them. Dixon does a solid job of covering the entire complex world of DVD authoring in a very straightforward and easy to understand way. Highly recommended for those just getting started in DVD or for old pros who want to brush up on the latest and greatest.