questions about the DVD making process (1 Viewer)

[EricW]

i was just curious so i thought i'd ask:

1) how much does it cost to encode a movie from film (or in the case of digitally filmed movies, the hard drive) to DVD? and what percentage is this of the total DVD producing budget (not counting making supplements, actual production etc)

2) why do different regions have different transfers? if the cost is significant why don't they make just one master PAL transfer and one master NTSC transfer and share it.

 

[Mark Lucas]

Probably in the 10s of 1000s of dollars. I think most of it for the actual telecine transfer but I'm not sure. Maybe marketing is higher but it depends.

Newer movies and transfers have one transfer, covering PAL and NTSC markets. Why some films have different transfers in different regions? I have no idea. You only need to look at a few comparisons on dvdbeaver.com and it's pretty clear most of the time the non region 1 dvds look like badly telecined garbage. These inferior transfers were derived from iffy film elements and were supervised by no one involved with the film.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

That was the justification for the high ($40 and up) prices of new laserdisc releases, even if they were new transfers of an older movie. Makes me wonder how they can afford to sell DVDs so cheap!

 

[Aaron_Brez]

Cheaper manufacturing process for physical disks. And volume.

 

[John Whittle]

Ok, usually (and it depends on the studio and the management) once you've timed (color corrected) a title in telecine, various version would be made. You'd use the same color settings for 16:9 and P&S, etc.

In the "olden" days, you might make five passes for NTSC and PAL in various formats.

Another reason might be different censorship in various regions that require different transfers and sometimes local government regulations require transfer and dubbing be done in that country. We couldn't ship Spanish track prints made in Mexico to Spain for example. Brazil wouldn't accept Portguese, etc.

Most of the time in telecine is for color correction and you cacn easily spend a week to 10 days on a feature at $350 per hour for 10 hours a day ($3500x10) plus stock and studio supervision labor, etc.

Now it's common to make ONE high def transfer and then down convert to PAL or NTSC and also P&S from the high def.

Then all you have is a video transfer. Then you have to have it authored and encoded. This has come down in price, but it's still an expensive step.

Now if they only sold as many DVDs of a title as they did Laserdiscs, the prices would be closer. The manufacturing cost of a single laster disc is several fold the cost of a DVD (which is pennies when you get to the stamping).

John

 

[Ravi K]

I often hear about one HD transfer from which PAL and NTSC transfers are derived. What about credits in different languages? Wouldn't the German DVD of an American film have German credits? How is this dealt with?

So if an HD transfer of an American film is made in the US, are copies of the HD version sent to different countries who make their respective PAL or NTSC transfers (when they are made from this HD transfer)?

 

[Kevin M]

How many FPS is a HD transfer made in? Actual 24? Higher? N/A?

 

[Mark Lucas]

24p.

I think a lot of times HD quality masters don't even reach other markets. So they're stuck doing an unsupervised inferior transfer riddled with EE and other nasties usually. The foreign languages usually comes down to adding subtitles and including the different launguage tracks. Different title credits can be created for different markets too.