Introduction
DVD is the most popular format for delivering multimedia content. A DVD physical disc can be structured using several logic formats. The most common logic standard is DVD-Video, defined by the DVD Forum, that is the most popular format used by the movie industry to distribute films and for the users to create presentations about products, weddings, holidays and others.
DVDs can be played in DVD players at home connected to a TV set, video games consoles, personal computers or other devices. DVD-Video discs support features like menus, selectable subtitles, multiple camera angles, and multiple audio tracks. To produce DVD-Video titles with these features you need to use a DVD authoring tool (like Mistelix).
The DVD-Video standard does not provide support for slideshows. Authoring tools have to produce a video from a set of images by their own, since the standard does not support showing static images or the concept of transitions.
Features
A DVD-Video supports the following features:
- Menus. Each disc has a main menu from which the user can navigate the content using his DVD player remove control. It is possible to have submenus attached to every menu. The menus are the most important part of a DVD because they are responsible of the user navigation.
- Subtitles. DVD Video may also include up to 32 subtitle or subpicture tracks in various languages, including those made especially for the deaf and hearing impaired. They are stored as bitmap images with transparent background and are shown over the video during playback.
- Chapters. Chapters are like bookmarks in a video that allow the user to skip or jump to specific points on the DVD.
- Content protection. Since the DVD is widely use by the movie industry several copy protection systems have been put in place. The most basic protection is the region code that restricts the area of the world in which a DVD can be played. There are 8 regions defined in the world, DVD titles bought in one region (for example United Estates) cannot be reproduced in other regions (for example Europe). The are other protection systems like Content Scramble System and derivates to protect the DVD from begin copied.
- Deferent camera angles. It allows to view a video with different camera angles. The films have to be reordered with multiple cameras to capture all the angles. When the user is playing the DVD, he can switch from his remote control to different angles.