optibase's DVD fab! xpress

Emedia Professional, Feb, 1999 by Jan Ozer

While DVD authoring has conquered Hollywood, it hasn't quite breached the boardrooms of corporate America. It shouldn't be long, however, before DVD becomes pervasive in corporate sales, marketing, and training, as several trends are making DVD authoring and playback much more accessible.

On the playback front, cheap DVD-Video drives now sell in most retail outlets, inexpensive upgrade kits enable playback on legacy computers, and most new PC models are shipping with DVD drives and sufficient horsepower for software-decoded DVD playback. Even laptop vendors, including Toshiba and IBM, have begun shipping DVD-enabled laptops ideal for the road warrior needing to make a positive impression.

For production, real-time hardware MPEG-2 encoders should drop below the magic $500 mark in 1999, orphaning the MPEG-1 format. For distribution, DVD-R prices should drop below $5,000 by mid-1999, while CD-R and DVD-RAM will continue to provide a stop gap for computer playback of DVD-formatted titles.

The only significant hole, then, is in the DVD authoring market, which consists of the software programs that build the actual DVD titles. Designed for Hollywood titles that push the envelope of the DVD specification, the first generation of authoring systems were complex and costly, clearly inappropriate for the PowerPoint-like needs of the corporate market. The second generation of authoring systems, however, has been designed with the corporate user in mind.

Over the next few months, we'll assess how well they've transitioned from Hollywood to the boardroom, as we review a number of DVD authoring programs and turn-key systems. This five-month, five-part review series will focus on how quickly and easily these new systems can build simple titles that leverage the broadcast quality of MPEG-2 video and the accessibility of DVD playback. First in the series is Optibase's DVD Fab! XPress, a Windows NT-based DVD authoring system combining Optibase MPEG-2 encoding and playback hardware with Daikin's Scenarist Basic, a DVD authoring package.

hardware, software, and such

You can purchase all DVD Fab! components (including a two-channel Dolby encoder) for $33,003--a modest saving compared to the combined retail prices of the separate components. Our test system was pre-built by Optibase and, not surprisingly, worked perfectly right out of the box. For users who find the prospect of installing the various components unappealing, Optibase offers on its Web site a list of VARS and distributors, many of which will build turn-key systems.

MPEG-2 encoding functionality

DVD Fab! XPress uses Optibase's MPEG Moviemaker 200 for MPEG-2 encoding, which is powered by C-Cube's MicroSPARC RISC Processor DVx. Video inputs include S-Video, composite, and Serial Digital Input (SDI), with audio connectors for balanced and unbalanced stereo and digital AES/EBU input. Outputs include MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video (constant and variable bit rates) and MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and Dolby Digital AC-3 audio.

MovieMaker's control software provides a DVD preset that conforms audio and video encoding parameters to the required specifications, simplifying operation. Incoming video adjustments include hue, saturation, brightness and contrast, horizontal and vertical offset, and digital pre-filtering with audio gain control. Optibase's VideoPlex XPress provides real-time decoding while encoding, which helps to fine-tune these input parameters. The program also supports pause and resume encoding, scene change detection for I-frame insertion, closed caption encoding, and inverse telecine for film-based videos.

MovieMaker provides machine control over most professional decks, enabling batch capture and two-pass variable bit rate encoding. In testing, we captured from a DV camcorder without machine control, using the bundled Video Clip MPEG editor from VITEC Multimedia to trim excess frames from the beginning and end of the video.

Overall, MovieMaker was a pleasure to use, benefiting from Optibase's history of MPEG experience. Video output quality was high, even for difficult-to-compress, low-light clips. Audio quality was surprisingly good, especially considering that we shot the source material with a DV camcorder lacking an external microphone.

daikin scenarist: the softer side of DVD fab! xpress

The DVD authoring component in DVD Fab! XPress is the Basic Edition of Daikin's Scenarist, which retails standalone for $9,800. Basic is a feature-reduced version of Scenarist Professional ($29,000 retail), the most mature NT-based authoring system on the market, and among the most feature-rich.

Noteworthy features removed from Professional in the Basic version include multiangle and multistory support, seven menu languages (leaving only one, as opposed to eight), and dual-layer output support. If you need additional details about version discrepancies, a comprehensive feature comparison is available at Daikin's Web sits. High-end users may rest assured, however, that Basic still provides enough features to build, simulate, and output DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, and hybrid DVD titles to DLT tape, DVD-R, or DVD-RAM.