Best format for DVD HD kiosk?
 

Hi,
I'm making a DVD kiosk for a museum.
I plan to use DVD Studio Pro 4 to make a program like a DVD program. However, I will show it on an iMac 24" with 1200x1920 screen and perhaps use a Troll Touch touchscreen overlay.

The program will run directly from the harddisk with DVD player so we are not limited by any physical DVD disk.

What is the best format to use for the video sequences? The video is captured with a Canon XL-H1 in HDV, 1080x1440, 25p.

Should I convert from 1440 rectangular pixels to 1920 square pixels while importing from FCP to DVD? Perhaps this will give better text and menu sharpness instead of using 1080x1440 for everything?

Thankful for any suggestions. /Johan

The best thing to do would be to build this as a Flash presentation especially if you plan on interaction. Flash would allow you to encode suberb looking encodes at frame sizes larger than the DVD spec with greater resolution. Since this is going to be displayed exclusively on a computer there's no reason to make this a DVD.

You could also do this in Keynote which allows for some limited interaction as well with the ability to mix video with graphic elements.

Hi Robert,
Thank you for your answer. DVD Studio Pro can make "HD-DVD" which unfortunately lost the race against Blu-Ray. However, these files will be perfectly playable on any newer Apple computer.

These DVD programs can be encoded using various encoders like MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 with resolutions up to 1080x1920 or 1080x1440.

I also think the various menu funktions in DVD SP and the possibility to add audio tracks, video, text and still photos could be about almost all we will need to make a nice "DVD" kiosk for a museum. I'm trying it on our computer and it looks fine and works great so far. But I do not know how to achieve the best possible image quality. For instance, should I use H.264 or MPEG-2 encoders?

Perhaps somebody have done something similar here and knows more than me.

I second exploring Flash and Keynote. Keynote is a lot easier than Flash and it's gets some decent presentation results. I created some non-interactive video and graphic programs for a theater's HD projector and Keynote worked perfectly.

Yeah get a Mac Mini and play Keynote - works like a charm and can be customized to fit the display exactly. HD-DVD is kind of a dog and more limited in interactive possibilities.

Noah

Hi Noah and William,
Thanks for your input.

In which aspect is the KeyNote much more interactive than DVD SP?

I will use many menues where to select interesting sequences, still photos and soundtracks rather than one continous program like a presentation.

DVD SP also has good features to work with several languages and/or text in different languages. Is there anything similar to this in KeyNote?

I doubt the Mac Mini is built to run more or less continously with its laptop size disk and tight build. I guess an iMac will better take the heat. Less connections will also add to the reliability.

Remember that if you're using the DVD-spec that you're limited to the number of tracks, stories, audio tracks and of course actual file size of the entire project. And if your project goes over the single-disc data limit then you've got dual-layer break issues to deal with also.

You're right that Keynote would not be ideal because you can't create a "selection tree" of menus such as you can with a DVD.

A Flash presentation is still your best bet for any computer-driven direct interaction, and if you're an expert with DVDSP4 then learning Flash won't be a big deal but will give you far more options, better quality of output and much more versatility in delivery.

Hi Robert,

Yes I need selection trees. I think it is very important for these types of applications.

Do you know if the DVD SP generated "build" is limited to the physical capacity of DVD discs even when just generating files for computer storage?

If so, perhaps it is possible to work around by building two sets of files and place them in the same HVDVD_TS folder?

Maybe it is smarter to invest time and money in the Flash. But I thought that DVD SP could quite well do the job and it is also well working with my FCP and Compressor workflow.

What kind of functions are available in Flash but not in DVD SP which could be useful to me?

I'm thankful for all ideas.