Thursday, March 24, 2005

Kiosk Development

Kiosks are computerized stations that are placed in public environments that allow users to learn about your products and services, and even purchase them, through a touch screen system. Kiosks engage your audience by giving them control over the information you provide. This improved customer experience remains with the user, and so does your brand. Great Lakes Media Technology's New Media department can design and program an effective kiosk solution to give your company impact in public spaces, such as shopping malls, airports, festival grounds, trade shows, and other high-traffic public environments. The result is advertising and branding taken to a whole new level.

GLMT at IDS Publishing Conference

As previously reported, Great Lakes Media Technology has taken part in this year's IDS conference. The conference focuses on various uses of digital media within the publishing industry. Currently, the conference is featuring a variety of white papers available for download from industry experts.

Authoring and Encoding: The New Tools For Digital Media Publishing,” a paper provided by Great Lakes Media Technology, focuses on the impact that proper layout and organization in authoring and encoding can have for DVD or CD-ROM media. This paper can be accessed by registering free through the IDS Publishing Web site: http://www.ids-publishing.com/

VCD and SVCD

Video Compact Disc (VCD) and Super Video Compact Disc (SVCD) are two new formats of CD authoring that allow CDs to play video via DVD players. VCD offers video that is slightly above VHS quality, and is compatible with 95%+ home DVD decks. SVCD offers close to DVD quality video with 80% compatibility with home DVD decks.

While neither have the capacity or high quality that DVD offers, both are suitable for lower capacity slideshows, home video footage, or personalized projects, at a lower cost alternative to DVD media.

As technology grows and changes at a rapid pace, Great Lakes Media Technology is here to answer your questions, and provide a solution that best fits your needs, at a cost within your budget. Call us to find out more about how VCD or SVCD might work for your project.

DVD Master Preparation

As DVD becomes a more commonly used media outside of the entertainment industry, there are some critical points to cover in preparing the content for your master disc. For starters, the media itself: Always use high-quality recordable DVD+R or DVD-R non-rewritable media or DLT tapes for DVD-ROM masters. DVD rewritable (DVD-RW) discs may not be used for DVD-ROM masters due to low reflectivity levels and drive compatibility issues.

DVD+R or DVD-R are acceptable for masters of DVD-5 and DVD-10 for replication. DVD-9 requires two masters (layer 1 and layer 0), DVD+R, DVD-R, or DLT tape may be used for masters. Any project requiring CSS or Macrovision copy protection must be authored as such and must be submitted on DLT tape. All DLT tape masters must include the DDP files.

Regarding preparation of your master, Great Lakes Media Technology uses and recommends a bit rate of 5 or 6 Mbps. Higher bit rates can cause compatibility issues in different players. If there is any confusion about this, having Great Lakes Media Technology handle the encoding and authoring of your project will guarantee that your master will be created properly to avoid any compatibility issues post replication.