Article written by John Zois (DVD Bits Editor) on 29-Oct-2000
Photography and design by Tully Rosen

INTRODUCTION

So how many of you out there know exactly how a DVD is produced? Put your hands up…..yep I thought so. While we all love to watch a good DVD or two, there are probably only a handful of  people out there who know the exact technical process involved and appreciate the complexity of producing a DVD. As the entire manufacturing process of DVD is a bit of a mystery even to us, we decided to have a look into it and show you, the public, just what has to happen behind the scenes to bring you that shrink wrapped DVD that you pick up off the shelf of your DVD retailer.

On Friday the 13^th of October your very own DVD Bits editor, John Zois, and sub-editor Tully Rosen had the great opportunity of attending the Pacific Mirror Image DVD manufacturing plant based in Braeside, Victoria. There, DVD production supervisor Phil Pearman awaited us and was kind enough to dedicate his morning to give us a tour of the PMI  plant, explain the entire DVD making process from data to final disc and answer any burning questions. It was an amazingly fun experience and one that we learnt a lot from. Armed with a digital camera and a minidisc recorder we tried to capture as much of the atmosphere and factual info as we could so that we could share it with our readers and give them a much deeper insight into the making of a DVD.

It should be noted that the process we observed only involved the physical manufacturing of DVDs and not the authoring (which involves creating all the data that will be stored on the disc). Nonetheless the process is probably more exciting than the authoring, especially considering that the final product is a DVD identical to one that you and I would own in our collections.

WHO IS PMI ?

Pacific Mirror Image was opened in 1987 by legendary Australian singer John Farnham. Why did Farnham open the plant and even more importantly how could the plant have been opened in 1987 when DVDs hadn’t even been invented yet? Well the answer lies in what PMI does. They are not just a DVD manufacturing plant. In fact they started by manufacturing music CDs, CD ROMs and  even VHS tapes (although VHS is at the NSW,Sydney plant). They entered DVD manufacturing in 1997 when it was still in its infancy in Australia. Together with DVM (Digital Video Mastering) they manufactured the first Australian made DVD product in the form of the Village Roadshow title Evita , closely followed by the 1997 AFL Grand final on DVD.

Since their entry into DVD in 1997 they have become part of the Time Warner affiliate programme, a license which allows them to manufacture large quantities of Warner product specifically made for the R1 market and thus exported to the USA.

PMI has some of the world’s leading experts in mastering, which together with its world class manufacturing standards have helped it become the largest DVD replicator in the South East Asia region with the exception of Infodisc in Taiwan. In fact, PMI manufactures EVERY R4 DVD released by all the studios big and small and even makes most of the DVD ROM titles available in the market such as the Britannica Encyclopaedia DVD ROM.

SO WHERE DOES IT ALL START?

Making a DVD is by no means an easy task with literally dozens of steps that must all go perfectly well to ensure the final product is error free and as high quality as possible.

PMI receives a ‘master tape’ which in the industry is called a  Digital Linear Tape or DLT for short. A DLT is used as it is the most superior magnetic tape available and offers sturdy construction, features which are not yet available in other methods of data storage. The DLT contains all the data that will be stored on the DVD and is created by the authoring facility responsible for that DVD title; for example Sony Pictures DVD centre in the USA for Columbia Tristar titles and Digital Video Mastering in Australia for Village Roashow titles. Despite popular belief among the R4 DVD community, DLT’s are only sourced from the UK in Europe on very rare occasions so if you do come across R4 DVDs  that have been censored in a manner similar to the UK market then that is probably attributed to the authoring house not bothering to make a separate DLT for Australia.

PMI subjects the DLT to strict testing before being readied for the mastering process as there is no room for errors later considering the high expense involved in creating a master.