[inline:12-1.jpg=Uli Plank]
My background is that of a cinematographer and animator, now teaching as a full-time professor at Braunschweig University of Fine Arts in Media Arts and Design. We started working on DVDs when DVD Studio Pro still was DVDirector from a small German company called Astarte and the only application we could afford as a public university. We have come a long way since then: in the meantime DVD Studio Pro is based on Maestro by Spruce, and I'm writing my third book on DVD authoring right now. And while my second book had just one chapter on DVDAfterEdit (after all, I'm proud to be the first one to have published about that program in German), about half of my new book is dealing with DVDAfterEdit (formerly TFDVDEdit).
Why? Well, my foreword to the new book states something like "No limits, team up the two best applications for unrestricted DVD authoring". My stay at NAB on invitation of Trai, has convinced me of two things: Apple is listening (even it takes a while), as can be seen in DVDSP 3, and DVDAfterEdit is the perfect companion to it (and every other authoring app out there). DVDAfterEdit allows you to explore the potential of DVD far beyond what an abstraction layer system will ever allow, even if Apple continues to listen. To me, being an artist, DVD is so appealing because of it's yet unexplored possibilities of non-linear storytelling, reliable video-installations for exhibits and museums or in live performances. Only DVDAfterEdit allows me to explore the DVD-spec to its very limits, having access to every little piece of the structure, all at a price for software and equipment that is still accessible to independent producers and art folks.
One of my first projects I tried with DVDAfterEdit was animating button overlays, something you just can't achieve in DVDSP, and it was an immediate success. I came to NAB 2004, just having prepared some material to play around with, and within two days I was able to not only get what I wanted, but even to explain in public how to do it! You'll find the article as one of the first here in my department. Currently I'm working hard on finishing my third book, but be prepared to find some of the finest results of my research for that book translated into English, sometime soon here at dvdafteredit.com .
Enjoy,
Uli