How much does it cost to produce a DVD? Isn't it more expensive than videotape, laserdisc, and CD-ROM?

Videotape, laserdisc, and CD-ROM can't be compared to DVD in a straightforward manner. There are basically three stages of costs: production, pre-mastering (authoring, encoding, and formatting), and mastering/replication. DVD video production costs are not much higher than for VHS and similar video formats unless the extra features of such as multiple sound tracks, camera angles, seamless branching, etc. are employed.

Authoring and pre-mastering costs are proportionately the most expensive part of DVD. Video and audio must be encoded, menus and control information have to be authored and encoded, it all has to be multiplexed into a single data stream, and finally encoded in low level format. Typical charges for compression are $50/min for video, $20/min for audio, $6/min for subtitles, plus formatting and testing at about $30/min.

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These can't be compared in a straightforward manner. There are basically three stages of costs: production, pre-mastering, and mastering/replication. Production costs are not much more than for existing media, unless the extra features of DVD-Video such as multiple sound tracks, camera angles, etc. are employed.

Pre-mastering costs are proportionately the most expensive part of DVD. Video and audio must be encoded, menus and control information have to be authored and encoded, it all has to be multiplexed into a single data stream, and finally encoded in low level format. Authoring and encoding systems currently cost from $100,000 to over $2 million.

These prices will drop very rapidly in the next few years to where DVDs can be produced on desktop computer systems using additional hardware costing less than $20,000. The current estimate for producing a two-hour DVD movie is about $25,000. Videotapes don't really have a mastering cost, and they run about $2.40 for replication.

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