Well, it's not exactly strictly post-production, but Web/DVD is a new way of thinking about advertising that involves technological solutions. New York-based Zuma Digital develops and implements DVD solutions for business and entertainment applications, including a proprietary product used in the ad business called Active DVD, which allows users to bring the richness of DVD content to PowerPoint presentations. The company has also worked with agencies and production companies interested in making the transition to DVD from the maligned 3/4-inch format. But Zuma has also been working to reorient the way video and the Web are used by advertisers, by bringing Web/DVD, a hybrid solution, to those eagerly awaiting the day when issues of bandwidth and Web waiting are artifacts of the 1900s.

Users of Web/DVD have the ability to provide great-looking video content via a disk, which also contains an application to connect viewers to a Web site, with that application managing the communication between the two media.

"With the realities of broadband being 10 to 12 years away from general consumer acceptance, my view is why wait for that when you can do everything you can dream of today with Web/DVD?" says Zuma president Blaine Graboyes. Graboyes also points to a large installed user base - 35 million DVD players in the US, 85% of which are connected to the Internet, and research that shows that 20% of those who have purchased a DVD with a Web connection actually log on with sought-after marketing information. "You have a monstrous base of high-end users dying for this content."

Graboyes offers some case studies. For example, you're a media company that produces a popular kids TV show that recently spun off into a feature film and the obligatory merchandise sales. Through a cross-marketing deal with a large cereal company, you include a DVD in boxes of cereal. You could even consider making it a tiny, 8cm disk, also suitable for inclusion in six-packs of soda or on the hang tags of clothes. While the DVD shows an ad when the audience plays it, it also launches an application that can present a custom Web interface on the disk. While viewers are presented with the enhanced content available with DVD technology, there is also an incentive for them to take the disk to their computer and visit the advertiser's Web site, where they can be privy to, for example, a segment of an as-yet-unseen episode of your TV show, in exchange for, possibly, providing some marketing information. In the meantime, viewers can look over your video catalog on the disk and click to your Web site for quick and easy ordering. "Because you're on the Web, you can have any kind of marketing or commerce experience you can have now, except you can combine it instantly with full-motion, full-screen video that is resident on the disk," says Graboyes. "So rather than trying to stuff a little banner down someone's Web connection, you can give them great-quality ads right on their browser, with no download from their disk." The setup also allows targeted ads, since advertisers can determine where the viewer has connected from.

Zuma is currently working on Web/DVD projects with a high-end fashion retailer and a broadcaster. Graboyes says the company is keen on working with agencies to combine the technological capabilities with brand-building expertise. "Zuma has great understanding of what can be done with technology, but the agencies are the ones that create beautiful broadcast branding experiences," he says. "It doesn't make sense to create this new kind of experience without the agency."