How to determine which software author a DVD

[Willet Vary]

Hi,

I have a dvd of a lecture created by someone.
Don't know which software the author used but would like to know because the quality is really good.
This is not a commercial DVD or movie.
Is there a way to find out?

Thanks,

Willet

[hech54]

The "quality" of the video has nothing to do with the authoring process. If the menu looks cool, clean or well-ordered then THAT is the authoring program's doing.

[sanlyn]

I think the O.P. might be referring to something farther back in the process, such as the encoder used, the original source format, etc.

AFAIK a finished DVD (MPEG2) has no encoder info. I think the best you can do is use MediaInfo to see basic bitrate information. But likely some cave-dweller somewhere has produced a piece of software that might give more details.

[DB83]

You could try and load the video_ts.ifo in to a hex editor. May not always work but I loaded one of my dvdlab pro creations and it did show 'Mediachance dvdlab pro' in the header.

Worked partially also for Ulead DVD - 'workshop' was not reported.

[Alex_ander]

There's a field 'Provider ID' in ifo, editable in PGCEdit, some applications leave their name there, e.g. DVDRemake does. If an application doesn't leave its name, it stills leaves some tracks since it uses its own template in navigation command lists (pre-commands, post commands, button commands etc.) So using test DVD samples authored in different programs*, it is possible to recognize a particular program.

*e.g. from a collection of ROIO recordings, where DVD lineage is usually mentioned by its author

[jman98]

ROIO? What does that mean?

[Willet Vary]

I'd like to thank everyone for your inputs.
I will check this out tonight when I get home.
I've used ifoedit and gspot but didn't find anything.
I'll try PGCEdit and MediaInfo tonight.

The reason I wanted to know what this author squeezed 6 hours of video into a regular dvd with minimal quality loss.
I can see the encoding settings.
But I just wanted to know which software he/she used to render the video.

I think everyone except for the first responder is on the right track.

Thanks,

Willet

[manono]

The reason I wanted to know what this author squeezed 6 hours of video into a regular dvd with minimal quality loss.

Then it's nothing to do with authoring and everything to do with the settings used within the encoder (as sanlyn speculated). Since it's only a talking head, about any encoder can do this with acceptable (if not good) quality. The one used doesn't really matter. If it was filmed by a camera sitting on a tripod and never moving, 6 hours, even at 720x480 (if not 352x480), shouldn't be all that difficult.

If you want to upload a small sample (10 seconds or so will be plenty) we can tell you more about it.

I think everyone except for the first responder is on the right track.

hech54 was on the right track. Both your thread title and first post were very misleading.

[Willet Vary]

It's 720x480. I don't think the width is truly 720, even though gspot reported it was.
I see a square image shown when playing the video.

As for the recording, manono is correct. It's mostly of a lecturer sitting still and the camera is on a tripod.

Here's my concern with the encoding settings. I assumption is that even if I set the same bit rates, frame size, etc., Nero, Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere, and lots more video editors will give me slightly different results because each software has it's own compression encoding and compression algorithm. Is my assumption wrong?

I will upload a sample tonight.

Thanks,

Willet

[manono]

It's 720x480. I don't think the width is truly 720, even though gspot reported it was.
I see a square image shown when playing the video.

I doubt you literally see a 'square' image when playing it. Perhaps you see a 1.33:1 image (aka 4:3), something like 640x480. It's a DVD and gets resized at playback time, so the 1.5:1 aspect ratio of the source 720x480 gets resized to 1.33:1, and if there are also black bars on the sides, it may seem a little bit more 'square-like'.

And yes, three different encoders will wind up with three slightly different results, even if the same bitrates are used for all. But as long as the settings are similar to the ones used for that lecture, the results probably will seem nearly identical to you. But I don't use any of the encoders mentioned, and others may be able to tell you which of the three is the best (although I might recommend HCEnc, which is said to be especially good at very low bitrates).