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  1. Has anyone had an experience with this? I've heard it has a huge learning curve and that, according to their website, has expert level control down to the cell level for DVD authoring.

    I understand that the program is a sort of all-in-one program allowing you to design menus, encode video and put it all together. But is it truly better than what is available to consumers today?

    I use adobe photoshop/encore for my menus, tmpgenc/media encoder for my encoding and DVDRemake Pro to put it all together. DVDRemake has "expert" cell control as well.

    Opinions? Thoughts?

    Thanks!
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  2. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    For authoring (of Dvd or Bd or Bd3d), Scenarist has been the supreme gold standard against which all others are compared. Nothing has come close in terms of power/thoroughness and compliance/compatibility.

    However, it is not what one would call an all-in-one application. Encoding is a separate app, as is menu creation, IIRC (it has been about 4 years since I cracked it open). And yes, it has quite a learning curve.

    Also, what do you mean "according to their website"? Roxio took it over, which was then taken over by Macrovision (now Rovi), and it looks like they have retired it as of 2012. I checked just this last month, and you CANNOT find the app listed anywhere on Rovi's or subsidiary's sites. So I do not know what you were looking at, but I would guess that it was an archived old page.

    Scott

    Btw, what is the "SD" in the title?...aahh, I see. They renamed the DVD version after the BD version became the flagship.

    I would take that top site with a grain of salt. It looks to be a part of rovi, but all the main pages are out of date, and the site is hosted by delancey.net, which AFAIK has no relation to rovi.
    Last edited by Cornucopia; 5th Apr 2014 at 02:00.
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  3. Originally Posted by Cornucopia View Post
    However, it is not what one would call an all-in-one application. Encoding is a separate app, as is menu creation, IIRC (it has been about 4 years since I cracked it open). And yes, it has quite a learning curve.

    Would it be better if I called it a suite of applications? That's all beside the point. But back to my main question. So you would say that it is still far better than any consumer level products available?
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  4. Work with DVD Lab Pro + PGCEdit combo and that will be more than enough for you. Assuming you create DVD's not trying to "fix" somebody else's DVD's

    What you'd like to have more as oppose you can do now? Scenarist will not create anything, it just puts DVD together. I dare to say you do not need it.

    Imagine box with all kind of lego blocks, and you have to build a house out of it and you have to do it in correct order! As oppose other situation where you have some more complex structures ready and you can put them together not caring about exact sequence or you can afford to go back and forth more freely. That is a huge difference.
    Last edited by _Al_; 5th Apr 2014 at 02:30.
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  5. Member Cornucopia's Avatar
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    IF you buy the whole suite, yeah it is a suite.

    Better for what?

    Like I said, for correctly handling the MOST complex of titles, nothing comes close to it. But it is difficult to work with (and that's saying after I have worked with: Spruce DVD Maestro, Adobe Encore, Sony DVD Architect, Apple DVD StudioPro, DVDLab, and a number of others).

    But it is gone, unless you were to go the warez route. And besides the usual misgiving of that, this would NOT be the kind of app to use without the possibility of tech support.
    BTW, look at this link that shows the underhanded bullying powerplay that rovi is pulling: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1236408

    Scott
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  6. Yeah, I'll just stick with what I have. DVD Lab Pro looks like crap.
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  7. Originally Posted by MindController View Post
    Yeah, I'll just stick with what I have. DVD Lab Pro looks like crap.
    because you do not know it's potential, coming from DVD authoring softwares like Architect, Encore, you feel just chaos and effect driven software, but you can go deep in there, but it is those softwares you are coming from (Encore, Architect) that cannot do much at all, with DVD Lab Pro you can
    -DVD menus intro, outro, control those cells,
    -load custom subpicture (made in Photoshop for example) , set highlits, colors, load custom menu background (made in Photoshop, or other suitable prog, Encore does this together with Photoshop also, Architect not 100%), those you can do but it is hidden from you , same like with Encore, most do not bother to study how to create 100% custom menu together with Photoshop, they use just Encore's GUI to do that
    -you have absolute control where to put what (into VMG, VTS), Encore and rest do not - they have abstract layer concept , that means that it places titles and menus where it decides behind your back, your laser head could fly up and down your DVD disc all the time making noises, looking for right PGC to play or read, menu, during playback in advance navigation (that is what you look for)
    -you can create empty PGC'S in right sector (VTS, VMG) and put script in them (usually it is much comfortable to fill those in using PGCEdit)
    -it just loads ready video and audio, it does not encode it, but that is what it suppose to do, because you encode streams in softwares where you have full control about what you are doing
    -you can study that software for months to get to its potential, because at the same time you have to study how DVD navigation works down to the spec level, get its structure (Pgcedit helps that is why anybody doing serious navigation business should grasp PGCedit as well), DVD Lab Pro teaches you, not Scenarist, DVDLab Pro could be used as tutorial tool about how DVD navigation works as a matter of fact (and PGCEdit also)
    -Scenarist creates everything from scratch, PGC's , commands, - it is very time consuming (again, you have to know DVD navigation 100%), DVD Lab Pro sets something for starter already, so you have first play,VMGM,VTS structure set already
    -DVD Lab Pro has so many possibilities to build objects, that I cannot grasp how author could manage doing that, only after grasping all of these, you would realize that there is nothing in Encore to do at all.
    -its GUI looks much like DVD Maestro used to look, you know where its author took his inspiration,..., it might feel weird coming from those "pretty" GUI Encore, Architect designs, I understand, most connect prettiness of GUI with PRO capability for some reason, .btw, if you saw Scenarist GUI you,d run away, it looked like DOS 3.1 or something ...
    -and also, there is lots of buttons to do something shiny automatically, background, effects etc., you do not have to touch those at all,
    Last edited by _Al_; 5th Apr 2014 at 10:55.
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  8. Originally Posted by _Al_ View Post
    Originally Posted by MindController View Post
    Yeah, I'll just stick with what I have. DVD Lab Pro looks like crap.
    because you do not know it's potential, coming from DVD authoring softwares like Architect, Encore, you feel just chaos and effect driven software, but you can go deep in there, but it is those softwares you are coming from (Encore, Architect) that cannot do much at all, with DVD Lab Pro you can
    -DVD menus intro, outro, control those cells,
    -load custom subpicture (made in Photoshop for example) , set highlits, colors, load custom menu background (made in Photoshop, or other suitable prog, Encore does this together with Photoshop also, Architect not 100%), those you can do but it is hidden from you , same like with Encore, most do not bother to study how to create 100% custom menu together with Photoshop, they use just Encore's GUI to do that
    -you have absolute control where to put what (into VMG, VTS), Encore and rest do not - they have abstract layer concept , that means that it places titles and menus where it decides behind your back, your laser head could fly up and down your DVD disc all the time making noises, looking for right PGC to play or read, menu, during playback in advance navigation (that is what you look for)
    -you can create empty PGC'S in right sector (VTS, VMG) and put script in them (usually it is much comfortable to fill those in using PGCEdit)
    -it just loads ready video and audio, it does not encode it, but that is what it suppose to do, because you encode streams in softwares where you have full control about what you are doing
    -you can study that software for months to get to its potential, because at the same time you have to study how DVD navigation works down to the spec level, get its structure (Pgcedit helps that is why anybody doing serious navigation business should grasp PGCedit as well), DVD Lab Pro teaches you, not Scenarist, DVDLab Pro could be used as tutorial tool about how DVD navigation works as a matter of fact (and PGCEdit also)
    -Scenarist creates everything from scratch, PGC's , commands, - it is very time consuming (again, you have to know DVD navigation 100%), DVD Lab Pro sets something for starter already, so you have first play,VMGM,VTS structure set already
    -DVD Lab Pro has so many possibilities to build objects, that I cannot grasp how author could manage doing that, only after grasping all of these, you would realize that there is nothing in Encore to do at all.
    -its GUI looks much like DVD Maestro used to look, you know where its author took his inspiration,..., it might feel weird coming from those "pretty" GUI Encore, Architect designs, I understand, most connect prettiness of GUI with PRO capability for some reason, .btw, if you saw Scenarist GUI you,d run away, it looked like DOS 3.1 or something ...
    -and also, there is lots of buttons to do something shiny automatically, background, effects etc., you do not have to touch those at all,
    DVDRemake Pro sounds like the equivalent then. You have to know what you're doing with it since it's much more about DVD navigation, pgc and cell commands, pre and post commands, VTS structure, etc. I would never leave something that detailed up to a simplistic program like Encore.

    Regardless, Scenarist still seems rather unintuitive. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to knock it, but user friendly it is not.
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  9. I had not tried DVDRemake, but it is kind of hard to believe that they would beat PGCEdit with VMcommands programming , the author did hell of a job, ... ,while writing codes, it uses gui approach to write a command, where it offers all possibilities you can get from a command, it warns you if command is illegal, and tons of other stuff

    I had never seen DVD Encore abstract layer, navigation system in Encore's VIDEO_TS, but that would not be my wish list anyway I guess, I can talk about DVDLabPro generated VIDEO_TS on the other hand, it is ok, you basically can ignore those pre-commands generated by DVD Lab and write whatever you want underneath it (just to be sure) , just to keep jumps to menus intact, DVD Lab Pro generates dummy , root menu PGC's etc..

    You can even generate with DVD Lab Pro without any abstract layer, just using your commands, but that is how it starts to be interesting, you have to follow every step in navigation and create jums, but that is really not a goal because one should use DVD Lab's features, like return to last selected button in the menu, or to get from first play to menu, etc, no need to re-invent a wheel and write codes (like in Scenarist), it is done by clicking a button ...
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  10. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Just my 2 cents so do not shoot the messenger.

    You simply cannot cannot compare DVDRemakePro with Scenarist for no other reason since the former revises an already created dvd whereas the latter is authoring a dvd from scratch.

    Now no consumer, even one with more money than sense, would go near Scenarist since it was never targeted at consumers. As previously stated, it is/was the defacto Pro product. Never intended to be user-friendly since most users knew already what they were doing.

    The beauty of DvdLab-pro is that it gives you the flexibity that no other product in its price-range gives. Create a simple dvd or a most complex one.

    Put it another way. Got $5k to throw away then get hold of Scenarist but for a couple of hundred bucks DvdLab-pro will do just fine.
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  11. One can go free all the way, using free DVD authorings and PGCEDIT for navigation tune up, or setting active streams, making custom user flags using those GPRM memories, .... , but more DVD I made the more I think this is waste of time to invent menus structure etc, one has to keep it always simple and exactly Hollywood style at most (main menu to 1.chapter menu, 2.audio menu, 3.special feature and back from those menus to main menu) you do not want let user to think even for fraction of second what to do to play movie, that is really annoying ... so maybe those free apps would do as well ...
    Last edited by _Al_; 14th Apr 2014 at 19:44.
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