Is authoring in Ulead DVD MovieFactory 3 better than 2?

[MrMungus]

I've been using the trial version of TMPGEnc DVD Author to do my authoring and since the trial expired I thought I'd try using Ulead's DVD MovieFactory to try to author but the interface is *terrible*. In TMPGEnc DVD Author I can advance from frame to frame quickly and easily but in DVD MF it's slow as hell. I use DVD MF to capture with and I was thinking about upgrading to version 3 -- is the authoring setup any better?

TIA

[randytsuch]

I trialed MF2 for a couple weeks, and ended up buying MF3, but I am still in the 30 day window where I can return it for refund.

I am trying DVD author, tried dvd lab and a few others.

I am probably going to end up capturing directly to MPG2 with my AIW card, but might still capture to AVI, and use tmpgenc to render.

I will probably stick with MF3, but their interface is not as good as author, and I don't think they have really improved it from MF2.

It is a pain to add manual chapters in MF3, much easier to use DVD author, where they show the timeline of frames.

Having said that, I like the final product better with MF3. When you select a thumbnail, it does not color the entire thumbnail yellow, just the border. Also lets me add captions to mpg2.

They all have drawbacks, but I think I will end up comprimising with mf3. My biggest gripe with MF3 is you can't make it only use some chapters for thumbnails for the menu, if you select a chapter menu, you get all the chapters as thumbnails.

BTW, with my older PC, a 450MHZ, it was impossible to work with MPGs in MF, too slow. I upgraded to a p4 that is overclocked to over 3G, and with my AIW 9600 Pro video card, have no problems with speed anymore.

Randy

[Jayhawk]

I agree with randytsuch regarding the chapter limitations. I have MF2 and am currently using MF3 on the 30 day trial. MF3 is faster on editing (multi-trim) but I have a P4 2.4g with a gig of RAM. I do like the ease of making menus and it's a lot more flexible than some (MyDVD for one).

Right now I'm using Womble's MPEG-VCR (30 day trial) to cut, trim, and re-encode if need be. It's pretty fast because it doesn't re-render unless you tell it to. MF3 also has that feature but it's not as fast. MF3 is a lot slower IF you re-encode. MPEG-VCR also lets you work on individual mpg's or vob's and save them for later authoring. Unfortunately, MPEG-VCR does not author so I may need both programs. Edit and recode in MPEG-VCR and add menus with MF3.

Regardless, MF3 is better than MF2 BUT I'm not sure it's $70 better for the ugrade costs. I haven't decided yet but I'll probably spend the $70 on MPEG-VCR and use my existing copy of MF2 to make simple menus since I don't use chapters much.

By the way, I think the absolute fastest cut and trim editior is Mpg2Cut2 and it's FREE. Unfortunately it's being re-written right now and is pretty buggy. When he gets the bugs out, it will be one hell of a cutter. You can find it here www.geocities.com/rocketjet4.

[Specialist]

I'm encountering no program speed problems on the following three workstations:

Workstation #1

Asus A7N266 mainboard
NVIDIA nForce chipset
NVIDIA GeForce 2 integrated GPU
CMI8738/C3DX DirectAudio Device
ADS Pyro IEEE 1394 controller card
AMD Athlon XP2000+ (1.67ghz)
Windows XP Home Service Pack 1
1gb PC2100 DDR memory
Panasonic SW-9571 external DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM
Panasonic LF-D321 internal DVD-R/DVD-RAM

Workstation #2

Asus A7N8X mainboard
NVIDIA nForce 2 chipset
Asus V9180 video display PCI adapter
NVIDIA nForce Audio Codec Interface
Adaptec FireConnect 4300
AMD Athlon XP2400+ (2.0ghz)
Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
1gb PC2100 DDR memory
Panasonic LF-D311 DVD-R/DVD-RAM drive

Workstation #3 (mobile)

Toshiba 1955 S805 (laptop)
Pentium 4 2.5ghz processor
512mb memory
Integrated OHCI compliant IEEE 1394
Windows XP Home Service Pack 1
Toshiba SD-R6012 DVD-R/DVD-RW drive

Is it possible you have installed any codec packs?

According to Microsoft:

"Nimo and Tsunami codec packs are untested compilations of various codecs and filters commonly used on the Internet."

"Incompatibilities are known to exist with some of the components in the packs."

"The incompatibilities can cause serious playback issues in Windows Media Player and other multimedia programs, lead to system corruption, and make it difficult for Microsoft Support to diagnose and troubleshoot playback issues."

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/software/v7/v7faq.aspx?section=PLAYBACKI...PLAYBACKISSUES

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

I've been using the trial version of TMPGEnc DVD Author to do my authoring and since the trial expired I thought I'd try using Ulead's DVD MovieFactory to try to author but the interface is *terrible*. In TMPGEnc DVD Author I can advance from frame to frame quickly and easily but in DVD MF it's slow as hell. I use DVD MF to capture with and I was thinking about upgrading to version 3 -- is the authoring setup any better?

TIA

[MrMungus]

Thanks for the replies.

Not really a speed (rendering) problem, more like a problem where I try to go to the next frame and it takes a second to move to the next one whereas with TMPGEnc DVD Author and DVDLab, you jump to the next I-Frame quickly. Annoying. I was hoping version 3 wouldn't have this problem.

[randytsuch]

Thanks for the replies.

Not really a speed (rendering) problem, more like a problem where I try to go to the next frame and it takes a second to move to the next one whereas with TMPGEnc DVD Author and DVDLab, you jump to the next I-Frame quickly. Annoying. I was hoping version 3 wouldn't have this problem.

Actually, I was talking about the same thing, in my reference to speed. However, I never used ver3 on my old PC, or ver2 on my new PC. So, all I can say is on a 450MHZ Celeron, ver2 was too slow when working with MPG2 clips, and ver3 is fine on a 3g+ P4.

Randy

[Specialist]

Well, I just tried and I can jump from I-frame to I-frame without any delay - in both version 2.0 and version 3.0 "disc creator."

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Thanks for the replies.

Not really a speed (rendering) problem, more like a problem where I try to go to the next frame and it takes a second to move to the next one whereas with TMPGEnc DVD Author and DVDLab, you jump to the next I-Frame quickly. Annoying. I was hoping version 3 wouldn't have this problem.

[MrMungus]

Well, I just tried and I can jump from I-frame to I-frame without any delay - in both version 2.0 and version 3.0 "disc creator."

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Thanks for the replies.

Not really a speed (rendering) problem, more like a problem where I try to go to the next frame and it takes a second to move to the next one whereas with TMPGEnc DVD Author and DVDLab, you jump to the next I-Frame quickly. Annoying. I was hoping version 3 wouldn't have this problem.

Well, I guess I'll have to edit this. The navigation within the beginning of the file is pretty fast but the deeper into the clip I go, the slower the navigation is (particularly jumping from iframe to iframe). I hope it's not just me.

[Specialist]

I just tried again with a very large file and I still can't reproduce the problem you describe.

Maybe Ulead's Los Angeles technical support team has run into this issue.

You might try giving them a call:

1 (310) 896-6391, Monday-Friday, 8:30am-5:00pm PST.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Well, I just tried and I can jump from I-frame to I-frame without any delay - in both version 2.0 and version 3.0 "disc creator."

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Thanks for the replies.

Not really a speed (rendering) problem, more like a problem where I try to go to the next frame and it takes a second to move to the next one whereas with TMPGEnc DVD Author and DVDLab, you jump to the next I-Frame quickly. Annoying. I was hoping version 3 wouldn't have this problem.

Well, I guess I'll have to edit this. The navigation within the beginning of the file is pretty fast but the deeper into the clip I go, the slower the navigation is (particularly jumping from iframe to iframe). I hope it's not just me.

[trossin]

I have been using MF2 for a half year and have the same performance issues when trying to get to different parts of a movie. I have a 600 MHz PIII but believe the processor is not the problem but the code. When this 1 to 2 second (I've seen 30 second delays as well) problem shows up my disk is just going nuts. I have about 400 Mbytes of RAM in my machine and maybe the problem is due to swapping but other tools do not have this problem.

MPEG2CUT is just wonderful. Great performance and the audio stays in sync. I tend to use this tool to bound my clips and don't use MF2 to mess with the start/end times and I'm happy. I have not tried it with AC3 audio.

One thing I learned this week about MF2 is that it will pass AC3 audio MPEG files to the final VOBs. Even though AC3 is not supported it works. Just do not reencode or edit a clip and life is good. It is so good that you can mix and match AC3 and MP2 audio on the same disk and it will place the material in different titlesets. This is required in order for the disk to work on most players. Lesser tools like dvdlab will not do this for you. I tried this tool for a few weeks and gave up on it due to this problem. Dvdlab will also not produce a useable disk if some of your clips are full resolution and some are half. The spec says they must be in different titlesets and dvdlab will only create one titleset per disk. The upcoming "Pro" version is supposed to handle this but requires the user to push lots of buttons.

For $40 MF2 does a pretty good job. I just wish that I could create sub-menus. I tried MF3 and it seems to only add motion menus and I heard that it takes away the AC3 pass through although if you give them more money they give it back to you plus give you an AC3 encoder. To me it is not worth $70.

I'm leaning toward the open source tool dvdauthor. This tool has a lot of potential and some Windows based GUIs are showing up. DvdauthorGUI for example will create basic DVDs for nothing! Using dvdauthor as a command line tool offers amazing flexibility as far as nested menus, slideshows, program chain control, pre/post commands .... All the cool crap that the DVD spec supports. It is worth learning about just to see how basic and limited the amature authoring software really is.

[MrMungus]

Thanks Ted. Useful info.

Jerry, did your file have AC3 or MP2 audio? How long was it? Mine was over an hour and a half long.

[Specialist]

AC-3.

It was a one hour file.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

Thanks Ted. Useful info.

Jerry, did your file have AC3 or MP2 audio? How long was it? Mine was over an hour and a half long.