Which Authoring Program to Use

[jstijerina]

Help! - I have 4 or 5 authoring programs (Windows Movie Maker; WinDVD Creater 2; PowerProducer 3; Easy DVD Creator 6), but I don't know which one to learn.

What is the best (or better) program to use? I basically want to make DVDs out of my VHS family tapes. I have a capture card and have captured the tapes to MPEG files using an ATI wonder capture card.

Thanks!

[guns1inger]

Windows Movie Maker isn't an authoring program, so you scratch that off your list straight away. Most of these appear to be OEM type tools - provided as freebies with burners and capture cards - so they may bot have the full compliment of features that some other tools have.

Honest opinion, play with each of them and see what suits you. WinDVD Creator has some basic editing and titling features that the others might not have. Work with them and see what you like.

If you find that they are all too limited, you might also consider looking at Premiere Elements or Vegas Movie Studio, both of which are good beginner to intermediate level programs, and have a great deal more features than those you have listed.

[pinetop]

TDA with the AC3 plugin. Easiest authoring program I know of. The only bad is Pegusus wants to verify the plugin is valid. A pain in the butt if your using the program on a computer w/o internet access.

[lenti_75]

for starters try Ulead Videostudio.

[Nitemare]

Vegas and Ulead have nice features and are pretty easy to learn for beginners. Ulead has 30 day trial versions, I'm sure Sony has something similar.