Impression DVD Pro or DVD Workshop?

[bskousen]

I am trying to decide which of these two authoring programs gives you the most for your money. I can purchase either one for about $200 because I am a teacher. .ac3 and widescreen support is needed. Any advice is welcome!

Bruce Skousen

[VideoMann]

You can download a trial version of Ulead DVD Workshop and give it a try.

Support for AC3 is very limited on software availability (support means accept files already encoded as AC3/DolbyDigital , generally it does not mean it can create AC3 files). Programs that can encode to AC3 are usually in the Professional Area and go above $1000 U.S. .

I don't know if Worshop supports ac3. A movie can be present as a single file (audio + video combined) or in 2 parts such as xxx.m2v =video and xxx.ac3 which is the audio (Elementary Streams or demuxed files) . I don't think Workshop accepts separate xxx.ac3 files. If the files are combined maybe it might.

Some programs only accept separate (demuxed) files some only single (muxed) files. Some a combination of each. Most programs accept widescreen. Workshop is very good and reliable. The downside is that it is very inflexible and very menu driven. Overall Workshop is an excellent program. Sonic DVDit is another contender but harder to understand the workflow (it does support AC3, download DVDit SE and try it) Get the free trial of Workshop , DVDit and see what it offers you.

[Robert Simandl]

I don't know if Workshop supports ac3. A movie can be present as a single file (audio + video combined) or in 2 parts such as xxx.m2v =video and xxx.ac3 which is the audio (Elementary Streams or demuxed files) . I don't think Workshop accepts separate xxx.ac3 files. If the files are combined maybe it might.

Some programs only accept separate (demuxed) files some only single (muxed) files. Some a combination of each. Most programs accept widescreen. Workshop is very good and reliable. The downside is that it is very inflexible and very menu driven. Overall Workshop is an excellent program. Sonic DVDit is another contender but harder to understand the workflow (it does support AC3, download DVDit SE and try it) Get the free trial of Workshop , DVDit and see what it offers you.

You're absolutely right about DVDWS and AC-3. As of v1.3, it will accept MPG files with existing AC-3 audio. It will NOT accept separate .ac3 audio files, nor will it convert any type of audio to AC-3.

Have to disagree about the reliability. Mine crashed so often (all tech support ever had to say was "uninstall and reinstall the program") I finally said the hell with it and went with DVD Complete, even though that program has no AC-3 support at all.

[q1aqza]

I believe Impression Pro requires you construct your own menus whereas Workshop creates them for you and gives flexibility in altering them.

I, like many others, have DV Maestro which is one of the top authoring programs around but it is much more tricky/time consuming to use when you have to create all your own menus and I believe Impression is similar to Maestro in what it does.