neoDVD Plus does support half-D1

[ktnwin]

I am a fan of neoDVD Plus (and PS8 and TMPGenc). Just found an interesting info about this software (not mentioned anywhere in their documentation).
neoDVD Plus support three encoding qualities (best, better and good).
best: 93 min /DVD-R, better: 3+ hrs and good: 4.5 hrs / DVD-R
With best and better modes, it encodes to 720x480 (full-D1)
With good mode, it encodes to 352x480 (half D1)
Audio is always encoded to AC3 (unless you specify LPCM).
So a really long video, I could use neoDVD Plus as a super fast encoder to generate VOB files, then I demux and re-author with different authoring tools to get better menus and as many chapters as I want.

[Matt D]

I love neoDVD! I use it to encode all my satellite video and cannot be more pleased with the results I get. It's a shame that the menu options are not good so I use TMPGEnc DVD author to create those.

[ktnwin]

One more feedback regarding neoDVD Plus in the "good" quality mode.
Yesterday I encode and author a 4 hours video in the "good quality" mode and see what happen. A good thing is all this is completed so quiclkly.

neoDVD Plus did that quite quickly, and the DVD works OK on the DVD player (as all my other DVD-Rs I made). From the quality point of view, it's just equivalent to VHS in the LP mode. My DVD player shows neoDVD encode at bitrate 1800 to 2000 kbps, even worst then maximum SVCD bit rate. The disc is very watchable.

I have done this using "best quality" mode and therefore ended up with 3 DVD-Rs instead of one and the quality is superb. Bitrate is between 6700 kbps to 8000 kbps.

I am re-encoding this 4 hours video using TMPGEnc, half-D1, bitrate about 2400 kbps (to fit 4 hours/DVD-R) and see how the quality compare with neoDVD Plus. Of course, this take much longer to complete the encoding part (and converting MP2 audio to AC3, then author)

neoDVD Plus could be the real winner is it had these features:
1) selectable encoding bitrate (auto select to fill up 4.7GB is acceptable too)
2) no limit on number of chapters per title.

Damn, mediostream (neoDVD developer) did not listen.

[ktnwin]

Using TMPGEnc to encode 4 hours long video (half D1) at bit rate ~2500 kpbs yield quite good quality DVD. Definitely it cannot compare with quality at 4500 kbps (hours / DVD-R) but it's much better than the neoDVD Plus made DVD in the good quality mode.

[lordsmurf]

neoDVD is like AOL ... cheesy and for the newbie