Best SVCD Authoring/Burning App ??

[romande]

Hello,

What is the best Authoring/Burning App for making SVCDs ??

I've been using Nero 5.5.6.4 to burn the SVCD MPEG2 files produced by TMPGEnc 2.50.

[NeWcS]

NERO

[homerpez]

All due respect, I still am taken aback that anyone would say "NERO" with a straight face, for use on anything. But then again, NeWcS could be laughing hysterically, and none of us would know.

Do not use NERO, and I mean for anything. It is BAD BAD BAD for video, both VCD and SVCD. It garbles up JPEG's in photo albums, while also managing to leave them 10% too wide or skinny (I forget what NTSC does to flat photos). Audio CD's... maybe, if you convert your MP3's to WAV first. It botches bin/cue images, and is quite unreliable for .iso burning too.

NERO sucks, pure and simple.

I would, for any and all video you are doing, de-multiplex with TMPGEnc, and re-multuiplex with bbMPEG. Then run it through a VCDIMager frontend (TSCV for example). Burn the cue file with CDRWin, or some other burner program OTHER THAN NERO.

That is all.

[homerpez]

Sorry for the double-post, it won't let me delete.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: homerpez on 2002-01-10 20:01:38 ]</font>

[preacher238]

I disagree with homerpez. For SVCD and VCD it really does suck but for everything else it is great! To include music and copying CD's. I have no complaints about that part of it. However I have to agree with homerpez on the SVCD and VCD part of it. For those I use any number of programs to include Pinnacle Express DVD.

[Compound]

if your ripping to svcd dvd2svcd is the best hands down.

[homerpez]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2002-01-10 20:12:46, preacher238 wrote:
I disagree with homerpez. For SVCD and VCD it really does suck but for everything else it is great! To include music and copying CD's. I have no complaints about that part of it.</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Yes... if you do what I said, to decompress all audio files to WAV first... try MP3-conversion-on-the-fly with NERO sometime... he he he...

[MegaBit]

I've tried a few including Sonic MyDVD, Nero, ULead DVD MovieFactory, and Roxio VideoPack-5.

The easiest and lowest cost by far is ULead MovieFactory.

Simple interface, uses Ligos GoMotion encoder, and supports lots of hardware and all operating systems.

For serious work, VideoPack-5 is better but you need some serious money to play with that compared to MovieFactory.

[romande]

Would VCDIMager/VCDEasy and CDRWin be a good combination for authoring and burning SVCDs ???

I've seen alot about these two apps on this site so it seems like a good combination.



_________________
Regards,

Romande

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: romande on 2002-01-11 08:30:50 ]</font>

[homerpez]

Those really aren't "authoring" tools exactly, that is if you mean to encode the video... I didn't realize that was the intent of the post...

The best results come from Cinemacraft Encoder, and TMPGEnc, in that order, for encoding an SVCD. Then you would take the video product and run it through TSCV to make chapter points (if you want them), menus (if you can figure it out), and then make a proper disc image to put on CD. The last part if crucial because other "solutions" (NERO) do not do the disc layout properly. So, yes, you would use VCDImager (TSCV is a frontend for it), and the CDRWin to burn the cue/bin file.

If you're looking for an all-in-one solution, one which you can open up a video, edit it, re-encode it to SVCD format and burn to a CD, then you go with Ulead or Videopack (though the quality pales in comparison, and it doesn't allow for things like good VBR encoding or off-spec formats)...

Correct me if I'm wrong...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: homerpez on 2002-01-11 09:45:45 ]</font>

[vitualis]

TMPGEnc, CCE, etc. are ENCODERS.

My definition of an Authoring/Burning program (as per this forum) is the program you use to do exactly that: authoring content (i.e., how your disc is presented -- menus, chapters, single/multiple tracks; OR getting the creative content from your brain onto the PC) and burning (i.e., getting the content from your PC onto a physical disc).

Nero is a poor authoring program for S/VCD. Not only can you only use if for very simplistic things, its attempts at menus are buggy (so should be avoided altogether IMHO).

Now in terms of "best" as I've stated a few times, it really depends on what you want to do.

If all you want is a simple single or simple multitrack (i.e., disc goes in, plays movie from start to finish, nothing more), then a proggy like Nero is quite sufficient. If you want to go the freeware option, then VCDImager +/- GUI (e.g., TSCV or VCDImagerGUI) and CDRDAO is just as simple to use for this purpose.

If you want to make a few menus and don't mind being limited in a way to a proprietary design as long as it is easy to use (and you are willing to pay for the proggy), then the aforementioned Ulead proggy is quite good.

If you want real nuts and bolts flexibility and power to authoring your S/VCDs, then you options are probably Videopack5 and VCDImager.

Videopack is commercial.

VCDImager is open source freeware. IMHO, VCDImager is probably a more powerful/flexible system with its XML scripting (thus allowing manual authoring or the use of a GUI like TSCV) and it definitely costs a lot less.

You will find plenty of info on Videopack if you do a forum search and a general web search.

For VCDImager search the forum for it and also its guis (e.g., TSCV). Also:
http://www.vcdimager.org
http://www.geocities.com/medinotes/vcd

Regards.

[homerpez]

I'll add this, for what little it adds to the discussion...

I just tried out, for the heck of it, the Ulead DVD Moviefactory. I was actually a little suprised... once you get around the oddness of certain aspects of the GUI (to merge 3 clips together, they must all be highlited first)... it's really not a bad little program.

It seems to be missing things like Pulldown, but otherwise it seems to be better than previous Ulead programs at editing, merging, etc. and the encoding engine offers more options than before. Maybe pulldown can be found in the burning section of the program, I haven't tried yet.

And I need to correct myself, it DOES have VBR MPEG-2 encoding, but it may not be all that useful (the end size of your file becomes guesswork... I like CCE because you can use FitCD Time = bitrate, -5 and it fits perfectly)... All in all not bad.

I think we can all agree that ANYTHING, ANYTHING AT ALL, is better than NERO!

[preacher238]

Just to keep the argument going, I really like Nero!! (for backing stuff up and doing general burning that is!!!!!) HEHEHE......

[markh]

I agree with Preacher. It has been my experience that there are encoders with editing, and editors with encoding, and one or the other is usually weak.

Nero burns my SVCD's and VCD's just fine. The encoder is a waste.

[vitualis]

The problem with Nero is that it doesn't do anything but simple mutlitrack S/VCDs well. Realistically, you can't really stuff up a simple multitrack VCD and in this respect Nero is no better than any other program can do this (except for the fact that it is already installed on your PC).

Now, I know that Nero can make still menus as well, but unfortunately, they are not authored correctly. Nero menus don't work on most software DVD proggies and even some hardware players. I don't know if this bug has been addressed in the newer versions but it certainly has been an enduring one.

Regards.

[Ubiquitine]

For burning SVCDs which are in bin/cue format CDRWin with serial works fine. Nero screwed me a couple of times (so did a CDRWin cracked version...)

Ubi

[Stelios]

I have been using MovieFactory for quite some time now and I am very impressed with the program. It NEVER crashed and ALWAYS gives me excellent results. It is so easy to use and this is the beauty of it.

Regards
Stelios

[LTT]

I've been using Nero for quite a while to burn VCDs and SVCDs. Nero is functional if you just want to drag some files to a CD but if you want to do anything complicated like menus it sux.

I tried using VCDEasy, but I got terrible results. Half the time it produced bin/cue files that cdrwin would not accept. And the chapters never worked right in my DVD player.

I've since been using Ulead DVD Movie Factory. I've had great results with making VCDs. You can put together a quick VCD menu with this program in just a couple of minutes. But you kind of have to stick to the templates it provides.

I have been unable to get DVD Movie Factory to create working menus for SVCDs.

[LTT]

By the way, DVD Movie Factory crashes on me all the time. It's really unstable on my system. Seems like sometimes when I try to add a background mp3 to a menu is just doesn't like the mp3 file and crashes.