Dazzle DVD Complete comments

[dditch]

I was dissapointed in the MyDVD 3.5 software that came with My Pioneer. It had great capture to Mpeg I felt and let me Put my old tapes onto DVD in very few steps. However, the lack of ability to define exact chapter points without sitting and watching the Movie was an impass. I scoute software under $100 and mostly concentrated on one's I could download a trial. The Dazzle Software seemed to be the choice.

After about 3 weeks and 10 DVD's it is giving me good resultes. Unfortunatly for a 1 hour capture of a DV camcorder I need about 26gigs free (which I have). This was not required I don't think for MyDVD that encoded in real time. The Dazzle said "real time encoder" but it did not capture and encode at the same time. Dazzle also has several time consuming steps that makes it like a windows install (hit a key, wait 10 minutes, come back hit another key, wait 10 mins , you get the picture)

You can select backgrounds and do motion menus for scenes. I think the auto generation of scene menus and being able to select scenes for chapter select almost down to the second is the biggest plus.

I almost got Magix Video onto CD & DVD but they did not have a trial version at the time (Well for $42 via web purchase I may try anyway)

Dazzle is not known for reliability or support (got the DVCII capture card for my old VHS) but so far it has worked without error.
The software does tend to leave large files around after you have done your project so periodically you have to clean them up. Make sure you name everything something that makes sense for the content.

software also does lables and case inserts but I don't bother with that stuff.

My 2cents worth

[lalkana]

Keep in mind that Dazzle is only selling this software. They did not creat it. The product was made by dvdcre8 and they seem to know what's going on. While the Dazzle tech support is not that great, you can contact dvdcre8.com directly and they are very helpful. DVD Complete does have it's quirks, but I yet to make a coaster using this software. I just downloaded the upgrade to give motion menu backgrounds. Since this feature isn't in the help, I'm still trying to determine optimization on this, but it looks good. IMHO, the menus created with this software look better and sharper on screen that anything else I have used. I own DVD Movie Factory, Nero, DVDitLE, My DVD 3.0, PowerDirector Pro and have tried DVD Workshop -- none of these gave me the on screen quality of DVD Complete. Also, in talking with the folks at dvdcre8, it sounds like this software is a work in progress. After motion backgrounds, they are talking about fully editable menus and ability to create your own templates. Perfect? No, but for $99 it seems like a pretty good deal to me.

[mem_user]

Hey lalkana did you get this information from them or did you read it on a web site somewhere. What about a time frame. I downloaded this trail last night and have used it, but it does seem a little locked in what you can do with it. I agree with your statement about the menu being crisp and clear compared to the others. So far I love this program, but would love to being able to have a little bit more control over it.

Thanks
Jason

[Lamont Cranston]

For a little insight into what is going on with DVD Complete users look at their forum:http://dazzleforum.infopop.cc/6/ubb.x

[apinkel]

I agree.

I have the same two complaints...
-Uses a lot of file space (12gig) per disk it creates and it does'nt clean up after itself once it's done burning a disk.
-Does have a number of dialogs that take a good deal of time while setting up the project.

But on the good side...
-The menu and label generation are really good and can be customized to some degree.
-The auto scene generation for menus is really slick
-It handles mpeg1 layer 2 audio without transcoding
-It works

[ClarkJeff]

I'm also looking for a decent authoring program. I tried DVD Complete trial, but it sure seems limited with regard to creating menus. Maybe it was just me, but I wasn't able to add any additional text on the menu page, other than the title. I downloaded Ulead's DVD Workshop and it seemed a lot more flexible. Of course, it's more money, but it sure looks more usable. I noticed that Ulead DVD Workshop SE comes bundled with some DV hardware. Does anyone know the limitations of it versus the full blown version? Thanks.

Jeff Clark