Best Authoring App

[wwwill]

Greetings all,
I am a relative newbie with DVD authoring, so please excuse me if this has been done to death.

I have created:

A few titles (5 or 6) with Pinnacle Impression DVD SE 2.2.1 (over the past 2 years)
1 title with Adobe Encore 1.0 (last year)
1 title with DVD Lab Pro 1.51 (1 week ago)

Now here is what I thought:
Impression seems to be a dead product.
Encore has great Adobe product integration but was a 1.0 product and had limited workflow tools.
DVD Lab Pro has more features than I used or ever imagined would be in the DVD spec.

Let's just say I was VERY impressed with the experience authoring in DVD Lab Pro, after spending some time learning it a bit.

I want to start offering DVD authoring on a professional level. I am curious about the most feature-rich, compliant authoring app. I can't really afford Scenarist or any other app over $1,000 so don't tell me that's what I need. I would like to know what commercial clients need/request for titles for mass duplication.

Here are my requests:


DVD-5, DVD-9 authoring
I'd like to be able to create dual-layer titles. I have an NEC 3520, so I assume providing a duplication house with a dual-layer authored disc is acceptable. Is it necessary to output to DLT tape or something?

Copy protection
I don't know what is standard or what is prefered. I'm most interested in creating commercial titles.

Surround Audio
I would like to be able to incorporate multichannel surround audio. I assume I need some sort of encoder app. I use Cakewalk Sonar 4 for music production and Adobe Premiere 6 for video editing. I'm thinking of using Pinnacle Liquid Edition, Sony Vegas or some other video editor; one with a built-in surround encoder would be nice. Is surround audio just AC3 or PCM or an audio file?

Advanced Actions
I like the various feature DVD Lab seems to have; you can create unique interactivity. For instance, I'd like to create DVD quizes and have generic right or wrong movie clips? A user would reach those clips depending on the movie and te answer given.


Currently DVD Lab is the winner hands down. I don't know about other things: Apple DVD Studio, Ulead DVD Workshop, Sony DVD Architect, RealDVD.

What do you guys think about authoring apps?

Thanks in advanced.

[thecoalman]

DVD Workshop is anothwr good one, there's a free trial....

[b]
DVD-5, DVD-9 authoring
I'd like to be able to create dual-layer titles. I have an NEC 3520, so I assume providing a duplication house with a dual-layer authored disc is acceptable. Is it necessary to output to DLT tape or something?

Most authoring apps provide this, even the consumer grade ones.

Copy protection
I don't know what is standard or what is prefered. I'm most interested in creating commercial titles.

Has to be licensed and not worth shit to boot.

Surround Audio
I would like to be able to incorporate multichannel surround audio. I assume I need some sort of encoder app. I use Cakewalk Sonar 4 for music production and Adobe Premiere 6 for video editing. I'm thinking of using Pinnacle Liquid Edition, Sony Vegas or some other video editor; one with a built-in surround encoder would be nice. Is surround audio just AC3 or PCM or an audio file?

DVD Workshop will author a disc with 5.1 but you need a 5.1 audio file to begin with.

I haven't used DVD Lab pro so I can't make a faithful comparison, the one thing I do know id DVD Workshop is probably the easiest authoring app you'll ever use. It also has a lot more flexibility int the types of files you can import for menus etc. It also has the mainconcept encoder and AC3 encoding included.

[wwwill]

Thanks for the thoughts. I have a few more concerns.

DVD Workshop is anothwr good one, there's a free trial....

[b]
DVD-5, DVD-9 authoring
I'd like to be able to create dual-layer titles. I have an NEC 3520, so I assume providing a duplication house with a dual-layer authored disc is acceptable. Is it necessary to output to DLT tape or something?

Most authoring apps provide this, even the consumer grade ones.

One thing about Sonic ReelDVD is that it only authors DVD-5. I gues they want to protect the high-end line. What a disappointment.

Copy protection
I don't know what is standard or what is prefered. I'm most interested in creating commercial titles.

Has to be licensed and not worth shit to boot.

Do commercial titles use copy protection? Is it worth trying to discourage piracy?

[nelson133]

Rs: copy protection. Since you can find all kinds of free tools on this site to crack copy protection, what's the point. As I understand it, to use commercial copy protection schemes is quite expensive, and they don't work. Do a search on this site and you will find lots of discussion on this topic.
Nyah Levi

[thecoalman]

One thing about Sonic ReelDVD is that it only authors DVD-5. I gues they want to protect the high-end line. What a disappointment.

All the apps I've seen only needed an update, perhaps they didn't get around to it. Even cheaper applications provide support for DL burning. I'd imagine it would be in there interest to provide it.

Do commercial titles use copy protection? Is it worth trying to discourage piracy?

Yes they provide copy protection but as stated above it's easily broken. There's a plethora of tools available to do this. Is it worth it? Guess that's up to you but IMO considering you have to purchase the licenses to use it and it's so easily cicumnavigated it's worth neither the effort or the money. I'd also imagine the costs for small runs of discs would be quite a bit, but you'd have to look that up.

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=258261&highlight=protect+dvd