Adding your own commentary...

[filmjax]

Hi all,

I've been away for a while and was wondering if technology had caught up to my needs yet...

My friends and I have a slew of home movies we've made that we're now transferring to DVD. We're making them like Studio DVDs of course, with extras galore. One thing we like doing is providing commentary. Here's my problem though.

I use Ulead DVD MovieFactory 2.0, and in that program it would seem that the only way to add "commentary" to an existing video is to place that entire video on the disc again, but replace the original audio with the new commentary. Of course this eats away at the disc space.

Is there anything out there yet that will allow you to add one piece of video to a DVD, but have multiple audio options that you can select from? This would save me so much time and space.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[mp3superfreak]

The only sub $500 DVD Authoring program I've seen with this feature is Authoringware's DVD Junior

I downloaded the demo a few months ago, but have not loaded it to give it a try yet. I want to do the same w/ my home videos.

Good luck.

[housepig]

Cheapest (after DVD Junior) that I've found is Sonic ReelDVD, which is (I think) around $700.

Hopefully, DVD Lab will add that capability soon to the feature list...

[filmjax]

Anyone use Pinnacle Impression DVD-PRO? It says:

"as intuitive as it is complete in professional features; including eight audio tracks, 32 subtitle tracks, unlimited menus, Hollywood-style motion menus, multi-angle titles..."

But there's no demo. Anyone use this one at all?

[Vejita-sama]

Actually any authoring program that accepts more than one audio track will allow you to make a commentary stream. Here's what I normally do/have done:

1) generate normal audio stream for video

2) record commentary stream

3) Load both in cool edit, lower the volume of the normal audio stream, and superimpose the commentary audio stream. Save as a new file (wav) and then encode to AC3 with besweet.

4) Author dvd with m2v, normal ac3, and commentary ac3.

Pretty simple really. In order for the commentary and onscreen images to match up we normally have the video playing (sound off or with head phones) in real time while we talk.

[filmjax]

Which authoring program do you use, Vejita-sama?