Need help in making an authoring package choice

[sleazy_frank]

Hi - okay I know these sort of questions have been asked loads of times before and before anyone says so, yes I have been through the sticky "What dvd authoring package do you use?"

It seems from the poll that the two Ulead packages, Moviefactory and Workshop, are in the lead. Obviously one is more professional than the other, hense the differing prices.

I'm just starting out int he world of dvd authoring, although I have a good background in video editing. With my new system, I hope to start creating first of all reasonable dvds from our vhs home movies of the kids growing up, and then after gaining some experience, moving on to trying out doing some freelance editing and dvd creation.

Okay, the sort of package that I am looking for can be summed up in this list:

1) It has to be stable - first and for most; especially if I am going to be on a tight deadline; I can't have the program crash half way through capture or a 1.5hr encode.
2) It has to be able to do most things in house; I would prefer a straight through process in a single program; but obviously that puts the price up. I suppose I have to create a balance, but can anyone give me any tips as to what is good to have in a package and what I can miss out on as you can't trust advertising.
3) Capture has to be able to do analogue and DV - this might sound a daft thing to say, but as I say I'm reasonably new to the dvd authoring scene.
4) I want to have a lot of control over the actual authoring of the disc, such as create your own menus, chapters etc. I have access to Photoshop to create my own art work if necessary.
5) I assume a lot of these programs encode inhouse? Or does this add significantly to the price.
6) It has to be reasonably priced - I'm a family bloke - 3 kids, mortgage, a wife and a cat. The thing I have found most odd in my research is the wide variety of prices, from £30 to £1000's, this I assume again is all down to what the program can do in-house.

Again from research and reading up on this site, it looks like my best bet is to start off with the cheaper Ulead program and then gain enough experience to go onto the more expensive product. I was looking at Studio 8 after seeing good reviews in Personal Computer World's CD & DVD Burning guide, but that was before I realised the vast number of other programs available. Any comments or suggestions would be great!

thanks

frank

[andkiich]

Given your "want" list, you are not looking for an authoring tool, you're looking for an all in one. Unless you plan on buying Scenarist, the all in one packages generally are terrible. Since I do not know Scenarist that well, I don't know if even it will have all the items you are looking for. Not that the all-in-ones don't work, they are generally lacking in some fashion or feature.

The best way to go would be to spend the money and buy the specific tools for the job. Buy a dedicated capture, encoding, editing, authoring, and burning program.

That will be the only way you will get the features you want and the dependability that you desire.

What I use:

Capture:
AVI/DV = Ulead VideoStudio
MPEG1/2 = ATI MMC

Encoding:
AVI-->MPEG1/2 = TMPGENc Plus

Editing:
TMPGENc and Virtualdub

Authoring:
DVD-Lab

Burning:
Nero 5.5.10.20

[FOO]

The ulead stuff has 30 day demos . Get one and see if it will do what you
want.
DVDlab has a demo, get that if you want fancy menus.

You can do very well for very little money these days

[housepig]

I'll agree with Andkiich - get specific tools for specific jobs.

you will find that in the long run your learning curves and switching from app to app during the process are actually less painful than running into the brick wall of something you want to do that your "all-in-one" application doesn't allow....

for my picks -

capturing: iuVCR
simple edits: VirtualDub
advanced editing / titles: Sony Vegas
graphics: Photoshop
encoding: TMPGenc
authoring: DVD Lab

[LeTrout]

I'll chime in my agreement here - personally I vastly prefer the best of breed approach with specialized tools over the all-in-one approach. I use most of the tools mentioned above except I use Pinnacle Studio for capture (gotta be a free program out there just as good for DV capture) and GIMP for graphics. Also DCE Autoenhance for mass JPG tweaks (to prep my digital camera pics for slideshows).

[Tommyknocker]

(gotta be a free program out there just as good for DV capture

DVIO gets it done for nothing.

[LeTrout]

I tried DVIO but it wouldn't work. Can't recall exactly what happened, I think it just sat there doing nothing. I bought Pinnacle Studio more out of desparation than anything else, had to start pulling stuff off the camera and ran out of time to keep mucking around. I'm rationalizing the purchase by telling myself I'll use its other features some day.

[The village idiot]

OK, Here is what I use:

An analog to DV converter, because they the easiest thing to get working.

I use DVio for some of the"capture" work.

I use Editstudio for other "capture" work, and for editing, and for encoding to mpeg (need mpegXS plug-in).

I then use DVD movie Factory 1 or 2 to make menus and burn to disk. Mostly I don't use menus, so the simple aspects of MovieFactory are a plus. You can also use Movie Factory to "capture", edit, and encode your work too, but I found EditStudio to be what I was looking for.

DVio is free, as are 3 other DV "capture" applications. All are listed in the tools section. DVD movie Factory2 has a demo and is cheap in price. EditStudio has a 30 day demo as does the mpegXS plug-in.

There are also a lot of freeware tools that you can use to get the same things done, but it will be a much more complex work flow. I suggst you start with buying DVD Movie Factory. Yes Movie Factory is very limited with the choices for menus, but it will get a product onto disk that will work. I also suggest you buy either a Canopus ADVC-100 or Datavideo DAC-100 for your analog to DV converter, unless you have a DV cam that supports analog pass through converting.

[Dr_Layne]

Tools I use:

Capture: Scenalyzer Live
Capture device: Datatvideo DAC-100
TBC when needed: AV Tools AVT-8710
Editing in Vitual dub then frameserve to Tmpgenc Plus for mpeg2 compression
Author with DVD-Lab

I started doing DVD about a year ago. I was using all in one packages like DVD Complete, but I found them lacking in advanced features.

Steve