So Many Guides - Help me get this straight

[JaketheSnake]

After trying my luck with Adobe Premeire to capture / edit and encode, then ULEAD DVD Studio to author and burn I can now successfully make coasters on demand.

After seeing some of the reviews for DVDit, I plan to use that for the authoring part and Nero for the burning (seeing that DVDit seems to crash often, and I have a stockpile of coasters).

So a basic run down

Capture with Premeire, encode with Premeire or Tmpgenc, author with DVDit - create .vob's to folder on hard drive, and then burn with Nero.

Seems like an awful lot of steps, but after eadin through the guides for a week, it also seems the most reliable.

Am I on the right track with this?

[housepig]

I would say that you are on the right track as far as using specialized applications for each step, instead of an "all-in-one" solution that may not have the flexibility that you want.

as far as the tools you use, personally I like DVD Lab for authoring rather than DVDit. but if DVDit works for you, great.

I would also suggest you get some rewritable discs and write to them until you get your process sorted out.

[Gazorgan]

Personally I use:

1)IUVCR to capture

2a) VDUB to edit if its simple like commercial cutting
2b) Adobe Premeire for complex editing/transistions

3) TMPGEnc for encoding to DVD M2V

4) BeSweet for Audio conversion, Soundforge for audio editing

5) TMPGEnc Author for DVD Authoring

6) IMG Tools and Nero to burn


I've done...oh...2 dozen wedding videos this way. Assorted sports and whatnot videos as well.


Adobe has a HUGE learning curve. I used it professionally some years back, and that's the only thing that let's me even attempt it. It's not that intuitive, and some of the really cool things it can do are impossible to figure out on your own (Adobe Premier for Dummies is a good book).

You have good tools. As to why your making coasters, not sure. Generally speaking, I can put a TV episode onto disk with less than 5 minutes time at the keyboard (that's not counting encoding time, for which I'm not present). The basics are pretty straight forward. DVDRW's help a lot when figuring everything out. Nero has issues as well, but the newest versions should fix the older issues.

[JaketheSnake]

Thanks for the feedback.

Not sure on the coasters either. ULEAD would burn and say compelete. I go to play the DVD and the menu comes up, but when hit the play button from the menu, nothing ever happens. It just sits on the menu screen. It's like it created a menu with no video.

So then I said I know, I'll use Adobe to encode rather than ULEAD, then do the process over again. Maybe ULEAD had problems encoding. Same thing.

Lastly I encoded with Adobe, authored with ULEAD, burned with Adaptec Easy - CD. Results were the same. At that point I threw my hands in the air said 30 or 40 four letter words, grabbed a beer and said f&*(k it for the day.

That was a week ago. Now after reading all these guides, I should really be dangerous.