Ulead DVD Movie Factory...

[Lamont Cranston]

Bertmartin, I just encoded 4 avi files with TMPGEnc V2. Two with the NTSC VCD template and 2 with the NTSC SVCD template. I launched DVD Movie Factory and selected authoring, then vcd, and added the vcd mpg files. Made a two tier menu with music and burned the vcd. I did the same with the svcd mpgs with no problem. I played them both on an APEX AD-703. If you give more data maybe we can help you.

On the APEX AD 703 the menu was not shifted to the right but the music was a little short in length. The latter is most likly tied to fact that Apex AD 703's cut VCDs and SVCDs a few seconds short.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Lamont Cranston on 2001-10-25 00:17:17 ]</font>

[suriyan]

Yes it is indeed a very easy and convenient for a VCD which has only an intro, amenu or two and thats it. I thin kthey should improve it to give flexibility in defining more sequences like the video cd toolkit or winoncd.

[mmitchell_houston]

My first SVCD was a success! I ran the software on Win2000 and it worked like a charm. I was very pleased with the general quality, although I still need to run a few more tests to be sure. One of my clips was very low quality, and it still came out fine, even though there was noticeable artifacting. Again, the law of GIGO applies... There is also the reality that I have never played a store-bought SVCD in my machine, so I don't know how much quality to expect.

I was also playing on an Apex 703 and had trouble with the music loops; they were very choppy with almost full-second gaps in the loop. I may counter by looping them into one-minute MP3s and then recording them to the SVCD. About one minute should be enough to mask the problem...

I probably won't get into this program for another week or two, but so far I think I'm going to buy it. Assuming I can get it to run at home on Win98.

Bertmartin: On my Win98 system, I'm experiencing a similiar problem to the one you're having. I try to encode an MPEG and it dies at the last second. If Ulead gives you any hints, please post them here, okay?

Suriyan: This is the first release of an entry-level product. I agree that I want more flexibility, but for simple projects this tool is great. The problem I've seen with many of the other "better" tools out there is that they were created with a programer's mindset, and not the mindset of a casual user. I hope future releases of this product add functionality without sacrificing ease of use.

[Lamont Cranston]

mmitchell_houston: SVCD quality can rival DVD quality with the right mpeg encoder and the right parameters. Unfortunatly, there are spec problems with SVCDs and depending on how you create the SVCD it may or may not play on all stand-alone SVCD players. Note there is an Advanced button the SVCD burn panel to set your choice of file and folder naming convertions. You can read all about SVCDs on this forum.

The quality of mpegs produced with Ulead's implementation of Ligos encoder is poor. The most obvious artifact is blocking.

I am running Win 98 SE and, because of you and bertmartin problem, have encoded and burned several SVCDs using only the DVD Movie Factory with no problems. Give me some more details and I amy be able to help you.

suriyan: The first DVD authoring and burning program Ulead offered was the DVD Plug-in but required you have VideoStudio 5 or MediaStudio Pro in order to use it. By making the DVD MovieFactory they added rudimentary capture and editing, the mpeg encoder and made it a stand-alone product. Ulead did improve some of the authoring.

The authoring & burn improvements from DVD Plug-in I have found include:
- two tier menu
- menu background music
- thumbnail choice
- disk label

Where Ulead will go ??

[burly]

Just d/l the Movie Factory. I have SCVD I created by
Camera->Premire->avsynth->TMPGenc+Toolame

I have burned with the latest Nero and have had problems
with the menu in Nero causing audio sync problems.

I tried last night with Ulead and it works great on my player, APEX AD-3201.I will purchase the product for creating SVCD and photo cd's.

I am running WIN98SE and do not see any of the problems others are mentioning.

The question is has anyone looked into creating new templates ? I would like more flexibilty with styles and text options.

[mmitchell_houston]

Lamont,

My original video wasn't very clean (I was just doing a quickie test), so I'll try one more time with some good source files before passing judgement on the quality of DVD Movie Factory.

I will either use MGI Video Wave or download an encoder listed on this site and just do the authoring in Movie Factory.

I'm going to check my home system and see if it's got DirectX 8 on it (not sure). Then I'll try again at home again on Win98.

As for Templates: I opened one of the files (they have a .ufo extension) in notepad and confirmed that the files are compiled, not text-based, so we can't edit them easily. The background files are standard 24-bit JPEGs with a resolution of 768 x 576 (although there are some weird size settings in the files, I don't think they matter).

[tendtend]

Does anyone know if ulead has improved the ->| and |<- function? When playing the DVD plug in burned VCD (SVCD), the ->| and |<- does not go to the next entry point but to the menu. If this software does not solve this problem, I do not think it worth to buy.

[bertmartin]

Lamont Cranston:

You stated "I just encoded 4 avi files with TMPGEnc V2. Two with the NTSC VCD template and 2 with the NTSC SVCD template. I launched DVD Movie Factory and selected authoring, then vcd, and added the vcd mpg files. Made a two tier menu with music and burned the vcd."

I encoded 2 avi files with TMPGEnc V2 using the NTSC VCD template just like you. I also used Movie Factory to author and burn. I had an opening sequence and a two selection menu (no music). I had exactly the same result as before with eratic play, large blocks, off/on sound. Next I used the exact same files, with opening sequence and 2 item menu using Easy Cd Creator V5. Absolutely no problems with this VCD. I have not tried SVCD again.

I have an Apex 660, and an HP series 8100 burner. I am beginning to suspect the ULEAD 8100 driver since it is the only major difference. I will talk to ULEAD later this week and keep you posted.

[Lamont Cranston]

mmitchell_houston: I am sure you know this... but the DVD Video Factory music MP3 is an Mpeg 1 layer 3 format file not an audio MP3. The menu template is not editable but you can create your own backgrounds. Mpeg Encoders: VCD - Pansonic, TMPGEnc, LigoSX35; SVCD - CCE ($4K), TMPGEnc, Ligos LSX35.

tendtend: I just tried ->| and |<- and it worked as expected. First I selected a clip from the menu and it started to play. I hit ->| and ir moved to the nex clip and started to play. If I hit |<- it moved back the first clip and started to play. When I hit ->| on the last clip it went to the menu and if I hit |<- on the first clip it wnet back to the menu. It looks to me like it works.

burly: You can't edit the template but you can create the background.

bertmartin: I have an HP8100 on another system. When I get some time I will burn one and see if I can duplicate your problem.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Lamont Cranston on 2001-10-25 15:33:34 ]</font>

[JohnWestbury]

My first post in this thread was about the DVD plug-in. I thought you all were confused, but it was I who was confused. I paid ULEAD $45 less than two months ago for the plug-in. Now I have to pay another $45 to get the program that I wanted in the first place. that sux. I would like to get the new version, but I won't. I will buy something else even if cost $100

[JohnWestbury]

actually I think winoncd is best for VCD/SVCD,

if you can find it (and can read german)

[mmitchell_houston]

Lamont: The Movie Factory allows us to use MP3 files as background music for the menus. It must convert them when it's finalizing the process. I tried it last night and the music played fine (with that one-second pause I previously mentioned, of course).

[Lamont Cranston]

mmitchell_houston, You are right. I just looked at the MP3 which is MPeg 1 layer 3. DVD Movie Factory will also acccept wave files. The MP3 audio file must have been a late add because it is not listed as file type in the selection screen.

[xzarkad]

I think that I need some help.

I have used the program, with a 10 mins VCD clip. I have added 6 thumbnails, and burned it on CD. I all worked fine.
The problem is that my standalone player (Aiwa DV370) did not display a menu. When I check the cd on my PC, I can see al folder (segment) where the menu is captured.
I have done it exactly as it was explained on this site.

Can it be my standalone player? Can I check it on my PC if it works?

Thanks,

[foley]

I have read this thread with interest. I was introduced to Ulead when I purchased ATI's FireWire Card. The non-linear editor that came with the card was Ulead's VideoStudio 5.0. I did a little research, discovered DVD Plug-in, and bought it on August 20, 2001.

On October 13(th), I was invited by Ulead to purchase the brand new DVD MovieFactory. I was, to say the least, a little miffed.

I sent Ulead an e-mail (see below) on October 17, 20 and 25. To date I have I have not heard back from them.
########################################
Tracking Number: IED443E and 286E076

A response to this e-mail is requested

---------------------------------------------------------
2001/08/20 81102-71010-05271118 Ulead DVD Plug-in V1.0 English

Dear Sir:

As you can see from the data above, I purchased the DVD Plug-in on August 20. On October 13, (less than 2 months later), I received an invitation, from Ulead, to purchase the new DVD Movie Factory program.

If I had known that Ulead was about to release a brand new DVD Authoring program, I would not have purchased DVD Plug-in and would have waited for the new release.

It is common practice in the software industry, when the release of a new version of a program is iminant, all purchases of the current version of that software, within a reasonable time-frame, is made with the understanding that those customers will receive the new version free of charge.

In light of the fact that I purchased DVD Plug-in less than 2 months ago, I am requesting that you send me the new DVD Movie Factory program free of charge.

Sincerely

Richard W. Keeler

McCurdy Ridge MultiMedia
118 McCurdy Drive; Kanata Ontario K2L 2Z6
E-Mail: rkeeler@mrm.com; Internet: http://www.mrm.com
########################################

I have also used Ulead's e-mail support. Here is an excerpt from one of their reply's. Other responses from them have not been any better.

########################################
Dear Richard,

We are very sorry for that your query has not been answered for over 2 weeks since it's submitted or answered last time. Usually it is because that we don't have a quick answer for your problem. To avoid the new coming queries delay the time for checking your problem, please reply this email again. If there's any new status of your problem, please write it within the replying email. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

By the way, it happens sometimes that the problems might be eliminated by uninstalling and reinstalling the related hardware, AP, or even the Windows system. Your can also try installing Ulead products on other computer to make sure the product or the CD-ROM is fine itself.

If somehow you have solved the problem by yourself, please also reply to let us know and share the solution with us. So we might be able to help other users who met the same problem. Your generous will be very much appreciated!

Again, we apologize for the late reply and thank you for your patience!

Best Regards, ....
########################################
Other responses from support have not been any better.

I suppose, the moral of the story is, if being ignored by customer service and getting virtually no satisfaction from technical support is your idea of having fun, then go nuts and by all means, buy Ulead products. from my point of view, customer service and technical support adds up to at least 51% of any software purchase. If these two features are non-existant, then that is a bad software purchase.

Richard Keeler

P.S. If I receive a response from Ulead's Customer Service I will post their response. I am not going to hold my breath.

[Lamont Cranston]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-10-25 17:40:25, xzarkad wrote:
I think that I need some help.

I have used the program, with a 10 mins VCD clip. I have added 6 thumbnails, and burned it on CD. I all worked fine.
The problem is that my standalone player (Aiwa DV370) did not display a menu. When I check the cd on my PC, I can see al folder (segment) where the menu is captured.
I have done it exactly as it was explained on this site.

Can it be my standalone player? Can I check it on my PC if it works?
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
Have you played other VCDs successfully on your Aiwa? When you played the vcd did Aiwa do anything or did it display No disk? To play the VCD on your computer you need program like PowerDVD. Look under Tools at the left of the screen and download a demo.
<-----

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Lamont Cranston on 2001-10-25 20:03:00 ]</font>

[mmitchell_houston]

TIME TO UNITE!

I never boght the plug-in, but those of you who did need to e-mail Ulead about this and ask for a reasonable upgrade path to the new DVD Movie Factory.

Be polite, but be firm.

After all, if you don't ask, you won't get.

[Dragonsf]

I bought the DVD plugin some months ago and was quite pleased with it.But I was never able to burn a correct SVCD using the image file (my burner is on a different machine). No help by ULEAD was available.
So gave Movie factory a try and found, it was equal the DVD plugin with some exceptions:
1. You can chosse a different frame other then the first for a menu clip (though it's a pain to find the corect frame.
2. You can burn the image now on a different machine.
Some errors stay the same:
1. You can't transfer one project to another machine (it says, can't load mpwg file even it's there)
2. no back/forward jumping posssible.
3. the text length within menus are heavy limitated
4. no own menu templates
some bugs are worse:
from time to time you get an exception and you hvae to save the project after every change.
So,I'd like ULEAD to publish an update on DVD plugin with the possible of cross machine burning and 1st picture selection.The other options(back/fwd jumping and editable menu templates would be nice to have, but not essential). I can personally live without this SW as the already bought plugin should eseentially do the same thing (but in fact doesn't)

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: dragonsf on 2001-11-03 08:47:14 ]</font>

[mmitchell_houston]

Glad to see the forum is back up.

I sent Ulead an e-mail telling them they should work on their PR and offer an upgrade option from the plug-in to the DVD Movie Factory. No reply, yet.

So far, I've been fairly pleased with the results of the Movie Factory. I plan to purchase the full product when the 30-day trial expires. It seems worth the money.

[Lamont Cranston]

I got a note back from Ulead Tech Support telling me they are considering an update to the DVD Plug-in.

[Dragonsf]

Then let's see what happens (to an upgrade)

[JohnWestbury]

Just tried the trial. (Plug-in owner)

You can see a lot of the plug in.

I will not buy it.

Main reason:
as far as I can tell the menu's are still tied to thumbnails

I can make the entire menu image in paint shop or something
The ability to place thumb nails on the menu is a nice feature but as far as I can tell you can't have menu's without thumbnails getting in the way. This is the same as the plug in.

[Hollywood004738]

I would also like to be able to use NON-standard files for VCD/SVCD. The prog uses standard files only.

[Lamont Cranston]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-11-03 16:16:53, Hollywood004738 wrote:
I would also like to be able to use NON-standard files for VCD/SVCD. The prog uses standard files only.
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>
What do you mean by non-standard files? DVD Movie Factory will make XVCDs and XSVCDs.

[AndrewDV]

Hi,

Just a quick FYI, you can use Ulead PhotoImpact 6 to edit or create templates for the Movie Factory.

[The_Flash]

This program seems to have problems with NTSC FILM mpgs. I have several mpgs (NTSC SVCD compliant) which are 23.976fps, and are pulled-down to 29.97fps. It always comes up with the error "Some chapter entry frame numbers exceed the total frames." I don't think the program is able to handle this yet, which is odd. The other thing I don't like is that you can only access chapters from the main menu, and not by pressing the corresponding number on the remote.

[Hollywood004738]

I tried the Demo and it would not except ANY XVCDs that I have created using TMPGEnc.

ex: MPEG-1, 352x240, 23.976, VBR 1000, audio 128.

error: Not a compliant MPEG stream. (When selecting VCD)

I did not see any way for it toaccept these types of files.
If it does do XVCD/XSVCD the how do I get it to accept these
files?

[mmitchell_houston]

Andrew:

What, exactly, do you mean about being able to edit the templates for DVD Movie Factory in Ulead's Photoimpact6? Do you mean you can edit or create the background images? That's not difficult to do any program: they're just standard JPEG files.

The FLash: Interesting problem. How are you encoding the files? Perhaps some of the guys over in Conversions Forum could help?

Hollywood004etc.: Is 128 an acceptable audio setting for MPEG-1? Just asking, I don't know. I'll try making an XVCD next week and see what happens.

[The_Flash]

I make my SVCD files from CCE. Use pulldown, then mux with bbmpeg. NTSC compliant.

[Lamont Cranston]

<TABLE BORDER=0 ALIGN=CENTER WIDTH=85%><TR><TD><font size=-1>Quote:</font><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR><TR><TD><FONT SIZE=-1><BLOCKQUOTE>
On 2001-11-03 21:30:07, Hollywood004738 wrote:
I tried the Demo and it would not except ANY XVCDs that I have created using TMPGEnc.

ex: MPEG-1, 352x240, 23.976, VBR 1000, audio 128.

error: Not a compliant MPEG stream. (When selecting VCD)

I did not see any way for it toaccept these types of files.
If it does do XVCD/XSVCD the how do I get it to accept these
files?
</BLOCKQUOTE></FONT></TD></TR><TR><TD><HR size=1 color=black></TD></TR></TABLE>

Hollywood & Flash, I was one of the beta testers of the upgrade to the DVD-Plug-in to handle XVCDs, XSVCDs and SVCD file and folder naming compatability. The following is the specs I was supplied. I 'assume' they are same and from the tests I have run they are:
---------------------------------------
Read general MPEG-1 (for VCD), and MPEG-2 (SVCD and DVD).
No VCD, SVCD, or DVD MPEG required.

Requirement for VCD:
NTSC: MPEG-1, 352x240 progressive, 29.97 fps,
pel_aspect_ratio = 12 (CCIR601, 525line)
PAL: MPEG-1, 352X288 progressive, 25 fps,
pel_aspect_ratio = 8 (CCIR601, 625line)
Audio: MPEG-1 Layer 2, sample_rate = 44.1 kHz

Requirement for SVCD:
NTSC: MPEG-2, 480x480 interlaced, 29.97 fps,
pel_aspect_ratio: 4:3, video_source_format: NTSC
PAL: MPEG-2, 480X576 interlaced, 25 fps,
pel_aspect_ratio: 4:3, video_source_format: PAL
Audio: MPEG-1 Layer 2, sample_rate = 44.1 kHz

Requirement for DVD:
NTSC: MPEG-2, 720x480, 704x480, 352x480, 29.97 fps,
pel_aspect_ratio: 4:3, video_source_format: NTSC
PAL: MPEG-2, 720X576, 704x576, 352x576, 25 fps,
pel_aspect_ratio: 4:3, video_source_format: PAL
Audio: MPEG-1 Layer 2, sample_rate = 48 kHz

For VCD, if data rate exceeds the VCD specification,
the output will become XVCD. For example, many DVD player
supports XVCD at 2400 kbps data rate.

For SVCD, if data rate or frame size exceeds the SVCD
specification, the output will become XSVCD. For a MPEG-2 file
with DVD resolution (720x480, 704x480, 352x480, 720x576, 704x576,
352x576), the program will create XSVCD if the audio sample rate
is set at 44.1 kHz.
-------------------------------------------------------
Please note there is no 23.976 fps. I have done nothing with film so this is a shot in the dark but in TMPGEnc under the advance tab put a check in 3:2 pull down. It is supposed to convert 23.976fps to 29.976fps 60 fields.

I mpeg encoded a vcd with TMPGEnc: MPEG1, 352 x 240, 29.976, CBR 2000, audio 128. DVD MovieFactory said it exceeded VCD spec and asked if I wanted to make an XVCD. It worked fine.

mmitchell_houston: The specs for XVCDs and XSVCDs are under the tab at the left. <---


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Lamont Cranston on 2001-11-04 07:07:49 ]</font>