What is the best authoring software?

[Zomenn2000]

For Authoring Quicktime movies and Mpegs

[ckl_88]

well, depends on what you want. For me, the main features were:
1. Motion menus
2. Background music on menu
3. User defined sub-menus
4. Ease of use
5. Acceptability of AC3, MP2, MP3 files.

I've tried the following:

1. TMPGEnc DVD Author
Good - Allows submenus, motion menus, accepts AC3, AC3 plugin for encoding
Bad - No easy way of allowing background music in menus. Not as easy to use as Nerovision.

2. NeroVision Express 2
Good - Easy to use, encodes AC3, accepts AC3, motion menus, background music.
Bad - No easy way of getting sub-menus. You can only create a sub-menu for the chapters you create.

3. Adobe Encore
Good - encodes AC3, accepts AC3, motion menu, background music, sub-menus, works easily with PSD files
Bad - extremely buggy. Very strict on the encoded formats of AC3 and mpeg files. If it doesn't like it, it will complain or worse, hangs the app. Not as easy to use as 1 & 2.

If you are wondering about playing a short mpeg clip before the menu comes up (as you see in some commercial dvd's), I don't know which one can do it because I haven't tried it yet.

Hope this helps.

[rcb]

look here:

https://www.videohelp.com/tools?section=2#2

[andkiich]

The quicktime movies will need to be converted to DVD compliant MPEG2 and either AC3/PCM/MP2 audio.

After that, DVD-Lab all the way!

[petar]

One that has the capability of:
- DVD-Lab to create menus
- TMPGEnc DVD Author to set chapter points, cut/edit and import DVD-Video
- DVD Maestro for easy of use for complex projects
- Sonic Scenarist for flexibility to create the DVD structure whichever way you want
and doesn't require to sell my car to buy it

Just kidding (and dreaming).

TMPGEnc DVD Author is a good one to start with. It's quite limited on the menu creation side but very good otherwise.
DVD-Lab has a lot of potential, it's very flexible but it's still in development (i.e. a bit buggy at the moment).
Both have a free trial. Give them a go.