Cutting content within authoring program

[qlizard]

I am looking to add another DVD authoring software to use in addition to TDA. I like TDA a lot because of its ease of use and simplicity. I also like that you can easily edit out sections within the content, not just clipping the beginning or end.
But I would like to add another authoring software that is more flexible and allows greater control when I want it. I have tried several, but none seem to have the ability like TDA to cut out within the content, a feature I use all the time to shorten up movies on the fly. Some allow you to clip the ends, like encore and DVD-lab, but even this is cumbersome in those programs. Encore is slow and choppy while you're doing it, and DVD-lab has the annoying feature of re-rendering a whole new file with the clipped ending.
Maybe I just missed how to do it in those programs. Any thoughts?

[wwjd]

I believe Ulead VideoStudio 8 will do what you are asking. You can cut a video into any number of segments and then you can take any segment and drop it into a timeline. You can then apply video filters, redefine the start and stop points of the segment, at titles and so on. You can arrange the segments in any order also.

VS8 has a free trial version that is fully functional.

wwjd

[mats.hogberg]

IIRC, last time I tried, UVS also reencodes before authoring...

/Mats

[wwjd]

VS8 does re-render unfortunately. However, it does have SMART render and the render times are shorter than for TDA or Pinnacle Studio 8.

wwjd

[Faithful Follower]

Have you ever use TDA?

[zakman]

VS8 does re-render unfortunately. However, it does have SMART render and the render times are shorter than for TDA or Pinnacle Studio 8.

wwjd:
What do you mean by "SMART render"? Does it only re-render the portions it needs to?

[qlizard]

Have you ever use TDA?

uh... yeah, do you have a point?

I believe Ulead VideoStudio 8 will do what you are asking.
wwjd

Actually, I have VS8, and I use it for simple projects and slideshows, but not authoring. Can't say that I've even considered it for authoring but I will give it a look.
I use premiere for editing my DV content and then frameserve to Procoder for encoding, and finish up with TDA. I'm very happy with the resulting quality, I just want to expand my authoring flexibility.

[Faithful Follower]

The question was for wwjd.

[qlizard]

sorry

[mats.hogberg]

To me, authoring and editing are 2 completely different tasks. Editors let me edit my videos, (DVD) authoring apps prepares the the outcome of the editing in a format suitable for writing to a DVD.

/Mats

[wwjd]

I have recently been evaluating TDA but I do not own it. I have not done a careful comparison between TDA, VS8 and S8. I did render/author an avi file in all three apps and VS8 was the quickest. The quality of the resulting video seemed comparable to me for all three apps. I tried to set all three apps equally. I know that TDA can be setup for maximum quality and that can add a lot of extra time to the rendering process.

I may have miss spoke regarding Smart Rendering in VS8. I do know that it is available in at least one Ulead product but maybe not in VS8. I do know that VS8, and you can get this from their web site, claims that you can edit a DVD and not have to re-render it.

wwjd

ps - My understanding is that Smart Render will only render non-compliant mpeg files.

[wwjd]

Correction - It was an mpeg file, not avi.

wwjd

[qlizard]

To me, authoring and editing are 2 completely different tasks. Editors let me edit my videos, (DVD) authoring apps prepares the the outcome of the editing in a format suitable for writing to a DVD.
/Mats

I totally agree with you. And I do all my editing within Premiere. It is just handy to have the ability to cut out sections in the authoring program later if you need to.

I may have miss spoke regarding Smart Rendering in VS8. I do know that it is available in at least one Ulead product but maybe not in VS8.

Smart render is definitely in VS8. It will not re-render mpeg material if you carefully match up the settings and only cut out material. However, it will re-render where you add transitions, filters, etc. But only in that section. I haven't looked at it, but I just doubt that its authoring capability will give me what I need. If anything, I'm guessing it is even less flexible than TDA.

[anzimike]

Hi,
Correct me if I am wrong but I don't believe ulead VS can author and will only edit avi. Movie factory and dvd workshop, both from ulead can do limited editing and then author. Be aware that when they edit they break up the edits into seperate titles, which may result in a slight pause at your edit points in final movie. You may want to look at the new mpeg editor from TMPGEnc if you want more accurate editing, but you will still have to author in TDA. It appears to be a frame accurate editor for mpeg, like Wombles MPEG-VCR. DVD-lab has very good menu creation, but can only trim video beginning and end and this function is buggy in my version.

[wwjd]

Ulead VideoStudio 8 will edit just about anything and it will author complete with chapters and menus and so on. I use VS8 because it does everything that I need in one program. I capture, my VHS home movie videos using DV from my ADVC-100 via a firewire. Then I add the chapter points, customize the menu and thumbnails. Then I either burn it directly to a DVD or create video_ts folder so that I can shrink it down using Shrink. There are many output options also.

The Ulead site is a good place to find out what VS8 can do.

wwjd

[anzimike]

I stand corrected. I was confusing videostudio with mediastudio pro (incudes moviefactory to author). Thanks

[alsyed]

DVD Lab Pro enables you to "edit" out sections rather easily, by setting arbitrary chapter points at the beginning and end of the segment you wish to edit out, at any time during the video, and then you select "skip next chapter". I don't think you there is any quick way to do it without resplicing the movie together.

[qlizard]

DVD Lab Pro enables you to "edit" out sections rather easily, by setting arbitrary chapter points at the beginning and end of the segment you wish to edit out, at any time during the video, and then you select "skip next chapter". I don't think you there is any quick way to do it without resplicing the movie together.

When you do it this way, is the content that you "edited" still on the disk (thus taking up space)?

[freestyler]

it's not really editing, it's "trimming"

[alsyed]

in essence all dvd authoring programs will leave the original on the hdd. dvd lab pro after "trimming", will have the new trimmed file which is replacing the old file, which i believe you could delete as all references to it in the project would be set to the new trimmed version.

tda does this automatically without you having to delete the temp files manually, it still leaves the original doesn't it?