What is the best authoring software ?

[MaxSteel]

I want to author a Super-VCD and later a DVD. I need some opinions on what is the best authoring software ?

[Vejita-sama]

Well best is a personal choice. Ulead DVD Movie Factory (makes SVCDs too) is pretty good. You can d/load a Demo from http://www.ulead.com

[speedy]

If all you want to do is "burn" a VCD or SVCD to a disk then Nero is probably your best choice. If you also need to do some minor tweaking of the videos prior to burning meaning improving how well they look when played on a DVD set up or from your PC rather than changing actual content then either VitrualDub and/or TMPGnc are the way to go. However if you truly want to "author" in the sense of extensive changing/editing of the scenes in the video, adding titles, transitions, , rolling credits, add multiple sound tracks, blue screen, etc., then a video editing application is called for. Right now Vegas Video III is HOT!

[Skunkwerx]

I agree with Speedy.

Sonic Foundry's Vegas Video 3.0 (www.sonicfoundry.com )is VERY good for splicing and dicing your "burn ready" video files. There are wide variety of features that are built into this program. Combine multiple video, audio, image files. It can handle large files as well... ie; I edited a 3gb mpeg. No problems.

Ulead Movie Factory is good to give you a taste of setting up menus, but the templates made my authoring options too limited though the interface is very user friendly.

Easy Cd Creator and Nero have basic menu authoring built into the burning interface and should suite you with your initial tests.

It really depends on your needs an how much "authoring" you really are attempting to do....

[vitualis]

SVCD authoring in terms of the creation of menus and other forms of interactivity (rather than video processing), the best programs to use are:
- Videopack 5
- VCDImager +/- GUI

Both Nero and Easy CD Creator offer little more than rudimentary VCD authoring capabilities.

VideoPack 5 is commercial and VCDImager is open source.

Regards.

[tendtend]

Agree with Michael. VCDImager+GUI is good for beginners (simple (S)VCD) and experts (Menu etc.). VP5 can create very nice (S)VCDs even for beginners. Most importantly, they are among the very few softwares that burn problem free SVCDs.