Help with a dvd authoring program, pls

[Souwalker]

I know this has been asked many times and I apologise for this. I only want to transfer my home videos from my dv camera to my pc and turn the video to a dvd. Some simple menu option would be nice and render to a file so I can use Nero to burn.
I am thinking about Ulead's Video Studio 9 or TmpGenc Dvd Authour.
Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Rgds
Patrick

[fritzi93]

TDA will serve your purpose just fine. Fairly easy to use. Can't comment on Ulead. Good luck.

[gadgetguy]

Ulead will do everything you're asking in one package, though the resulting quality may be questionable. Only you can judge if it's good enough for you.
TDA will not transfer the video from the Camcorder, nor will it encode to DVD-MPEG2, but it will allow you to author adequate menu structures once the other things are done. And if you want it to, it will also handle the burning part.

[Stormin Norman]

dv to dvd guides: https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?formatconversionselect=DV%20to%20DVD

[Jason B]

TDA will serve your purpose just fine. Fairly easy to use. Can't comment on Ulead. Good luck.

But this won't work for AVI files will it? I've tried to do AVI files and it won't work.

[thecoalman]

Ulead will do everything you're asking in one package, though the resulting quality may be questionable.

Ulead uses a version of the Mainconcept encoder, the encode quality is fine. Out of the box menus are limited though....

[gadgetguy]

TDA will serve your purpose just fine. Fairly easy to use. Can't comment on Ulead. Good luck.

But this won't work for AVI files will it? I've tried to do AVI files and it won't work.

No, it won't. Because, like I said before, it won't encode to DVD-MPG2

[gadgetguy]

Ulead uses Mainconcept encoder, the encode quality is fine.

I wasn't sure about Version 9. I wasn't happy with the earlier version 7 that I have. That's why I said MAY be questionable.

[Tom Lewandowski]

Ulead's DVD MovieFactory 4 should do an admirable job for you. Easy to use, too.

Ulead will do everything you're asking in one package, though the resulting quality may be questionable.

I'm confused by this, too. I'm to the point where TMPGEnc served it's purpose at one time, but seems to be lagging in quality as of late. I had been using TMPGEnc for years, but a couple of months ago, I gave Ulead's MPEG2 (the MainConcept) encoder another shot. It seemed to work great...BETTER than I've been able to get from TMPGEnc.

I've been doing a lot of VHS videotape transfer-to-DVD; mostly pre-recorded movies that I don't want to re-buy on commercial DVD. I've been amazed with the results I'm getting following this scheme:

I capture with a Turtle Beach Video Advantage card, at 720x480. I'd use 352x480, but it's a custom frame size for the VA and will sometimes drop frames. I use a DV 2 AVI codec for capture.

I then import the AVI into either Ulead VideoStudio 9, or DVD MovieFactory 4 and render to MPEG2 format (7000 vbr, two pass) for DVD. (And MF4 to create DVD folders for burning.) If the movie file is too big, I use Nero Recode or DVD Shrink so it'll fit on a DVD-R disc, and burn it with Nero.

None of these utilities are 'high-end' choices, but the resulting DVD's seem to be producing results for me as good as the original VHS tapes. In the past, I've never thought much of Ulead's codecs -- and I've been using their products since VideoStudio 2.0 was released. But I think they've vastly improved over the past couple of years. DVD MovieFactory 4 and VideoStudio 9 both support Dolby Digital AC-3 audio, variable bitrates and double-pass encoding. MF4 even has a "shrink" feature for long videos, though I haven't really tested it.

[Jason B]

Great info here. Now, I've downloaded DVD movie factory 4, and tried to import two 700mb avi files into it. It shows that it won't fit on one two hour dvd 4.7 gig. I don't get this. It's two avi files that make up one movie, and they are only about two gig total. Why is it saying they won't fit on one DVD?

[thecoalman]

the size of the AVI is irrelevant, that AVI has to be converted to a DVd compliant MPEG2. The size of that file is determined by the bitrate. Most likely you have selected a high quality preset, I think the highest quality preset for ULEAD is 6000VBR (it is on all my ulead products) which will give you about 1.5 hours of video on a 4.7GB DVD.

Try a lower quality bitrate or preset.

BTW you can ignore the hours that are listed on a blank DVD, they are irrelevant as well. Just for example using a very low quality template (VCD standard bitrate) you could fit 6-7 hours on 4.7 GB DVD.

[Tom Lewandowski]

MF4 does have the new "Shrink" feature, but there's a limit to how much it can shrink. It also supports variable and constant bitrates of 8000. But as thecoalman points out, AVI size is irrelevant; it's video length times quality settings...once the mpeg2 encoding is complete.

[Jason B]

I still can't find a program to do what I want.

For ex, I usually have two mpegs, part 1 and part 2 from a movie, that need to be joined and made to work on a home DVD player.

or

2 avi files, part 1 and part 2 fom a movie that need to be joined and made to play on a home dvd player.

Can nero do this? I just want to use ONE PROGRAM to do this.