Fading Between Scenes

[dmr1]

I'm new to this so hope I'm asking this question in the right place.

Been trying various all-in-one programs (e.g., Nero 7 and Adobe Premire Elements) and have finally given up. Just way too slow (resource intensive) for my system I suppose. I use a 2.7GHz P4 laptop with 1+GB memory.

I'm wanting to create DVD's from my digital camcorder (just purchased) and also transfer VHS via the camcorder as well (camcorder is capable of this and the little testing that I've done have given excellent results).

I believe I'm ok for capturing and the DVD creation part of the process -- will use Nero that came with my burner. And, at this stage I think I'm settling in on DVD-Lab for the Authoring. Just love the flexability of this product, albeit, not without a high learning curve. I'm open to suggestions if there is another product(s) that are comparable at this price range.

However, the edit and encoding phase is still up in the air. In particular, while testing Nero I really liked it's fading and texted over capabilities. Is there a product that combines these functions (i.e., splicing, lots of fading & text capabilities, encoding).

Thanks

[guns1inger]

Premiere Elements should be able to do all that, as can Sony Vegas Movie Studio.

[redwudz]

Try out MPEG Video Wizard. It has lots of effects and is fairly easy to use.

Encoding is a little more complicated. I like TMPGEnc encoder, but it's one of the slower ones. For authoring, DVD-Lab is a good choice if you want a lot of options. If your needs are simpler, TMPGEnc DVD Author.

[dmr1]

Thanks for the quick reply (guns1inger and redwudz) will begin to look into those products.

Performance seems to be an issue for me so I need to be cautious about this. Premier was using around 100% cpu most of the time, hung on me several times and left me with only a couple hundred MB out of the 1+GB memory. And although I was successful in producing a DVD start to finish with Nero, it also had a VERY high resource utilization. The kicker though, the project files appeared to keep getting courpted -- what a pain having to start a project all over from scratch. Nero suggested a couple of things but they never worked.

Can't wait to finally decide on the software, got a stack of VHS and DV tapes waiting to be moved to DVD!

[dmr1]

I've been testing Vegas Movie Studio (thanks for the suggestion guns1inger) and I really like the product. Nice to see an all-in-one that's so stable and responsive on my machine. Unfortunately the trial version does not allow testing of the "Authoring" portion of the software. Verified this with there tech. support as well. BTW, Wow what quick response from there TS group. I asked one question one day and got a response early the next day. I then asked another question and got a response within a few hours... makes ya just want to buy the product based on that, well almost.

I'm really new to all of this so hope I'm not asking a really dumb question. Sony's marketing literature states the product creates "Single-Movie DVD's". What does this mean -- as apposed to "Multi-Move DVD's"?

Also, the other product I was looking at for the Authoring function was DVD-Lab. Without going into all of the finer details, what would be the major differences between the Authoring functions of Vegas and DVD-Lab. I suspect there will be a loss in functionality in Vegas... would be nice if I could actually test this first hand.

[guns1inger]

I haven't used Vegas Movie Studio, but I use Vegas and have used DVD Architect. I use DVD Lab Pro.

My read on the abilities of DVD Architect Studio is that is can author only what is on the VMS timeline. So a single movie, a single slideshow etc. It can't bring in assets you prepared earlier.

DVD Lab Pro, on the otherhand, can create discs that can use any compliant assets you have ready. This would mean you would have to buy both products - one for editing/encoding, the other for authoring.

[dmr1]

guns1inger, if I bring several movies onto the timeline, when I go to Author them would I be able to create a root level menu that had a button for each movie. Then selecting each button would then bring me to a sub-menu for that movie with a selection of the chapters related to that move. In this case I'm trying to anticipate how I might author the various VHS home movies I have spread over many tape.

Does this sound like something VMS could handle.

[guns1inger]

Using DVD Architect Studio - I have no idea. I get the impression that this is not the case, just from reading the site.

In DVD Lab Pro this would be simple to do.