Has anyone used Sonic Scenarist or DVDit pro HD?

[jbandy1]

How is Sonic Scenarist in comparison to DVDit pro HD for burning Blu-ray discs?
I have heard that Scenarist is pretty good has anyone used either of these programs and if so how has your experience been so far?

[filmboss80]

Scenarist is a pro authoring tool; very elegant and very expensive. It is solid and reliable for doing all sorts of things with navigational menus, subtitles, alternate audio tracks, etc. It is mostly used to make masters for replication, and as such, not a lot burning to Blu-ray is done, except for test discs. DVDit! Pro is a significantly cheaper prosumer tool, minus many of the features for complex DVD authoring (although the Pro version does master to DLT). You'll need to check out Sonic's hardware and driver requirements for Blu-ray disc burning. It is always best to author first to a harddrive folder before burning. ImgBurn (freeware) can burn to Blu-ray once it has been authored to the hard drive.

Sonic products are reasonably solid--especially Scenarist (but you PAY for it). Sonic support forums are fairly decent. You can get the job done.

[jman98]

I have some experience with Scenarist and I have actually used their no longer available HD DVD authoring tool. Scenarist is very non-intuitive and not very user friendly. However, once you understand how it works, it's not difficult to use. The typical purchaser needs training, which can involve either paying to take a class from Sonic or reading the manual that comes with it. Note that Scenarist has no menu generation capability and you will have to create any menus outside of Scenarist and know how to link them into your Scenarist project. Because of its high cost, unless you either have money to burn or have a legitimate need for Scenarist that nothing else can fill, I'd advise using another tool. Many people acquire Scenarist through warez sites because of the cost. We do not advocate such and will not provide any info on how someone might do that. Note that Scenarist copies not purchased will have ZERO support from Sonic and many forums may refuse to help you if they think you didn't buy it. I've not been to the Sonic forums, but I have seen on other sites where they say basically "Just ask Sonic for help with that. You did pay for it, right? Because you get support when you purchase it." and sometimes that ends the discussion.

[videopoo]

On that note Sonic support is awful even if you are a license holder. You get much faster and thorough answers from on-line forums - sad but true.

[jbandy1]

It worries me that making menus will be difficult.
Thanks for the info.

[filmboss80]

Visual elements to menus (backgrounds, motion clips, etc. ) are usually created with other applications than the authoring software itself. Unless you are commercially distributing your Blu-ray discs, you probably should not even consider Scenarist. In your case, it may be just as overwhelming as it is costly. DVDit Pro ought to be a better fit, but first, I would try a trial download of the latest version of Corel/Ulead DVD MovieFactory to see how it works.

Let us know how it is going.

[jbandy1]

I do have experience making menus in Adobe photoshop for use in sonic Reel DVD. I don't know how this compares to that but I will have to be able to create menus for the blu-rays that I'm looking to produce for my job. I did see that scenarist has a adobe plugin. Does this mean that you are able to create menus in photoshop for scenarist?

[jbandy1]

I also just heard that DVDit pro HD is a little unreliable for blu-ray but no actual reasons why. Does anyone here use Cinevision to encode?

[videopoo]

http://magazine.creativecow.net/pdf_issues/COWmag_NovDec2008_spreads.pdf

I found this article on another forum. It has alot of good info on current authoring. I been using Cinevision and Scenarist but your talking a huge learning curve here - not to mention the $70,000 you'll need to get set up. Professional Blu Ray production isn't something you just decide to do oneday It took me months to get up to speed - to the point I would offer my services to clients.

Yes...Sonic Offers a PS plug-in called Designer. Your designs are done in PS and designer creates and organizes the splices and XML ("Designer File") file used in Scenarist. It's a nifty tool but very convoluted workflow. Blu Print from Sony so much faster and easier to use...with a $60,000 price tag - ouch!

Have you looked into DoStudio? It a great app with only a $500/month licensing fee. You still need to use a complaint encoder which will take some money.

No offense but unless you plan on doing alot of BD work or plan on spending LOTS of money and LOTS of time, get someone who does Blu Ray professionally. BELIEVE me, it will save you lots of heartache

[filmboss80]

Videopoo provided good info. The mention of Cinevision opens up the vital issue of encoding. Jbandy1, we have very little information about the current tools you are using, the end goal you are trying to achieve, and the budget you are dealing with. We don't know if you're embarking on a consumer-hobby project or a commercial distribution enterprise. We don't know if your projects will include multiple audio tracks, subtitles, alternate video angles, an other extras. We don't know much about your skill level, other than your post about being worried that menu creation will be difficult. (That comment alone makes me think Scenarist will not be what you ultimately want to use.)

We also don't know about the volume of projects you will be doing. Because there is a huge investment in the high-end, Hollywood type of Blu-ray mastering, you will need to do enough to provide a good return on investment (ROI). It may be more economically feasible to hire out an authoring service.

Can you please tell us more about your specific situation -- and what you want to accomplish?

[jman98]

We don't know much about your skill level, other than your post about being worried that menu creation will be difficult. (That comment alone makes me think Scenarist will not be what you ultimately want to use.)

I very strongly agree with this.

[jbandy1]

Thanks for you help, here's a little information on what I'm looking to do. I work for a small business education company that holds regular conferences which we film and use to produce DVDs, CDs, flash files for the web and hopefully blu-rays. We perform a three camera shoot at the conferences and are filming in 720p 59.94 onto focus enhancements 100 GB hard drives in M2t format files.

We are editing in post using Adobe Premiere Pro CS3. Which was why I was asking about encoding. We have run into some issues encoding to MPEG2 for blu ray and H.264 but have had a little more luck with the H.264.
The videos do not include multiple audio tracks, no subtitles, and no extras. The Discs will include menus.

My skill level is novice but my manager has been a practicing in video production for over 15 years.
We will need to be able to produce blu-ray discs and were trying out encore CS3. Unfortunately We seem to be running into errors every step of the way so we started looking into other solutions. At this point we are just looking for blu-ray authoring software that works. I had been talking to some people and they recommended Scenarist though it does come with a heavy price tag.

[lordsmurf]

DVDit blows.

[videopoo]

Thanks for you help, here's a little information on what I'm looking to do. I work for a small business education company that holds regular conferences which we film and use to produce DVDs, CDs, flash files for the web and hopefully blu-rays. We perform a three camera shoot at the conferences and are filming in 720p 59.94 onto focus enhancements 100 GB hard drives in M2t format files.

We are editing in post using Adobe Premiere Pro CS3. Which was why I was asking about encoding. We have run into some issues encoding to MPEG2 for blu ray and H.264 but have had a little more luck with the H.264.
The videos do not include multiple audio tracks, no subtitles, and no extras. The Discs will include menus.

My skill level is novice but my manager has been a practicing in video production for over 15 years.
We will need to be able to produce blu-ray discs and were trying out encore CS3. Unfortunately We seem to be running into errors every step of the way so we started looking into other solutions. At this point we are just looking for blu-ray authoring software that works. I had been talking to some people and they recommended Scenarist though it does come with a heavy price tag.

There's really no affordable solution right now if you want to do BD correctly without hiccups. I suggest you get CS4 and see if Encore Actually works. Other than that Netblender may be the way to go here but you are still looking at a moderate price tag. Or you can PM me...and i'll try to help you out.

[lordsmurf]

I just got CS4, not installed it yet, but I already hate H.264 based on some other work I've been doing lately. It takes forever to encode, and encoders all seem to be buggy as hell.

[filmboss80]

In light of your information that the video content is business education, recorded from conferences, I think it would be foolhardy at this time to devote too much time, energy, and money to high def / blu-ray. The market simply does not support it right now. Everyone has a DVD player, but very few have Blu-ray. (In this economy, recent holiday Blu-ray purchases flatlined.) It is fine that you are archiving your original footage to HD for future purposes, but for the present, I suggest you simply export the Premiere timeline to standard definition widescreen (16:9) MPEG-2 for authoring on DVD. There are many good DVD authoring programs for standard definition.

I am curious to know who recommended Scenarist to you. Could they be sales people? If you are not doing complex navigation, multiple languages, subtitles, etc., you absolutely do not need it. With the enormous learning curve, it is a poor fit for your situation. I would think twice before ever taking advice again from the party that suggested it.

Think of your broadest target distribution base and make a realistic assessment of the demand for Blu-ray discs of your material. I do not think there will be enough to justify the expense and headaches right now.

[jbandy1]

Thanks for your replies. I do know that not many people have blu-ray players yet but the production of blu-ray discs has been a request from management. We have thought about DVDit but I have heard mixed reports on it. The people that recommended Scenarist do work with Sonic tools so I do believe they benefit from people buying Sonic software.
Lordsmurf, are you running on windows machine? We have 2 Matrox Axio LE systems running premiere pro CS3.
I'm asking because we have also considered upgrading to CS4 as well hoping that it would fix some of our problems.
Are you having problems with the blu-ray encoding in 4?
And have you been able to burn a Blu-ray in encore CS4?
What sort of problems have you had with DVDit?

Thank you all for your time.