VideoPack 5 question ...

[Chaoji3791]

Thinking about getting VideoPack 5 to create DVDs & just need to know something crucial from any of you current VP users out there.

In VP5, can you string a series of short MPEG-2 files together so that they play seamlessly as one long movie? SpruceUp won't let you do that. After each video clip plays, you have to go back to the main menu, which is a pain if you want to string 10 x 10 MPEG-2 clips together to form a cohesive, flowing, uninterrupted feature film. (I am shooting a 100-minute DV feature film later this year.) If I can, I would much rather string 10 x 10 minute clips together and author in VP5 rather than try to create a 100-minute MPEG-2 file and author with SpruceUp. (I plan to frameserve from Premiere to TMPGEnc.) If I had to encode a 100-minute clip and make it less than 2 GB (or 1 GB or whatever the maximum file size for DVD is), I would have to settle for a pretty crappy average bitrate.

C h a o j i

[Diablo_75]

Chaoji, I hate to say it, but VideoPack 5 is a very lack luster piece of software for what it costs. I've tried to use it, and find it to be very very confusing...but that's besides the main point.

The main point would be that the software seemed to have been released before it was finished. Bugs are everywhere on it. If you don't beleave me, then just do a word search in this forum, and you'll see all the problums that people have run into.

Good reviews that I have seen so far on here would have to go towards Ulead's DVD Workshop, and Dazzle's Complete DVD. They support a great amount of features (my favorite being motion menues), but I suggest you do a little more reading.

Also, I'd stay away from DVDit! by Sonic. It's also buggy, and it very very finiky. I've tried to use that one as well.

Personally, I'm looking more into the two that I mentioned above.