DVD MovieFactory Probs - and authoring programs in general..

[PaulD]

I got myself the Centropy Attack of The Clones release. I used MovieFactory to recode the three SVCD mpegs into a single PAL DVD Mpeg.

I've now come to author the CD also using DVD MovieFactory and I'm trying to create a menu for the DVD.

My problem is that when I come to select the chapters that are used to link to the menu buttons I can only any video in the first 11 minutes of the film. WHAT GIVES? Surely since this bloody program has re-encoded the mpeg itself it should be able to work properly. If I don't select any chapters then I'm not given the option of even creating a simple menu with a single button.

I've got to say that over the last few weeks I've tried pretty much every mainstream DVD authoring package and maybe it's because there's a problem with the Centropy release but I haven't found a single application that "just" works with these SVCD Mpegs.

PowerDirector Pro 2 - won't even open the SVCD mpegs. As soon as I drop CD 1 mpeg into the app it becomes unusable. Any menu option I select results in an "out of memory error" and pretty quickly it crashes entirely.

Ulead MediaStudio Pro - refused to open the SVCD mpegs but now I've re-encoded it using MovieFactory it will open it.

Sonic DVDIt - opens my newly encoded MPEG2 PAL DVD and places it in the palette. As soon as I try and use the mpeg though I get an error saying that mpeg is encoded for NTSC and my project is a PAL project. Even the other programs that don't work properly recognise the mpeg as a PAL mpeg 2.

Sonic Fusion - Loads the encoded mpeg correctly and seems to work until the point I try and preview the movie at which point I either get no sound or the DVD hangs 5 seconds into the preview.

What gives? Is there a problem with my computer, the original MPEG on the Centropy release or are all these programs #hite and really flawed in one way or another?

I've followed the tutorials about encoding SVCD as DVD etc and have had some success but eventually in one way or another the application I try to use to author the DVD fails.

Has anyone encoded this Centropy SVCD to DVD or had problems similar to this?

Thanks for any help you may be able to give. I'm beginning to think it be cheaper and less stressful to fly to SkyWalker ranch and bribe Mr Lucas to give me a DVD with the film on!!

[EricB]

I would suggest doing the encoding with TMPGenc. I believe the quality of this file is fairly poor so you might want to use the SVCD template but use the Video Arrange function to center the frame and leave as its's current size.

[PaulD]

Yeah - I've tried that with no success. The end result wasn't (to me at least) noticeably different from the re-encoding that I've performed with DVD MovieFactory.