What do you use to author your DVD's ?

[Craig Tucker]

I am currently using Ulead DVD workshop, I find it is simple to use, but supports features that enable you to create a very professional looking DVD.

As more and more people on this forum venture into creating their own DVD's, I thought a poll with user's coments (good and bad) would help people make a decision on which software may suit their particular needs.

I realise there may be other authoring programs that I have missed, but I am limited on the number of poll options.

[Revilo]

Craig,

I actually was just thinking of starting a thread along the same idea. However, could we also incorporate some descriptions about what features, benefits, and drawbacks the different softwares have? Maybe people can reply and talk about this after they vote..

For instance, I currently use spruce-up, but have been playing with Pinnacle DVDpro and ifoedit. Revelant information would be audio supported, chapters, subtitles, etc.. My comments on what I know are this:

Spruce-Up
Simple and easy to learn. Supports AC3 audio, but not DTS. Does not support subtitles. Supports chapters, but not importing chapters (have to be set manually).

IFOedit
Not a simple program, but authoring is easy. Supports AC3 and DTS audio, including multiple tracks. Supports chapter and subtitle import.
Known issue: NTSC film source authoring problem. Apparently does not handle the pulldown file correctly, resulting in wrong chapter positions and total play length. Chapter positions can be fixed using IFOupdate, but I have yet to figure out how to fix the play length, ie. total frames.

Revilo

[mp3superfreak]

My current favorite is DVD Workshop, but I've tried others. I'll list my experiences below:

1) Ulead DVD Workshop - Highly customizable, DD 5.1 support (I merge MPG>AC3 in TMPGEnc), Motion menus/backgrounds, supports multiple file sizes (320x240 mpg-1, 352x480 mpg-2, 720x480 mpg-2, and more, but these are for my home videos>DVD), burn to DVD w/in program

2) Ulead DVD Moviefactory - Template driven, Super Easy to use, little customization, no 5.1, no motion menus, no chapters, CHEAP and Excellent for beginners!

3) SpruceUP - Relatively easy to use, DD 5.1 support, fully customizable menus, NO BACKGROUND MUSIC!, funky playback probs (after clip is finished, DVD stops instead of going back to main menu), also does NOT burn directly to my Pioneer 104. Now that I've figured how to do 5.1 in DVDWS, I doubt I'll use it anymore.

4) DVDit PE v2.5 - Nice interface, no motion menus, DD 2.0/PCM only, disks created in this prog would freeze in my stand alones. Wouldn't recommend.

I want to try Impression DVDpro, but the fact Pinnacle no longer offers a demo has dissuaded me.

[solarfox]

ULead DVD Workshop is my authoring program of choice, by far. It has a few minor annoyances (most of which stem from the fact that I loathe the graphics-heavy "skinned" interfaces everything is going to nowadays... Yeah, who needs this consistency-across-different-applications stuff anyway? Let's all go back to those wonderful DOS days when every program had its own unique interface that you had to learn...), but you can really create professional-looking results! Motion menus, fully-customizable menu layouts, the ability to determine what happens at the end of each clip (play next clip or return to menu)... I've actually had people mistake my home-created DVD's for commercial products!

(Of course, it helps that I go to the trouble of creating full-color disc labels and DVD sleeve art, instead of writing titles on the disc with a marker and leaving the discs in the jewel cases. )

The downside: a significant learning curve to really get the best out of it. Some functions aren't terribly intuitive until you start fiddling around with them, so be prepared to spend some time burning "test" projects (preferably to RW discs so you don't create a bunch of useless coasters!) while you figure out how some of it works.

DVD MovieFactory, on the other hand, is a pretty easy product to use, and might be a better choice for the "home movies" crowd who just want to get junior's high-school graduation and last year's family reunion onto DVD without getting too deep into the mechanics of "authoring." The downside (and the reason I moved on to DVDWS) is its lack of flexibility -- you are pretty much stuck with their pre-canned menu layouts.

[Peka]

DVDMaestro, if you can get hold of it

Supports all AC3 files not just 2 channel
Motion menus, and fully configurable menu options
I think you can have max 99 menus and 99 movies, but don't quote me. I haven't reached more than 99 to test it out....

Read the DVDMaestro guide at doom9.org and you'll get a good idea of the feature set

[Revilo]

I will throw in MY drawback for DVD Maestro. Very expensive.. and my local "stores" don't seem to carry it. I also think it only runs on NT or later windows versions?

Revilo

[Craig Tucker]

Well at the moment Uleads products seem to be most popular, I think DVD workshops high price tag holds it back from being universally accepted as the authoring program of choice. If it was closer to the price of movie factory they would have a real winner.

[tgpo]

I use Toast Titanium.

[JennyBear]

Where can I get DVD Maestro? And what is the latest version? This poll is great. Let me know when you can guys...that DVD Meastro sounds interesting.

Thanks.

JennyBear

[Craig Tucker]

I use Toast Titanium.

Sorry tgpo, you are only allowed 10 poll options so MAC products didn't get a look in.

[Craig Tucker]

Where can I get DVD Maestro? And what is the latest version? This poll is great. Let me know when you can guys...that DVD Meastro sounds interesting.

Thanks.

JennyBear

Apple bought out spruce technologies that developed DVD maestro, and it is now no longer available. From what I gather it only ran on windows NT.

So unless you want to switch to an Apple and wait for the release of Maestro ( or whatever they will call it ) on a Mac Platform, you should look for another product.

[MackemX]

Apple bought out spruce technologies that developed DVD maestro, and it is now no longer available. From what I gather it only ran on windows NT.

So unless you want to switch to an Apple and wait for the release of Maestro ( or whatever they will call it ) on a Mac Platform, you should look for another product.

Mines running just fine on XP although its the NT version

[tgpo]

So unless you want to switch to an apple....

Who wouldn't?

Thus far I can't say that I've seen what Apple has done with it, unless it is used in DVD Studio Pro.

[igalan]

After trying some of the most popular DVD authoring programs (the ones that I can afford ) , these are my two cents:

-Pinnacle Studio 8 (v8.5.4): Excellent features, but very buggy. It hasn't been able to compile a medium complex project yet (for simple projects I can use MyDVD). If Pinnacle fixes the bugs with a new release, this would be my preferred program.

-Ulead Movie Creator: Too limited for my needs, but reliable software. It will accept one mpeg file and create the menus for the DVD using the templates. Little flexibility, but good value. Has problems with some mpeg files (it won't accept the mpeg2 files captured with my Aver TV ).

-Ulead DVD Workshop (v1.3): Much more features than Movie Creator. More flexible, accepts multiple mpeg/avi files, very flexible menus, background music, motion menus, picture slideshow... But no effects, transitions... Very stable. A bit expensive, but I still think it's worth. For me this program is the most stable, it won't crash or fail.

-Sonic MyDVD (v4.01): More advanced than Movie Creator, but less than DVD Workshop. I had problems with audio sync, so I no longer use this program (came bundled with the Sony DRU500A).

[edit]
-WinProducer DVD edition (v3.01): Althought this program has a good time line editor, it's inability to edit the DVD menus and inability to preview them, made this program unsuitable for my needs. You just click on a theme, change the text and background, and that's all you can do with a menu, the rest is preprogramed; you can't even preview the menu with its chapters. It's also very non intuitive to use, I uninstalled the trial soon, so maybe I missed some features...
[/edit]

[edit]
-Roxio VideoWave (v5.1): Good for video editing (for home users, not for pro ) . VideoWave has many effects and transitions. Mixing audio, adding several videos... This program is very good for video editing. But DVD authoring is limited; you can create menus (as many as you want), and create buttons to access each video file; but you can't create menus with the chapters of the videos (although you can create chapters and later use the DVD remote next-prev to skip chapters).
[edit]

My conclusion is that there are many options out there, but this kind of low cost home video editing software is still in the early stages and needs more time to reach a mature level. So try before you buy!

[lunerelf]

I used DVD WORKSHOP BEFORE, BUT HAS CHANGED TO SONIC's
SCENARIST, It's really an un-imaginable product, so fantastic,
it gives me fully controll the fiinal product, very powerful.
compare with DVD workshop, DW is just a toy...^_^

[igalan]

I used DVD WORKSHOP BEFORE, BUT HAS CHANGED TO SONIC's SCENARIST, It's really an un-imaginable product, so fantastic, it gives me fully controll the fiinal product, very powerful.
compare with DVD workshop, DW is just a toy...^_^

Sure, but you can't compare a product that costs more than 14.000 euro with one that costs less than 300! Scenarist is for professional users and not many can pay that much . DVD WS is expensive for personal use, but is still an option.

[q1aqza]

I use 2 mainly:

1. DVD Workshop for authoring home videos or TV shows/films recorded with my PVR250. For the same reasons as everyone else.

2. DVD Maestro when re-muxing DVD Rips re-encoded with CCE, or if I am feeling creative and


Occasionally I use SpruceUp and Moviefactory.

[ClarkJeff]

mp3superfreak,

"I want to try Impression DVDpro, but the fact Pinnacle no longer offers a demo has dissuaded me."

I called Pinnacle before I bought Impression and they sent me a ~15 minute training DVD that showed the features of the product. While it's not as good as an actual demo copy, I bought it and have been pleased with the results. It has it's quirks, but does 'professional' things that the similarly-priced others can't do. I've had it about a month and have produced 4 DVD titles (and burned numerous duplicates) for a local video production company. They're happy with the results. Let me know if you have any questions, after all, I'm an expert now....

[mp3superfreak]

I called Pinnacle before I bought Impression and they sent me a ~15 minute training DVD that showed the features of the product. While it's not as good as an actual demo copy, I bought it and have been pleased with the results. It has it's quirks, but does 'professional' things that the similarly-priced others can't do. I've had it about a month and have produced 4 DVD titles (and burned numerous duplicates) for a local video production company. They're happy with the results. Let me know if you have any questions, after all, I'm an expert now....

Thanks ClarkJeff, but for now, I've "settled" for DVD Workshop. I went to a Pinnacle Seminar a few weeks ago, and they spent the entire 2 hours demo'ing Edition DV. I was hoping they would show some features of Impression DVDPro, but they really didn't have enough time.

I also received the demo disk you are referring to, but that is no help for me. I need "hands on" testing before I shell out $400 on software. I, like Craig Tucker, have been very impressed with DVD Workshop. For now, I will stick with it. Plus, I need to see more income from my "side" business (Photo and VHS to DVD) before I can afford more software!

Thanks again for the suggestion!

[ashtones]

Im with Impression Pro. Thw only pain is you have to build the menus from the ground up. I use photoshop for this but had a heck of a time getting it down just right. It requiers a lot more work from the user then other apps.

[hypersucker]

tried most of them. here's my 5 cents

ulead dvd workshop....frankly, sucks. price/performance not justified. advanced config/settings not available (though still use it for one purpose)

dvdmaestro: luv it.....almost as powerful as scenarist, but hell of a lot easier to learn and use

scenarist: amazing what u can do with it. takes ages to master though

dvdit pe: grrr.....unstable b"*tch

spruceup: easy, not lots of settings...kinda slim interface

reeldvd: scenarist light light edition if you ask me


btw; for ac3 encodes....if you have scenarist and use another authoring prog i recommend to still use the ac3 encoder included (as standalone) with scenarist. fast and niiice

[Craig Tucker]

ulead dvd workshop....frankly, sucks. price/performance not justified.

dvdmaestro: luv it.....almost as powerful as scenarist, but hell of a lot easier to learn and use

scenarist: amazing what u can do with it. takes ages to master though

And how much did you pay for dvdmaestro and scenarist then ? If one of your criticisms of DVD workshop is its price/performance ratio, you must surely use the same basis for criticism for all products.

DVDmaestro is no longer available.

Scenarist ranges from $15,000-$20,000+, is this price/performane ratio justified for you. I know I certainly couldn't justify it.

[BJ_M]

Sonic Scenarist Advanced $15,000.00
Scenarist Advanced for Windows 2000 is a comprehensive DVD authoring system for post production facilities. Provides integrated authoring, proofing, audio compression and formatting for DVD-Video and DVD-ROM titles.

Sonic Scenarist Professional $22,000.00
Scenarist Professional for Windows 2000 is the industry-standard DVD authoring system for commercial DVD title production. The Hollywood standard provides integrated authoring, proofing, audio compression and formatting for DVD-Video and DVD-ROM titles (includes 5:1 ac3 encoding and DTS support).

[Craig Tucker]

Sonic Scenarist Advanced $15,000.00
Scenarist Advanced for Windows 2000 is a comprehensive DVD authoring system for post production facilities. Provides integrated authoring, proofing, audio compression and formatting for DVD-Video and DVD-ROM titles.

Sonic Scenarist Professional $22,000.00
Scenarist Professional for Windows 2000 is the industry-standard DVD authoring system for commercial DVD title production. The Hollywood standard provides integrated authoring, proofing, audio compression and formatting for DVD-Video and DVD-ROM titles (includes 5:1 ac3 encoding and DTS support).

Exactly, a bit excessive for home use in my opinion :P . And something in this price range cannot be compared on features with a home product costing $299.00 or less.

[hypersucker]

at least it comes with a DVD decoder card for $20k

[BJ_M]

both versions come with the decoder card ..

[Robert Simandl]

I've used two programs lately:

DVD Workshop because I like the way it accepts mpegs with AC-3 sound, and it's a bit more tolerant of the screwed up mpegs that come off my ReplayTV than DVD Complete is.

DVD Complete is the most intuitive program out there. I like being able to print labels for the disc, keep case, and/or jewel case with graphics that match the menus I'm using on the disc itself. I don't like the fact that audio choices are limited to wav and mp2. Also don't like the fact that it's VERY picky about the mpegs you use, sometimes crashing with a "build/mux error" when it doesn't like your mpeg.

I've used DVD MovieFactory, but since I'd already paid for DVD Workshop, didn't fiddle with it for long.

I've also TRIED to use Pinnacle DVD Impression Pro, which supposedly supports AC-3, but it crashed every time I tried to use it.

[redcell34]

Please stick to the topic. No DVD Ripping here please.

edited by baldrick

[Gnilleps]

I have burned EXACTLY one DVD! Mwuhahahhaha. I used Sonic DVDit, I have to say it is REAL slick and very easy to use. I will see what the future holds.

[Gamma]

Please stick to the topic


edited by BJ_M