Review Ulead Moviefactory 2

[Robert Simandl]

Hmmm, it appears that DVDMF doesn't do motion menus?????? Guess that's one reason it's $250 less than DVD Workshop?

[kitzj0]

Hi Robert

Thanks for your trying the .ini thing.

Also, I was wondering if you could tell me exactly how you encoded with TMPGenc for the ac3 sound. I get as far as making the file, then am confused on what else I need to do. Do I then need to re-encode using TMPGenc to get the audio and video in the same file? Or do i need to use another program like virtual dub or something?

I have searched on this site, but find it a bit confusing.

[kitty]

Great work Robert - I wonder about that third value...

What we need is a VCDeasy like program that uses TMPGenc and BeSweet to demux, convert to AC3 and remux. Any programmers out there?

[MOVIEGEEK]

Baldrick stated it worked with VOBs if you changed the file extension. If you have a VOB with ac3 maybe it'll work?

I have found this to be true with Ulead VideoStudio 6,ArcSoft Showbiz and Sonic MyDVD.I just changed the .vob extension to .mpg.Alot of people complain about MyDVD but it does have motion menus;two drawbacks though it only allows PCM audio and the video output has 3 quality settings.

[Robert Simandl]

Also, I was wondering if you could tell me exactly how you encoded with TMPGenc for the ac3 sound. I get as far as making the file, then am confused on what else I need to do. Do I then need to re-encode using TMPGenc to get the audio and video in the same file? Or do i need to use another program like virtual dub or something?

What I do is fire up TMPGEnc, but instead of opening the mpeg, I click File, then Mpeg Tools, then Simple De-Multiplex. For the Input, I browse to the mpeg file I want to split, say, whatever.mpg.

Once I select it, the output files, whatever.m2v and whatever.mp2 are filled in automatically. I click Run and go get a cup of coffee.

When it's done, I close TMPGEnc and fire up the BeSweet GUI. I choose AC3 as my output format, click the button to browse for an input file, select mp2 as my input format, pick my whatever.mp2 as my input file, click the button to browse for the output file, type in whatever.ac3 for the file name, click OK, click the SSRC button, make sure the sampling rate is set to 48000, click the BeSweet button, click the "mp2 to ac3" button, and go get another cup of coffee.

When that's done, I close BeSweet and fire up TMPGEnc again. I click File, then Mpeg Tools, then Simple Multiplex this time. I make the format MPEG-2 VBR, choose whatever.m2v for the video input and whatever.ac3 for the audio input, type in "whatever.ac3.mpg" for the output file name so it doesn't overwrite the original mpeg file, click Run, then go for a third cup of coffee.

When it's done two things will have taken place:

1. I have an mpeg file with ac3 sound that DVD MovieFactory 2 (and DVD Workshop 1.3) is apparently able to work with, despite the warning message saying otherwise, provided you've made the above changes to your DVDMF.INI file.

2. I'm wide awake.

The BeSweet part above is a bit simplified but there's a guide here on vcdhelp somewhere that explains how to use BeSweet better than I ever could.

Hope that helps....

[tempe]

Robert,

I hope you have enough coffee with you...

Thanks for the tips.

[ronbo613]

Hello everyone-Most of this stuff is over my head. I wish I had the bucks for DVDWorkshop, but I don't, so I got MovieFactory instead. The reason I liked DVDWorkshop was the motion menus, chapters aren't that big for me. When I downloaded MovieFactory2, it looked just like the DVDWorkshop interface from the 30-day trial, minus the motion menus and a load of templates.
I have Ulead VideoStudio6 and just downloaded a frameserver to TMPGEnc, the encoder I prefer to use over Ulead's coder. I'm still figuring it out. I like Ulead products, a little limited but easy to use. Clean MPEG2 files, edited in Ulead VS6, coded with TMPGEnc, loaded into MovieFactory2 with a background image and sound would produce a nice DVD. Good content would carry it.
Looking forward to any and all information to make better DVDs with MovieFactory2.

[Robert Simandl]

Hi Ronbo,

I've been a DVD Workshop user before. You're not missing much.... one reason I stopped was it often crashed when trying to do motion menus! That's a problem well-documented on Ulead's support forums, with the only solution being a very complicated workaround posted here at vcdhelp.

[batman0105]

Did a little experimenting with the DVDMF.INI file. There are three lines in it:

playac3=0
decodeac3=0
uleadencodeac3=0

Thanks for the info Robert. I tried your advice and was successful in using ac3 audio in DVD Movie Factory. I couldn't believe how simple it was. Like yourself, I was also unable to preview the clip in DVDMF with the ac3 audio, but as long as it plays properly in the DVD player, I'm not that concerned about it.

Also, as a side note, you probably already noticed this but for those who are reading this topic for the first time, there is also a line in the DVDMF.ini file that will suppress future warnings about converting the audio:

[ReShowMSG]
AskShowUnsupportAC3=0 (by default it is set to 1)

Anyway, thanks again!

JC

[Robert Simandl]

The non-support of ac3 seems so easy to work around, I have to wonder if it wasn't a deliberate way of supporting ac3 without paying the royalties to Dolby Labs...