Early versions of Ulead Movie Factory would not take an m2t file without rerendering. Recent versions do just fine. I have no problem getting Ulead Movie Factory to take a Vegas render and create either a 3x DVD (HD DVD compatible) or AVCHD disc (Blu-ray compatible) on regular DVD+-R.

Which version of Pinnacle Studio do you have, do you need the Plus or Ultimate version to author?

It would be so much simpler if DVDA did this. . . .

I have the Ultimate version (11.1) but the lesser version will do. The difference is that a lot of plugins come with the Ult version whereas you have to pay for the various plugins with the lesser version.

http://www.pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Studio+Family/Studio+Plus+11+Documents/Comparision+Chart/

Open VS11, go directly to "Share - Create Disc (make all selections for HD-DVD), this puts you in the burn module.
Load your compliant videos into this burn module using one of the top icons.
Do not carry your video from the VS11 timeline over into the burning module, it doesn't bring the video into the burning module.
It brings the project, which will then be re-encoded, or smart-rendered depending on your settings.

Thanks 4eyes! That was the problem, skipping the editor timeline avoids the re-rendering.

NOW, why is it that I can't add chapters in the chapter-setting submodule of the share module? The jog bar under the preview window is not active, and the manually add chapters button is greyed out. If I run the add chapers automatically button, the program crashes (I have a 4.5 min test clip, and set the chapter interval at 2 minutes). I should add that the behavior is the same with SD rendered from Vegas and with HD clips.

I've looked on the Ulead forum, I didn't find an answer, most of the posts seem to be people complaining about bugginess and Corel's lack of support.

I'm crossing my fingers that DVDA 5 will have HD DVD functionality and be a free upgrade from 4.5.....

Any suggestions?

Thanks again.

Make sure to download & install the lastest version of Directx 9.0c dated November 2007.
That may fix the chaptering problems and crashing for creating chapters.
The trial version of VS11+ is pretty poor. Doesn't read TS (transport stream) files correctly, usually reads them all as progressively encoded or frame-based. The updates fix those errors.
So if using the trial don't let the program re-encode your videos, you may lose the fielding information. You cannot install updates to the trial version either. The trial version was pretty broken for transport stream video, passing through the encoder should be ok though.

Eventually High Def authoring will be available in DVDA or another app.
I think it takes more coding and work to write a Menu-ed Blu-Ray disk (BDMV) than it does for a standard dvd because of all the different formats and complexity of BDMV disks.
BDMV can be very complex.

Maybe this will be a separate application.
I'm patient to wait, blu-ray burners are still expensive.

Thanks 4eyes, DirectX fixed the chapter problem. Now all I have to do is figure out why my audio is breaking up and the video stutters a little sometimes on playback from disk. I haven't yet tried a software playback in on a PC with enough horsepower to handle HD streams (I edit on a laptop with a single core P4 2.0Ghz....

"I have no problem getting Ulead Movie Factory to take a Vegas render and create either a 3x DVD (HD DVD compatible) or AVCHD disc (Blu-ray compatible) on regular DVD+-R."

Are you sure that you can create an AVCHD disc with Movie Factory? I read that you could only create 3x HD-DVDs, but not AVCHD discs. Nero can create them, but recompresses everything and takes an eternity. I would love to have something that would allow me to create HD discs that I can play in my Blu-Ray player. I authored some 3x HD-DVDs with DVD Studio Pro in Mac but HD-DVD will soon be a thing of the past, so I stopped doing that. I capture HD broadcasts from my cable DVR in HD that I want to collect, and so far I haven't found a way to put them in DVDs without recompressing them, except of course for the original TS file as data disc that I can play from my computer, but I want the same in a format that my BRay player can play, but without recompressing because HD broadcasts are highly compressed and pixelated as they are.

So far there is nothing that will "smartrender" AVCHD. It really burns me up too. I go to great extents to avoid re compressing and we may be forced to go blu sooner or later.... which means EVERYTHING gets re compressed.