I've downloaded the trial version and read some sections of the new manual, does that count?

Delayed menu buttons - good, but only half implemented. You can set the in point, but there's no way to set an out point - so transitions out of the menu still have to be done the way your currently do them.

I would have liked to see access to low level command editing, but I can see where this might create more problems than it's worth. Conditional expressions would have been nice as well.

Except for the replication stuff and Multi Angle, there's nothing in this new release that DVD Lab Pro doesn't already have - still, I'll probably go ahead and get the package deal since it's only $50 to add on DVDA.

--Scott

Where do you see that it's only $50 to add on DVDA? I'm seeing a $100 difference. Just curious if I'm not looking in the right place.

There's a special offer listed in the Knowledge Base. To upgrade from V5 to V6 is $150; to upgrade from V5+DVDA2 to V6 +DVDA3 is $200. They'll be sending offers out by e-mail this week.

The promotional code (given in the KB document) is 6565-1100.

Rob

Ok, I was reading the same thing....just looking at it from a different point of view. I've got v5 now and to upgrade to v6 would be $149, but to upgrade to v6+dvd3 would be $249.

I guess he already has the v5 package and is trying to decide whether or not to upgrade just Vegas or Vegas/DVDA.

Delayed menu buttons? I've been messing with the demo for hours and I can't figure it out

DVDA-3 doesn't call 'em "delayed menu buttons." It's in the "Setting loop points" section -- look on PDF page 61 in the manual. (Page 55 of the printed manual...) You set the start point of a looping menu, and it's at this point that the menu buttons appear...

At least, that's what it sez in the book. Haven't gotten the upgrade yet. Tomorrow...

Here are the things I've been using the most in DVDA:

1. Navigation tools. You can now visually see where each button links. This saves TONS of time, and makes you confident that you haven't overlooked some link. When you turn this on, you see arrows from each button you click on showing where the left, right, up, and down buttons will take you. If you don't like the navigation, you can just grab one of the arrows and drag it to the button you want to link to instead. Big time saver.

2. Smart reprepare. If you just need to make menu changes, everything that doesn't need to change is left the same. You can often do a "reprepare" in just a few seconds. Of course, if you do something that changes the VOB files, then it will still take a long time, but even then the only rendering will be for the VOBs that need to be changed.

3. Playlists. In DVDA 2.0, you could already do most of the navigation that playlists make possible. However, how many people really understood the idea of putting the same media file into the project list multiple times, and then setting seaparate end actions for each one? There were many other tricks that you could play, but playlists give you a much easier, more intuitive way to set up fairly tricky navigation.

4. Data files. This feature is promising, but doesn't go far enough. You can now specify a single folder where you can place any data that you'd like to have on your DVD in addition to the video files that are in the VIDEO_TS folder. However, you cannot have multiple folders off the root, and what's worse, DVDA doesn't actually simply create pointers to the folder, but copies the data to the prepare directory. This feature is helpful, but definitely not fully implemented. I still will be using Nero for hybrid (data and video) DVDs.

5. Burner support. There are more burners supported, including my Pioneer A09. I don't know how generic they made it, so I can't predict whether everyone out there will be happy.

6. Theme export. I found this somewhat limited although, for simple things, it is better than editing the XML files. However, I still found that I needed to edit the XML for things I wanted to do. Like the data folder, they didn't really go all the way on this feature.

On the whole I really like the new release and would highly recommend it. The only bad thing is that they broke the way text boxes are edited. You'll see what I mean if you try to make the font bigger in an existing text box. For instance, take three text buttons, line them up above each other, select them all, and then assign a font that is twice as big as what is alread there. Not pretty. Hopefully they'll fix this if enough people complain.

johnmeyer, many thanks for your very informative post.

Greg

Yeah, thanks, John.

I didn't have much time to play around with DVDA3 last night -- didn't get to sit down at the computer until 9pm, and then I ended up having to install the dotnet framework and its service pack. By the time I got Vegas and DVDA installed on my notebook, it'd been an hour and a half already. I put together a simple animation to try out as a combination intro / main menu and set it up in DVDA, but going to Preview gave me an error! I think that's the first runtime error I've ever gotten with DVDA. So I'll need to investigate, see what that's all about. Maybe it won't show up on my desktop machine, which is where I'd actually be making most of my DVDs.

Anyhow...

You can now visually see where each button links.

So that's what the new navigation tools are. Sounds very helpful. I also like the new "Show End Actions" button (Project Overview). It shows in the Project Overview, for each media, where you're going to go when it's finished. I didn't try, but I presume you can change the action right there, too. And to avoid clutter, you can turn the display off if you want.

Just remembered I installed DVDA3 here at work... I see another neat thing about the Navigational Tools. If someone's having trouble getting just the default navigation to work properly (ie, their buttons aren't quite aligned), they can turn drag the buttons around on the screen, and DVDA actually updates the arrows according to the new position.

Smart reprepare. ... but even then the only rendering will be for the VOBs that need to be changed."

Curious. Like, what kind of changes can you make to the VOB? Again, very helpful.

For instance, take three text buttons, line them up above each other, select them all, and then assign a font that is twice as big as what is alread there. Not pretty.

Not sure where you're going with this (or I'm not setting my text up the same way as you are). For me, if I snap the three boxes together before changing the font size, then they all crowd together after I change the font size. But that happened in DVDA2, also. Wait, I see that the text boxes' heights increase more (double?) than they have to. Is that what you mean?

Rob

Wait, I see that the text boxes' heights increase more (double?) than they have to. Is that what you mean?

Yes. In DVDA 1 and 2, when you changed font size, the box that contained the text would expand horizontally. For some unknown reason, someone decided to change this behavior so that the boxes now expand vertically

Perhaps it is just a function of how I create menus, but the new behavior requires far more work to fix than the old behavior.