DVD Architect Pro 5.2 improvements?

RP wrote on 9/12/2010, 4:01 PM
If the brief paragraph on the Vegas 10 teaser page (http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro10) is any indication, the new version of Architect won't be bringing many significant changes. Specifically, I would love to see pop-up menus for Blu-ray Disc creation and hopefully a fix for a bug I'm having where the next and previous buttons fail to skip chapters when a Blu-ray Disc created in Architect is played back on my Blu-ray player.

I guess we'll see. Any other improvements you'd like to see?

Comments

BlackMax wrote on 9/13/2010, 6:58 AM
Seems awfully bizarre to me that neither version of DVDA includes AVCHD creation!!?
BrianStanding wrote on 9/22/2010, 8:16 AM
I'd be happy with true 24p DVDs (including menus).
csc0709 wrote on 9/22/2010, 2:14 PM
There is no such thing as true 24p DVDs and fall under the DVD specifications. In order for you to put a 23.976 encoded video on a DVD, it must have 3:2 pulldown applied to it. DVD Architect and Vegas Pro have had this covered for a while now.
PeterDuke wrote on 9/22/2010, 7:20 PM
"Seems awfully bizarre to me that neither version of DVDA includes AVCHD creation!!?"

It wouldn't take much, given that AVCHD Patcher is only a tiny program.

Unfortunately, unlike DVD creation, when you make a Blu-ray disc the file is stored in ISO format and you have to mount it with Virtual Clone Drive or similar and copy the files to a new folder before you can do the patching. It seems like SCS went out of their way to make it difficult!
BlackMax wrote on 9/23/2010, 6:33 AM
>It wouldn't take much, given that AVCHD Patcher is only a tiny program.

But Peter there's alot more to AVCHD-format than just what that patcher does--the file's bitrate and VBV buffer and filesize etc. need to meet the AVCHD specs. You can't just encode to BD standard and then patch headers/change folder structure and expect it to work as an AVCHD disc.

BTW I wonder if long-term Vegas users here can guess what sort of upgrade cost to expect from 9 to 10?
PeterDuke wrote on 9/23/2010, 7:08 AM
What you say may be true but if they included what AVCHD Patcher does then I would be laughing. It seems to be all I need. It's just that it is so messy to use.
BlackMax wrote on 10/17/2010, 7:52 AM
OK v5.2 is now available, and while they've said only "new burning and new themes" I dl'ed the 5.2 manual to check again 5.0, and naturally they completely reorganized the manual and it's nontrivial at best to compare, to see what might be different.

So who has updated, and what have you found?
Melachrino wrote on 10/17/2010, 4:07 PM
"So who has updated, and what have you found?"

I too would dearly like to know what fixes have been incorporated in 5.2. The release notes do not say anything, just marketing stuff.

I have 4 or 5 major problems with DA5 which were acknowledged by SCS and referred to their "developers". These major problems were shared in this forum by many other DA5 users but we never got a fix for any of them. We ourselves developed workarounds which in effect rendered DA5 as a mere authoring tool and nothing else. DA5 crashes when "Make DVD" is invoked and a Blueray player is active or if there is a collision with other devices.. DA5 does not burn widely compatible DVD's and one has to resort to making a folder and then using some other burning program to burn the DVD, which then are totally compatible with other DVD players. And, to this date, DA5 does not burn compatible Blueray discs unless they are tweaked by other programs.

This hardly seems professional and to jump to 5.2, for a fee, and not fix the recurring bugs does not bode well in my book.

Since SCS does not list the fixes, then this question must be put to the hardy users who have ventured with 5.2 already. I hope we get answers.
Fervid wrote on 6/26/2012, 11:58 AM
"Specifically, I would love to see...and hopefully a fix for a bug I'm having where the next and previous buttons fail to skip chapters when a Blu-ray Disc created in Architect is played back on my Blu-ray player."

I noticed this issue too even in VMS 11 with the DVD Architect Studio. I haven't rendered again yet, but I think the issue is the way it adds media to the menus. I looked and it is adding the Media/Titles under the Menu branch like they are a menu item. I looked closer at this when I noticed my video also had no time or chapter info when played. One player I played it on though behaved fine. I ended up moving them out then creating links to them in the menus like they should have been when it adds them. Hopefully this fixes it if I can ever get my other rendering problems sorted out to test it.
videoITguy wrote on 6/26/2012, 1:21 PM
Fervid: The issue of "next" button is not simple or for that matter not trivial- but this has been discussed at length before in many many threads - the answer which you partially discovered lies in firmware of set-top players.

As for the subject matter of this thread - there really is not signifigant feature difference between 5.0 and 5.2 DVDArchPro - just go with the latest update.

As for features - look at Sony acquiring and supporting DOIT Studio Authoring...that would be professional and leaves SCS old DVDArchPro in the minor leagues.
Fervid wrote on 6/30/2012, 1:30 AM
Why is the Next Previous issue firmware of the player that has the buttons function fine with every other video. I have actually rendered it correctly now bringing the videos out of the menu tree in the consumer DVDA 5.0 and the Pro 5.2...both create the disc wrong. Next and Previous function fine in a DVD on the same player created in both, but blu ray they do not function.

I have read a couple threads on it with interesting results. One discovered it had to do with the pages/menus and when limiting how many or not at any at all it made them work. Another said that the AVC rendering actually writes the markers in the video instead of just in the marker file and creates chapters not compatible with all players- sounded like rendering once to get the chapter file and again without the option to create a file without markers then just loading the marker file might work. Either way it sounds like a major issue Sony needs to fix. Is there no way in Vegas to just render a marker file? Seems to be a waste of time if we render in something else and need it.