I used DVDit extensivley but like you looked at DVD Complete.

I found the demo very limited but took a leap of faith as it was only $99 .

It works beautifully.

I have just done a 75mins DVD on it. It had two overtures (short play movies that auto play on insertion of disc prior to 1st menu (It supports upto 8)) Menu with 10 chapter points (Very easy and accurate to create with no pause at all during playback of full movie). Had a VBR encode avg of 7000Kbs (I was using 224Kbs of this as MPEG-1 layer II audio) No sync problems at all. I had been encoding my .avi with MainConcept & TMPGEnc but wasn't 100% happy with the results so I thought what the hell I'll try the built in Ligos encoder and see how it does with my .avi.
The results were great (better than I had been able to get tweaking the other 2) & faster than the other 2.

I really do urge anyone making DVD from DV home movies to try this product.

It auto generates the menus & jewel case sleeves to match. These sometimes look a bit cheesy but there is a good degree of customisation available (You can change backgrounds, fonts, text colour, highlight & opacity of currently selected or pressed button.)

The built in burn engine is the Prassi burn engine. I created disc image and then later burned to TDK & Apple media faultlessly.

If your DVD player supports MPEG audio then AC-3 audio will not matter. You won't notice quality difference between the two but you still get the compression. If your player doesn't support it you can still choose PCM audio.

I had become so used to the poor error code info in DVDit & the numerous workarounds you have to do to get DVDit to work properly because it is so buggy. I had become quite adept at it.........but I won't look back.

I had previously tried Ulead Movie Factory & DVD Workshop but didn't get on with them & went back to DVDit as I'd already learned to get around it's problems & couldn't be bothered doing the same with two new products..... There were no problems AT ALL with DVD Complete.

Don't know about direct to +RW but I know that the Prassi engine in recordnow has an update to support HP 200 burner so it may be OK. If not you can always burn Video_TS & Audio_TS folders to disc with burn program that came with your burner.

Can DVD Complete create VCD and SVCD menus also? I have tried Ulead's DVD Movie Factory and am unimpressed with it's lack of flexibility as far as the menus go.

Alas I don't think it does. it looks like you can create VCDs but it will not support menus, just play movies in the order you enter them.

How unfortunate! I thought I was onto something good. It would be nice to have one very good App to do all three formats. If SoFo is really serious about the Video market, it would be in their best interest to develop a VCD, SVCD and DVD Menu authoring program or partner with someone and add a plugin to VV.

HeeHee, I found Ulead's DVD Movie Factory menu creation very fexiable for the money ($45) and simple to do. You can have up to 99 items, a main menu, then a sub menu for each video, even add you own music track to the menu pages. Different onces for each if you want. The two things I didn't like is no flexabilty with font size and a limited number of menu templates. What didn't you like? It worked equally well on DVD and SVCD.

vonhosen,

Thanks for the elaboration. Maybe I will take the plunge and buy it on faith as well. The problem I am having with the demo version is that it keeps failing on the menu autogeneration. Possibly the settings on my Render As... for VV3?

I am using the MainConcept MPEG2 encoder, should I be using AVI instead?

Lastly, you mentioned that DVD Complete does not support menus on SVCD. Do you have any reason to belive it will be coming in the future? (I'll ask them, just thought you might know the answer)

Best Regards,

Steven

I have always used TMPGEnc or MainConcept to encode as I have found these to be the best unless you are going to pay a few $1000 dollars.
Most of my footage is from DV so it is reasonably good but it was the problems mentioned in previous posts with slightly veiled look with some outdoor scenes that I couldn't quite get rid of.
I just tried to built in Ligos encoder on a whim (with an .avi exported from VV3) & couldn't believe how quick & how good the results were. The picture was much better than I had achieved with several change of settings in both of the other two.

As for VCD menus, I'm afraid I can't help. (I'm pretty much focused on DVD anyway)

I think that SF is pretty serious about the video market and that's why they are not bothering with formats like VCD or SVCD. With DVD authoring becoming more affordable, why take a step back (about 10 years for VCD) and use MPEG-1 or low quality MPEG-2. It would be like using a VHS camcorder instead of DV just to save a few bucks.

I just received my Pioneer DVR-104 today and with it came Cyberlink's PowerDirector 2.0 DE Pro software. Anyone had experience with this software?

thanks
dave

Where did you get the built in Ligos encoder? Did it come with DVD Complete? I don't see it with DVD Complete Demo, though I do see the logo when looking at the about screen, but no codec is installed.

What are your ligos setings when you export it to avi?
What settings on your MainConcept did you find works the best for DVD?

If you export to AVI then DVD Complete must re-render it. Correct? I was hoping to stay with MPEG2 so that DVD Complete did not have to reencode it, and thus be much faster at generating the DVD Image.

Thanks in advance for all your suggestions.

I am not sure that I am too interested in VCD and/or SVCD (strictly speaking for video) either, the only reason I would do something like that would be to send a slideshow movie of digital pictures, or possibly a video greeting card.

In those cases, usually were talking a small amount of generated video. I would, personally, not want to waste a $10 DVD on it, only using, say, 500MB. I would rather put that on a $0.50 CD.

I had rendered MPG from VV3
& I had rendered an .avi file from VV3 to run through TMPGEnc
The setting I had been using were VBR avg 7000, Max 8000 for the MPGs
(I know it's not ideal compress to DV .avi then further to mpg)

I generally use DVDit and import the already encoded files in seperate streams.

The .avi that I had already rendered for TMPGEnc I put into DVD Complete which has Ligos encoder built in. I selected "best quality" encode & adjusted settings to those above & let it do it's stuff. (Literature states that best quality encode will take 2x whilst Fast Encode will do 1x video length) I can't give an exact time the encode took because I left it running but it had completed way before I had expected. Play back on monitor looked impressive so I carried on, built project & created image before knocking out a few copies. I was very impressed with results on TV.

Believe me the render to .avi from VV3 + render from .avi to .mpg in DVD complete was still 10x faster than just rendering the .avi to .mpg in TMPGEnc & the results were the best picture I have managed to produce on DVD.

My settings vary depending on size of project. You can work out what bitrate you can use by following calculations below. Where it says AC-3 @ 192kbs I substituted that for mine with MPEG-1 layer II @ 224kbs. I'll use as high an average bitrate as I can for the video to fit it on leaving just enough headroom for menus etc.

The safe, useable size for Video and Audio is 3.6 gigs. As shown below in the formula:

DVD: 36096 Mbits of safe useable space
Space for AC3 audio (at 192 Kbit/s)= (number of seconds in your video*192)/1024
e.g. audio for 2 hours, (7200*192)/1024 = 1350 Mbits
Remaining space can be allocated for video, 36096-1350 = 34746 Mbits
For 2 hour project: video data rate = remaining space/number of seconds in your video
e.g. 34746/7200 = 4.825 Mbit/s
If using PCM audio, substitute 1600 in place of 192 in the audio calculation.

Since it’s easier to calculate the minutes, rather than the seconds, here’s the formula:

For AC3 audio:

(36096-(((Length of Video in Minutes*60)*192)/1024))/(Length of Video in Minutes*60)

For PCM audio:

(36096-(((Length of Video in Minutes*60)*1600)/1024))/(Length of Video in Minutes*60)

AHHHH! The light finally comes on in this thick skull of mine!

You are probably starting from a DV source and capturing it via FireWire (I presume) directly to AVI. Thus, the reason you use AVI and then let DVD Complete render it to MPEG2.

In my case, I purchased a DVD Camcorder so my source was already MPEG2. What my process was, was to demuxed the VOB files into MPEG files, edit, and then burn them to DVD all without leaving the MPEG2 encoding. This way my video stayed as clean as possible. Thus my questions about staying with MPEG and the re-encoding issue with DVD Complete.

I struggled immensely with this process because there are not many tools that can take you from DVD to edit and back to DVD without going through some conversion process. VV3 was the only tool that did not choke on editing MPEG2, and thus I was looking for a tool that could write to DVD directly from VV3 without re-encoding.

There does not seem to be any DVD authoring programs that recognize VV3 output and leave it untouched (except possibly DVD complete). But I have menu autogeneration problems with it (at least in the demo version).

Subsequently, I returned the DVD Cam, because of this and other problems with the camcorder itself. Alas, I will go back to using my DV Camcorder and stick with the capture to AVI (following your route).

Once again, thanks for the info.


TIP: Don't get a DVD Cam. At least not yet. Technology is too new and 30mins recording time is too short.

Regards,

Steven

i pay $1.50 for my dvd-r's at www.dvdr4less.com.

also...i have dvd workshop and i think it's great! works great for me, but i wish it supported avi 2.0 files.

one more complaint is the lack of support ulead gives. they stink!

BillyBoy,

Besides the problems you mentioned, I didn't like that it wouldn't play seamlessly through the whole SVCD. I had two movies on the SVCD with a menu for each and a few scene selections for each movie. If I selected a scene from any of the menus, it would play the scene and then jump back to the menu. Maybe I didn't have something set right during creation. Is this how yours works or am I doing something wrong?

alternatepahse,

SoFo already does support creation(burning) of VCDs, but not DVD or SVCD (Only file creation). What I would like to see is some Menu and Chaptering ability.

Here's my experience with DVD Movie Maker playing on my Pioneer 333 DVD Player.

DVD format, full control, able to pause, fast forward, reverse, slow motion, play any scene and go back to sub menu or main menu anytime by clicking the appropriate remote buttons. Worked just like any commerical DVD.

VCD/SVCD Once I clicked on a menu selection it would play the video from that point forward to end, then return to sub menu. Since the first sub menu item is the first key frame, clicking on that plays the entire video. Could not pause, fast forward, reverse slow motion like I could in DVD. However could use 'return' button on remote to return to sub menu, then click again to return to main menu anytime I wanted, so didn't have to view entire movie from a sub menu selection if I didn't want to.

No skipping or problems of any kind, remained in synch, regardless which format.

I'm wondering...

Maybe it depends on the DVD player as far as how much control you have?

Or, is more advanced control of VCD, SVCD even possible?

Anyone know, if so, using which menuing software?

"..."does not seem to be any DVD authoring programs that recognize VV3 output and leave it untouched (except possibly DVD complete)."

DVD Movie factory accepts the MC MPEG-2 as encoded and does no recoding. The only time envolved is the creation of the overhead files and the actual burning. Was able to burn a full 4.7 GB DVD DVD +RW disc in less than a half hour. Rough estimiate, didn't exactly time it.

I have not tried the finished SVCD on a set top player yet because mine is not compatible with VCDs and SVCDs. I have only tried it in WinDVD on my PC. I think WinDVD is the culprit on my problems getting the videos to play seamlessly without bumping to the menu after each chapter.

I just purchased DVD Complete yesterday online (US $99.00), used it last night, and I can't believe how much quicker I got a test project done! It beat the pants off anything else I had, saved time from doing rerenders by taking the project file right from VV3 and encoding it. I can't find what engin (Ligos, ...) it is using, but I am currently very happy with it. It will auto-create DVD/CD labels, jackets, and sleeves. Many options for configuring themes also. Mainly, I wanted it for easy Authoring, and the bonus of the software doing all the finishing touches is great.

Glad you like it........
I think it's great too !

I went ahead and purchased it, and it beats the pants off of anything that I have seen to date. I really love the template feature, it sure makes the process a lot faster when you are still testing things out to see which theme looks better.

The only downside is a missing template editor for doing your own themes (yeah, I know, you can learn DCL, but prefer a gui). I do hear through the grapevine that something is coming....

Thanks for the recommendations. I have created a video for my child's school and have burned now 20+ DVDs. Works super!