DVD menu authoring

sfordin wrote on 1/22/2004, 11:48 AM

Hi,

I'm a new Screenblast user, and I think the program is great, with one notable exception... The bundled MyDVD software is worse than useless, IMHO. The limitations on menu and submenu size, layout, and editing are really frustrating, as is the horrible text entry controls for menus and buttons, and the fact that it's not very good at letting you work with content sizes. In short, the lousy MyDVD software drags down an otherwise outstanding Sony product.

Having said this, I'm now on the quest for better DVD authoring software. I still plan on using Screenblast for the video capture and editing part of the equation, so what I'm really looking for is something that will let me make decent DVD menus and then burn to disk (I'm using a Plextor PX-708A burner).

Is there any way to get DVD Architect software as a standalone product? If not, what package do you recommend for DVD authoring?

Thanks,

Scott Fordin

Comments

ADinelt wrote on 1/22/2004, 12:03 PM

DVD-Lab is a powerful and flexible product and have had no problems buring both +RW and -R media.

A trial version is available for download from:
http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/

Also, my burner came with ULead Movie Factory and Video Studio which also work very well.

Al

ChristerTX wrote on 1/22/2004, 12:36 PM

I like ULEAD MovieFactory. The new version looks very nice.

briggins wrote on 1/22/2004, 1:41 PM

I've used DVD-lab for several projects. It's like Screenblast: nothing can touch it for the price.

Bruce

obiron wrote on 1/22/2004, 5:22 PM

sfordin,
I'm with some of the other posts here; DVDlab is an excellent DVD authoring package for the money. I've used it for about 3 months now;

DVD authoring and DVD burning are really 2 independent operations. While most DVD authoring packages will burn DVDs, you are not limited to using it for burning. It may be most practical to compile your DVD creation to your hard drive and then use the burning software that came with your burner. That way, you don't have to worry whether or not the authoring package supports your burner or +R/RW or -R/RW. Also, you don't have to burn a DVD to actually see what you've created. You can use a PC DVD player like powerDVD, etc. to test it on your PC monitor before you burn or burn an RW so you don't make coaters.

DVDlab is a standalone product; and you can customize its Tool menu with your own custom packages like burning software or audio software, etc. It's very versatile.

HTH

mbryant wrote on 1/23/2004, 5:51 AM

I've found Ulead Movie Factory (v2) very good, easy to use. It is fairly basic though (in terms of how much you can customize the menus). For me that's fine, as I spend most of the time I have available to this hobby on the editing side - and I want something very quick and easy to create the DVDs. It is kind of like MyDVD, except that it works.

I have seen some problems with new new Version 3 however, with it incorrectly estimating file sizes and re-encoding mpegs I create in Screenblast.

Mark

sfordin wrote on 1/24/2004, 1:34 PM

Thanks very much to all for your quick and helpful responses. I'm checking out DVD-lab as we "speak"... Very impressive, and a bit of a learning curve, to be sure. I'm also trying to rationalize another $100 expenditure, though it does seem quite good for the money.

I'm also checking out TMPGEnc for generating MPEGs. I don't know how necessary this is, given that Screenblast seems to generate rather nice MPEGs on its own. One thing for certain is that TMPGEnc takes a whole lot longer than Screenblast to generate the MPEGs. The output does seem very good, but I don't know if it's significantly (or any) better than Screenblast output. Any opinions there?

Again, though, thanks very much to all for your responses.

Best regards,

Scott