Reel DVD works well but is expensive. If you can wait for a few
months some good stuff is bound to surface probably in the $200.00
range. You should get Dolby AC-3 as an option with the software.
Reel DVD ($999.00) + ($99.00 upgrade)requires Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop LE or Paint Shop Pro to create the 4 layer buttons. Ulead DVD workshop is
very capable. ($200.00). Good luck.

James J. Kizak

Go for Dazzle's DVD Compete. It retails for $100 but you can find deals online for around $50. Full motion menus and much more intuitive than Ulead's DVD Workshop. I can't speak for Pinnacle.

ReelDVD is out of my range for now. Has anyone out there used Pinnacle's Impression? I can get a really good deal on it right now, but I want to know it's easy to use and will give me what I want. Thanks.

Lyn,

If you are relatively new to DVD Authoring, I would strongly suggest that you forget Impression DVD Pro. I have used both and they are in entirely different leagues. I am not saying that Impression is not a good product; the "Pro" in its name is not just advertising - you really have to know what you're doing. You have an incredible amount of control over the final product, but it's a real chore (in my opinion) to make a DVD. DVD Workshop is much more a "consumer" product. I don't like it, just based on personal preferences.

Have you looked at Pinnacle Studio 8? Lots of people have had lots of problems, but it works perfectly for me. It is very simple, but actually gives you a fair amount of control over the final product.

Bill

I have it.

I primarily got it for it's AC-3 stereo & 5.1 support (no encoder) plus the fact that it also allows 2 video angles , 8 audio tracks & 32 subtitle tracks. I was looking at ReelDVD but it's a big price difference & DVDit was not thes best advertisement for Sonic' Solutions product line.

I found Impression's interface is pretty straight forward without too much of a learning curve. (I've also got Ulead's Movie Factory , Dazzles's DVD Complete ,Sonic's DVDit) Quick read of the manual & play with it, I was off. You can make true color or hilite menus in Photoshop or Paint Shop pro for it. Motion menus are supported but subtitles are a nightmare to do.

I've only had it a short time & used it for a couple of fairly simple projects( only needed couple of menus , 3 titles, numerous chapter points, single audio track.) These worked fine without a hitch.

Support forum is not as active as this one & Pinnacle don't have a great reputation for customer support.

I'm pleased with it so far but I've projects backed up because I'm waiting for SF to bring out Acid Pro 4.0b update with the Dolby encoder plug-in so I can encode my 5.1 audio mixes & get them off my hard drives.

I am very happy with DVD Workshop.

Pros: easy to use, motion menus and buttons, a variety of menu templates, will author without reencoding compliant mpegs, will accept elementary streams (pcm or mpeg audio only), will author audio to mpeg or pcm; will author AC3 if the AC3 is muxed with video outside of the program.

Cons: can't do subtitle tracks, multiple audio tracks. Support sucks.

A good clue to which program works best is to examine the support forums for the companies.

I find MyDVD version 4 (brand new version) is really cool, does most everything you need unless you are a Hollywood studio and has good support forums. Not too expensive either. You can get DVD-101 - a tutorial DVD for $25 which really gets you going fast. Anyway, who reads a manual? Besure you get version 4 - which just started shipping. Version 3 comes free with many DVD burners. There are upgrade prices from version 3 to 4. You might already have version 3 with the software that came with your DVD burner.

DVD Workshop is mopre expensive and does about the same as the new version of MyDVD. Ulead products always work pretty well and support is rarely needed. They have good tutoruals on their web site but in general, support is fair. as an added note: their new Cool 3D Studio is fabulous for 3d titles and animations. And for a little over $100, you get a $999 quality 3d rendering program. Too good to believe for such a low price! Check their web site.

DVD Complete - aka Dazzle stuff. Well, products might be OK but I have problems as do other people. They have a reall hard time even getting correct serial numbers to register the products. Read their message board. If these 3 products, these people did not show up at Comdex. Probably because everyone would be wondering why they can't get serial numbers correct.

Now if Sonic Foundry would make a DVD authoring program......

lynj I would go with Pinnacle Impression DVD. I've tried Ulead products and reeldvd and liked Pinnacle the most. Very easy (though i would not agree with one post saying "who reads manuals", you need to read it or you'll have some coasters before what you burn starts playing in standalon DVD) Pinnacle doesnt re-encode anything (unlike Ulead products), but it also has no AC3 encoder (unlike ReelDVD, which has AC3 encoder). I use SF Soft Encode to encode my audio to AC3, then encode video only from VV, then import these 2 files into Impression DVD, make menus and burn. I'm very satisfied with my results

In a word DAZZLE!

I agree with Lajko.

I had Sonic solutions MyDVD v3 and it produced very smooth DVD's but the options were very limited. I tried several others in teh $30-$50 dollar range and finally tried MyDVD v4 and have not used another since. It has very nice motion menus and you can build custom ones as well. Make sure you encode your .mpg2 files to be DVD compatible or MyDVD will re-encode them. I've found that a constant bit rate of 8K produces really nice compression/quality ratio.

JAB

I use and am satisfied with DVD Complete. Nice features for a nice price.

They just released the plugin you wanted. I was just notified by email by SoFo.

dave

Impression doesn't like the AC-3 output from the plug-in ........arghh

I suspect it's more a problem with Impression than the plug-in (It imports some Dolby encoders but not others). I've e-mailed Pinnacle but don't expect a quick response.