no you dont understand...

DVDVCD *IS* a dvd format. its an mpeg1 353x240/288@48khz (whereas VCD is 44khz) its just DVD-A just ignores it. its not VCD, believe me, i'm not some 10 year old who wants to burn up his kazaa movies to a DVD, i'm just annoyed that a lot of my lower spec work which i have in DVD ready media is totally ignored by DVDA.

(heres DVD spec list just to clarify what im talking about)

PAL
Video:
Up to 9.8 Mbit/sec MPEG2 or up to 1.856 MBit/sec MPEG1 video
720 x 576 pixels MPEG2
704 x 576 pixels MPEG2
352 x 576 pixels MPEG2 (Same as the CVD Standard)
---> 352 x 288 pixels MPEG1 (Same as the VCD Standard) <---
25 frames/second

as thats just the video specs, it doesn't mention the 48khz, but thats a given.

i already have the material, just my reasons for using DVDA are to implement a menu system and to store a large quantity of them on DVDR media. to reencode to what DVDA calls DVD media would both reduce quality and take a very very long time. you can't do that kind of thing in vegas, except prepare stuff to export then use in another authoring program with which to burn.

i think DVDA is great, but the fact it only classes 720x480/576 (and maybe 704x, i haven't checked with that) as DVD ready is a bit daft if you ask me. yes i know its a program for following on from the project work done in Vegas, but at the pricetag you'd have thought it could handle the full range of DVDspec.

Yeah, that's one of the major drawbacks that I found with it. It's a bit of a disappointment because Sonic's DVD Producer is able to support MPEG-1 without any kind of recompression, but DVD-A isn't. DVD Producer is seriously lacking though, especially in it's ability to create menus.

Don't get me wrong, I think DVD-A is a huge step in the right direction. Especially after having seen what Ulead and Sonic have produced, it's just that there are a few niggling little problems that I feel need to be addressed.

Jay,

I didn't realize the DVD spec covered so many video formats. You make a good point, in that if DVD-A fully supported every part of the DVD spec, you would have what you want with respect to PAL DVDVCD. Apparently DVD-A currently covers a rather small subset of the full DVD spec. I don't know if any DVD authoring program can boast of full coverage of the spec.

The reality is that DVD-A is a version 1.0 product in a marketplace that has some commercial programs that have been in development much longer. Considering that it was only a few months ago that users here in these forums started agitating for Sonic Foundry to produce a DVD authoring product, I think that DVD-A has come a very long way in such a short time. I feel inclined to give DVD-A some slack because of that. I am impressed by how much the SoFo programmers have accomplished in the time they had. I hope that Sonic Foundry will bring the product to fruition in subsequent releases and versions.

In the meantime I am apprehensive that reviewers are going to compare DVD-Architect against more mature DVD authorers in head-to-head comparisons and make Sonic Foundry look bad. Many of us (myself included) are buying DVD-A under attractive upgrade offers from SoFo and consequently are getting it bundled with Vegas 4 for an attractive low price.

But the list price of Vegas+DVD is $999.95 and the list price of Vegas 4.0 is $699.95 so reviewers can do the math and fix the list price of DVD Architect at $300 if it were sold separately. That would put DVD Architect into a head-to-head competition with Ulead's DVD Workshop. I am kind of guessing on this, but I suspect that if you put together a detailed feature-versus-feature comparison matrix for DVD Architect against Ulead DVD Workshop that the results would be embarassing for DVD Architect. For example, on this Web page we see 14 reviews and awards for Ulead DVD Workshop:

Reviews and Awards for Ulead DVD Workshop

And the number of reviews and awards for DVD Architect are? <sound of crickets chirping> Obviously Ulead DVD Workshop has a head start. It even has its own third party book in the bookstores.

I think it was very wise of Sonic Foundry not to offer DVD Architect as a separate product just yet. I hope that will keep it out of head-to-head reviews. Hopefully DVD Architect version 2.0c will be able to stand on its own two feet in a very competitive and growing market. In the meantime, I hope we can all nurture the growth of DVD Architect with constructive criticism and bug reports and be patient with its shortcomings. Hopefully its developers will not be so patient with its shortcomings. Its reviewers won't be.

-- Burton --