OT: What would you guys recommend for what I need? (DVD Authoring related)

Sticky Fingaz wrote on 12/20/2004, 3:10 PM
I am very much in love with DVD Architect 2 and the way it handles everything. For the project I am doing now, I love the simplicity of the program, but I love how I can use my own button icons, and lots of other great options of DVDa2. However, 3 gigantic problems I have with the program prevent me from using it for my professional project:

1) No dual layer support (how is this possible if Sony was the first dual layer burner on the market?)

2) No DLT writing. I know not a big feature for some, but it DEFINATELY makes it ridiculous to call this program "professional" no offense to the Sony team

3) No delayed buttons. I have an intro I need to seamlessly go into a menu without a pause in video or audio and the only way I can do this is with delayed buttons. I can't imagine a feature telling a button to become visible after X amount of seconds to be really hard to impliment...

Now with my love of DVD Architect 2 and my above requirements, what would you all recommend to me? I have a friend who works for Disney of Japan and he showed me Scenarist, ignoring the price, something like that would discourage me from ever using it because of an insane complex look. If someone here can recommend something to me I'd appreciate it more than words can say.

Comments

B_JM wrote on 12/20/2004, 6:18 PM
dvd lab pro can do all you requested i think and it is about $100 or so ...

except write dlt images-- but you can use other apps to do that (like prassi)
Sticky Fingaz wrote on 12/20/2004, 7:39 PM
DVD lab still seems pretty damn confusing. I love everything about DVD-A except no delayed buttons and no DLT/dual layer support...
ScottW wrote on 12/20/2004, 7:45 PM
DLT support is vastly overrated given the number of replication houses that accept ftp or DVD-R for mastering; besides, how many people actually run off 500+ copies of something? Saying that this is a "professional" feature is a bit of a stretch - it's certainly a high end feature that's rapidly becoming a non-issue.

Using CopyToDVD you can create a DL disk based on a DVDA project (I know, I've done it). So what if DVDA doesn't directly support DL - besides the fact that no one can afford the media, I think most folks trying to use the DVDA product would prefer that they simply get support for their SL burner.

Delayed menu buttons - well, this is a big issue lately, with everyone trying to make DVD's that look like they came from hollywood, and DVDA should certainly have this support. As to it being trivial, maybe not given the GUI style being used by DVDA - there's some fun complexity that is part of doing a "pro" looking menu based on delayed menu buttons, and it's not always something that can be expressed as "drag and drop."

If you really want something that does everything, my recommendation is Scenarist. If you want to play on the "pro" level you should expect to spend the big bucks and be exposed to the real complexity of a DVD that most authoring programs try to hide from people. Otherwise, take a look at what ulead has to offer - couldn't see offhand if they supported delayed menu buttons, but they do support the other requirements you have. DVD Lab or DVD Lab Pro also do everything except DLT (and at a very reasonable price).

--Scott

Sticky Fingaz wrote on 12/20/2004, 7:54 PM
Yes replication houses accept DVD-R's, but for a dual layered project? Every company I have ever seen requires 2 DLT tapes for each layer if you are going to have a dual layered project. And yes I am running off 500+ copies, more in the 100,000 range.

Do you have any tips for "delayed" buttons in DVD Architect? Every workaround you can think of would be awesome as I would try to use it.

As for the thing you mentioned with CopyToDVD, what did you do? Just write a VIDEO_TS folder to your hard drive in Architect that was like 8 gigs or something? And that worked??
donp wrote on 12/20/2004, 8:09 PM
Encore 1.5.1 can do the first two things you mentioned and I believe the third one too. I have a Quantum DLT 2000XT and have used Encore to write several DLT's for replication.
ScottW wrote on 12/20/2004, 8:16 PM
If you are talking about 100,000+ DVD's, then really I'd be looking at having a replication/authoring house that knows what they are doing, do the authoring for you - there are a number of potential compatability issues that you can get into, especially when you start to get fancy with the DVD structure, and I'll be the first to say that DVDA does NOT produce structures that are 100% compatible with all players.

True, you can only fake delayed menu buttons with DVDA - there's no escaping that. Having said that, there's a lot more to creating a decent looking menu with delayed menu buttons than meets the eye. If you take a look at a lot of the flicks from Hollywood (and I mean really take a look at them - watch them all the way thru, look for the loop point), even with delayed menu buttons they play some interesting little tricks to make things look seemless when they really aren't.

The easiest way to fake a delayed menu with DVDA starts with correctly laying out your project. Menu's like this always loop, so that's where I start - the loop point will never be entirely seamless since the laser is changing position on the disk - so the loop point and my entry point to the menu are always the same.

I start with something loopable as a background, then I create the buttons (or what have you) as a seperate track in Vegas and I then create a short clip where the buttons fade in on top of the loopable background (the bottons should be completely visable exactly at the point, or just prior, to where the background will loop). It's very important that you pay attention to your audio as well - pick something that is the same length as your background and has a fade-in/fade out or otherwise has a transition that can stand the interruption.

I'll generate a second clip in Vegas that's just my background looping with my menu buttons already in place - this will become the true menu background in DVDA while the first clip will become my intro clip.

In DVDA I won't have real buttons, just empty text boxes with whatever highlight I want that link to other things.

The intro clip plays, the buttons fade in and then we transition to the actual menu with the buttons in place and the highlight appears. Most (note the MOST, not all) players display this very nicely.

As far as CopyToDVD goes - I simply prepared a large project using DVDA and ignored the warnings about it being >4.7GB. Then I used CopyToDVD to actually burn the DL disk - I point CopyToDVD to the VIDEO_TS.IFO file and it figures out where to put the breakpoint (the only potential drawback). Warning - Sony has said they don't support doing this with DVDA projects, but from my tests, it works fine.

--Scott