Questions regarding Sonic' DVDit PE and Vegas Video 3?

efiebke wrote on 1/12/2003, 1:49 PM

I'm considering the purchase of Sonic's DVDit! PE. In looking over its features, it seems to be the best bang for the buck (as a DVD authoring program within its price range of about $600).

Here's my system:

Dell Precision Workstation 420
Pentium III 733
512 MB DDRAM
2 hard disk drives both 7200rpm (1st is 10 GB, 2nd is 20 GB soon to be upgraded to 120 GB for video!)
Matrox G400
Windows XP Pro
Vegas Video 3 - as the video editing program
DVD burner: Sony's DRX-500UL (burns both -R/RW and +R/RW formats)

Camera: Canon's GL2 (newly purchased!)

Here are the questions:

1) Is this a solid program? Does it work in burning DVD's that can be played on a majority of DVD players?

2) Do you think it will work with the above software/hardware configuration (especially utilizing video files - MPEG1, MPEG2, AVI - from Vegas Video 3) (using Sony's DRX-500UL external DVD burner) ????

3) Suggestions for other DVD authoring software similar to DVDit PE??

Thank you for your time and attention!

Ted Fiebke, RN

P. S. I'm just reading that Sonic Foundry is coming out with Vegas Video 4 and a DVD authoring program. This is great news! I wonder if I should wait on purchasing a DVD authoring program until then?!?!?!?

Comments

JJKizak wrote on 1/12/2003, 2:40 PM

The dvd burning burning programs in the beginning had many overrun/uderrun
problems and mamy people consequently used these programs to "author" the
files to the hard drive then use "Nero" or "Prassi" (Has new name) to do
the burning to disc. The new programs (MYDVD 4.0, ETC.) work well with the
new burners and will do the whole shot at one time. Also the issue of Dolby AC-3
and 16 x 9 will jump the cost of your software up considerably and also the
complexity of creating buttons. (REEL DVD, $1000.00,) requires Adobe Photoshop
LE to create buttons. Ah, but these are the minor issues, the big ones are
dealing with compatability, MPEG2 codecs, bitrate settings, Compliant AVI and
MPEG2 codecs, labels coming off discs, cheap discs, double encoding, and
OS issues. Best of luck in the next six months learning what works.

James J. Kizak

vonhosen wrote on 1/12/2003, 2:44 PM

1) Not what I'd call solid , very buggy just look at it's user forums. You won't see Sonic Solution's staff chipping in with help like here. Also no motion menus which even basic programs have now. It is long in the tooth now really which makes me wonder why it's still so buggy. They are rumoured to have a new version of DVDit coming soon that is based on their higher product "DVD producer" code.

2) Forget using .avi files in it. It's encoder is not very customiseable & doesn't do a great job. Far better encoding outside & importing elementary streams (.m2v & .wav) Don't know how DRX-500UL works with it but I personally never worry too much about how the burner goes with the authoring program. Always more reliable burning with dedicated burning programs from images or DVD folders created in the program.

3) DVDit PE does have a Dolby stereo encoder which is a plus.
Personally I'd hang on as long as you can to see if SF's DVD Architect is out soon before buying. VV4 with the 5.1 plug-in & DVD Architect , mouth watering but we'll have to wait & see.

I have used DVDit , Ulead's Movie Factory , (Sonic Solutions next step up from DVDit) ReelDVD & Pinnacle's DVD Impression Pro. Currently Impression Pro gets most use with Dolby supplied with SF's 5.1 plug-in encoder for Acid Pro 4.0. I'll be looking close at DVD Architect when it arrives.

The latest version of ReelDVD & Impression Pro rely heavily on Photoshop (you can get away with Paint Shop Pro) for menu creation. Both have 2 video angles, 8 language tracks, 32 subtitle tracks (nightmare in Impression) support .ac3 upto 5.1 (stereo only encoder in ReelDVD none in Impression), motion menus etc

Finatic13 wrote on 1/12/2003, 3:01 PM

I could be wrong but my version of REEL 2.5 doesnt have the 2 camera angle facility and the version 3 only has minor upgrades!
regards
Simon

vonhosen wrote on 1/12/2003, 3:08 PM

Sorry
that's right one video angle for Reel but version 3.0 updated for 8 audio tracks & 32 subtitle tracks.

I've only used Reel 2.5 not 3.0

Jason_Abbott wrote on 1/12/2003, 10:59 PM

If you can hold out a little while, I'd wait to learn more about SF's own DVD architect app. If you already have VV3 then I expect (hope) you'll be able to get it for less than $600.

http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/vegas.htm

dsanders wrote on 1/14/2003, 3:33 PM

DVDit! 5.0 is scheduled to be released in March. It is said to contain all of the features included in MyDVD 4.0 (direct to disc capture, motion menus) plus more "professional" features. It's kind of expensive for what you get. Plus the included Dolby Encoder is only stereo (just like ReelDVD)

MDVid wrote on 1/14/2003, 5:16 PM

I have used DVDit PE and Reel as well as Uleads DVD workshop for quite some time. While I would agree that the learning curve for DVDit is steep, once learned, the program is quite easy to use, and the produced DVD's work quit well on any of the recent 'set-top' players. The included dolby digital conversion is very nice.
Reel DVD is a much more robust DVD creation tool, but requires a much greater 'learning curve'. As applies to Vegas, Reel requires elemental streams, rather than DVD NTSC video/audio streams. For Vegas, this means two (2) renders. I find that when I am in a hurry, I tend to render a single video/audio stream with Vegas' NTSC DVD template. You might find this as well. I am looking forward to Vegas 4, as in a prior post, DSE indicated that V4's DVD authoring tool was 'better' than Reel. (which costs ~1,0000$). Can't wait to see it!
JTH

harryset wrote on 1/15/2003, 11:21 AM

I am currently running an athlon 900mz system, personaly if I had $600 to spend on another software program, I'd use it on a new system in the 2gb range. 733 is going to work, but slowly.