Should I upgrade to DVDA2?

dmcmeans wrote on 5/12/2004, 9:59 AM

I'm a satisfied with Vegas 4. But I need a decent DVD authoring program (limping along with DVDComplete), so I'm considering Vegas 5 with DVDA2.

What's the word? Is it worth it? DVDA1 was a little too simplistic for the price to me. The glossy brochures make DVDA2 look awesome. But is it really?

Thanks,

David

Comments

Express wrote on 5/12/2004, 10:24 AM
I was in the same boat as you - Vegas 4 user, authoring with another application because DVDA1 did not offer anything above what I already had with the other app (Pinnacle Studio)

Based on the same materials that you describe, I determined that DVDA2 was what I really wanted.

So far I have been quite pleased. The programable end-actions are what really does it for me - I can do everything authoring functionality that is important to me.

I have since converted a great deal of graphics into DVDA2 theme's, and I think it was well worth it from my perspective.

Chris
dvddude wrote on 5/12/2004, 11:40 AM
I have been using Vegas+DVD (the previous version) since it came out. I was very pleased with Vegas, and DVDA worked quite well in most ways but came up just a little short in a few others.

There's no question that the upgrade for me was worth the $199 upgrade. I can't say that I've noticed too much new in Vegas yet (although the surround panning and such features are reportedly beefed up; I haven't tried them yet), but DVDA2 has been a real delight. It went from a good, decent program with a few shortcomings to one very nice package with all the bells & whistles that I may ever need.

And the two work well togther. I find editing in Vegas a joy, export (with chapter markers) to DVDA2 painless, and building the DVD in DVDA unexpectedly flexible. I can now do something I never thought I would be able to--daisy chain different "paths" through my chapters of a single large source file and have each path appear as a link, with no duplicated media!

Add to that the support for multiple audio tracks, subtitles... I'm in heaven with Vegas+DVD2.

Thumbs up.
johnmeyer wrote on 5/12/2004, 12:18 PM
DVDA 1.0 was a big disappointment.

DVDA 2.0 is a winner.
dmcmeans wrote on 5/13/2004, 1:03 PM

Thanks all. Your comments were what I was expecting / hoping DVDA2 to be, but I wanted to hear it first hand before making the plunge.

David