Will Vegas 4.0 DVD burn DVD movies to CD's?

jharro wrote on 3/4/2003, 1:07 PM

I have not yet purchased Vegas 4.0 DVD. I am wondering whether or not it will author DVD movies to CD's as well as DVD's. I teach in a middle school and we would like to create CD's with menu options like a DVD has. The CD's are so much cheaper for us at this point. Will Vegas 4.0 DVD do this?

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 3/4/2003, 1:40 PM

Short answer is no. There are two new products version 4 of Vegas and version 4 +DVD which will allow authoring of DVD's, but they do not burn VCD's or other formats like SVCD. They are actually two seperate applications bundled together at a reduced price. AFAIK you can't buy DVD Arch. seperately.

Both versions of Vegas 4 as well as version 3 can and do support rendering to VCD and SVCD plus DVD files, (mpeg-1 and mpeg-2) meaning they make compliant files that can be converted to DVD's and or video and super videos burnable to regular CD's. But to author, meaning add menu choices and stuff like that you need a seperate application that takes the rendered file that Vegas makes and burns it to VCD or DVD media as well as adding menu items, background music for the menu, etc..

Confusing I know.

There are several ways to proceed. Either get Nero which can burn VCD's, SVCD and DVD formats and in clumsy way do menu choices or get something like Ulead's DVD Movie Factory which does all you want as far as making menu choices on VCD, SVCD and DVD and it is only costs around $50 or so. There are several other applications $100 or less than do the same. The application SoFo offers is feature rich, but intended for DVD's only and being just in version one also is missing some features.

Hope this helps more than confuse. <wink> Use search to find many threads that cover this topic is mind numbing detail.

barleycorn wrote on 3/5/2003, 11:46 AM

Short answer is actually yes. You can use DVD Architect to prepare the necessary files but then write them to a CD (using the software of your choice). Such discs (known as miniDVDs) are only compatible with about 30% of players (see http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers.php?DVDname=&Submit=Search&minidvd=1&Search=Search) but should work in most DVD drives.

For the official word on this subject see http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=161628.

BillyBoy wrote on 3/5/2003, 1:08 PM

So you're suggesting spending $$$$ more for the DVD option to so prep work then end up using a low priced app to burn? Isn't that kind of silly? Buying TWO applications?

barleycorn wrote on 3/5/2003, 2:09 PM

> So you're suggesting spending $$$$ more for the DVD option

The enquiry was regarding 'Vegas 4.0 DVD'. I take this to mean Vegas+DVD. What do you think?

> then end up using a low priced app to burn? Isn't that kind of silly? Buying TWO applications?

Ignoring the contradictions in your argument - if the second application is 'low priced' then presumably the purchase couldn't be too painful - it seems resonable to assume that if jharro already has a CD burner, he also has CD burning software (and in Windows XP nothing extra is needed anyway). Incidentally, posts in the DVD Architect forum seem to indicate that some people are choosing to burn their DVDs with third-party software anyway (i.e. even if they're not forced to do so by bugs in the initial release).

Frankly, I'm rather surprised that you don't regard it as something of a blessing that miniDVD is an alternative.