What's Easiest Software to Make DVD's ?

[abrogard]

Thanks to this forum I've just had some success in backing up my dvd's and now I'm ready to make dvd's from our digital camera movie clips and stills.

In fact I've started. I'm using Nero Vision. It is part of my Nero 7 installation.

My digital camera will only make 3minute movies at a time. Generally turns out to be even more than one wants.


So when it comes to making the dvd I find myself inserting heaps of little movie clips into it. I try to minimise those by 'merging' many of them. But i've still got about twenty.

And we've got hundreds of stills so I'm making 'slide shows' inside the dvd, too.

Nero only allows 100 stills per slide show. So I've got many slide shows, too. In fact many more than I'm comfortable with. So I've stopped the process at only 3gig used and many more clips and stills in my collection.

Because this first effort has raised some questions:

1. Is Nero a useful tool for this task or is it too simple or somesuch? What is the tool of choice?

And the answer here, I'd say, would be threefold, at least: (a) Best in the world regardless of price. Speaks for itself, this choice.

(b) Best in the world for free for those with very limited budgets and wide ranging computer software needs (me, usually, having this Nero 7 is an exceptional possession for me). This option is where I'm usually at and it often means using many pieces of sometimes difficult software - sometimes with a steep learning curve.


(c) The best in the world that falls between those two. Like the 'middle way'.
This is where I'd expect Nero to fall, if it is acceptable at all.

2. Many people must have the 'many film clips' problem. How is it customarily dealt with? Make a 'movie' from them all? I could have done that in Nero but didn't. I doubt my pages of menus is the way to go. I'm just doing it for the sake of getting something burned. (I've got to show the wife some production )

3. How about the many slide shows? These all become menu choices. The thing has about six pages of menus. It's ridiculous. But I haven't seen any alternative - such as some way to group chunks of them together under one menu (but still have them in their 'slide shows'). Is there any software or methods for artfully dealing with scads of stills on a dvd, thumbnailing them perhaps as we do on computer and then blowing up the ones you are interested in?


4. I would have liked to do some 'voice overs' (phrase I picked up somewhere, hope I'm using it correctly) behind the slide shows in particular but even behind the movies, too, and between them. I didn't see any option for this (but very well might have missed it). Any comments on that aspect?

Well that's it. In another fifteen minutes my first dvd will be ready.

I like the space - 4 gigs is great - but of almost equal importance to me is the quality, the definition. I was making VCD's and they were shocking. Then I moved to SVCD and it was much better and gave me a thirst for dvd. You didn't want to know that, did you? Nobody asked me that. I talk way, way, way too much.

regards,

ab :)

[paglamon]

Try these and see for urself which one suits u: Ulead Video Studio,Cyberlink Power Director,Womble MPEG VideO Wizard DVD,Pinnacle Studio.All hav free trials.

[abrogard]

Hi again, Paglamon... couldn't get that audio download, eh?

Thanks for the tip, I'll take a look at them.

My first dvd turned out alright... the myriad menu choices, especially for the stills, turns out to not be so important... once you've picked one the player just continues through all the others to the end of the dvd anyway. So you're only picking a starting point.

But the quality is not what i'd expected so I guess I must have reached the limit of the quality input from my digital camera. It is only 4megapix and in movie mode is only 320 x 240 pixels so you can't expect much I guess.

The stills are at 1600 x 1200 which is a lot better. And you can see that on the dvd.

regards,

ab :)

p.s. I see you are a Digital Video Tech so I'd guess you'd have a fair knowledge, at least, of many packages and must have some opinions of your own... but you don't voice them, and you don't say anything about Nero?

[blutach]

Muxman can take your BMPs (resize to 720 x 576/480 if NTSC) and make them into slideshows. Free - see link in my signature. You mux in your compliant audio (convert your WAV to AC3).

There are plenty of packages around, too, which users will recommend.

Regards

[abrogard]

Thanks Blutach,

I've downloaded it and a whole heap of other stuff which was mentioned on those pages in passing...


And I've downloaded your complete list of 'required software for dvd authoring'.

I think I'll finish up going the free software route, courtesy of your guides, but I'll check out the mainstream packages first I guess, in case they do all I want simpler and quicker.

I've been reading various things from your list of links, including the dvd authoring faq and it's rather sobering isn't it? What a complicated hotch potch! And destined to get worse! But interesting. Rewarding.

Thanks for the effort you've put in to make it all available to us all.

regards,

ab :)

[paglamon]

Hi again, Paglamon... couldn't get that audio download, eh?
Nah!:cry2:
p.s. I see you are a Digital Video Tech
LOL.That is the default title given to me by the forum(got to do something wth the number of posts and rep,I think).DO NOT take that too seriously.I am just another LEARNER,like u.

[NightTran]

I use nero vision express, you can put them in one big file, either you want menu or not, shrink to iso then burn with imgburn

[abrogard]

Thanks Nightran. And the idea is to avoid burning with Nero, is that it?

I'll give that a try.


Paglamon... you might be interested... I got that file. I fired up an old sound prog I've had for years called 'Sound Forge'. Just set the sound input for record on stero mix in windows and set the prog playing on the radio nat site and then set 'record' on sound forge and it kept it all. Wrote to disk as a .wav. Changed that to .mp3 with riverpast wave@mp3.

Press on. Back to the dvd authoring....

regards,

ab :)

[paglamon]

Paglamon... you might be interested... I got that file. I fired up an old sound prog I've had for years called 'Sound Forge'. Just set the sound input for record on stero mix in windows and set the prog playing on the radio nat site and then set 'record' on sound forge and it kept it all. Wrote to disk as a .wav. Changed that to .mp3 with riverpast wave@mp3.
Well, this certainly is one option and I had used this earlier in dbPOWERAMP Auxiliary Setup.But the quality of audio did not satisfy.U can also use a simple Stereo Jack and connect ur Audio OUT(in sound card) to the MIC/LINE IN and get the same results.But,in this case u will not b able to listen to the audio u r recording in real time.

[r0lZ]

U can also use a simple Stereo Jack and connect ur Audio OUT(in sound card) to the MIC/LINE IN and get the same results.But,in this case u will not b able to listen to the audio u r recording in real time.You can do basically the same thing but with less quality loss and the ability to listen to the audio with Virtual Audio Cable (aka VAC.) (http://spider.nrcde.ru/music/software/eng/vac.html)

[abrogard]

Now you tell me!

:)

ab

[abrogard]

Not so long ago, when I first began this whole dvd thing, I was trying to rip my old dvd's onto the hard drive so's they could be backed up. Nothing could/would do it. Too many scratches said the experts. End of story.

Now I asked at the time and I'll ask again now - why can't we have a 'virtual video cable' that will feed the video signal straight into some file, warts and all?

You understand what I mean, I guess. I forgot to say it but the point is the dvd's play okay. Frequently. Day after day. That's why I want to back them up.
A player can play them. The computer can play them. But 'ripper' software says it cannot do the job, cannot read them well enough to copy to the hard drive.

What about this?

regards,

ab :)

[paglamon]

@ abrogard,
U speak my mind!!Same question has been bothering me for a while.
@r0lz,
Thnks for that VAC.I will surely try it.

[r0lZ]

Ripping the "signal" received by the player was the method used in the prehistory of DVD ripping, and it's still used to rip DVD-Audios. But this method has many disadvantages. You can rip only the main movie, with only one audio and one subpic stream. The rest is ignored.

A ripper is more sensible to the scratches because it cannot do error corrections. The files are ripped exactly the same way than when a file is copied with Windows explorer (but with some processing of the original data, of course.) In the other hand, a player can cope with some errors. Some frames will probably be damaged, but with some luck, you will not notice them when watching the DVD.

[abrogard]

r01z... well, yes, we realise this. The point is that anything is better than nothing.

A copy of video RAM will give a totally identical copy of what is viewed, 'warts' (i.e. undefined pixel bocks rendered as splashes of primary colour and such) and all.

This is acceptable by definition.This is what one has been watching.
This is acceptable of necessity. This is all one can get.

I can see there well might be a problem putting this back into DVD format.

Doesn't matter. It is acceptable as is. (wonder what it would be?)

I can see this might be 'primitive' technology.

Doesn't matter. We've got nothing else.

I can see it may have 'many disadvantages'.

Doesn't matter. It's got more advantages than having nothing.



I want it. It is probably laying around there somewhere just as Sound Forge was, gathering dust and unrecognised for the life saver it is. If someone knows, please tell me.

I've had an example tonight. A friend brought me his son's favourite dvd. 'Finding Nemo'. Would I copy it for him? It was beginning to look old and battered. Okay, I'll give it a go.

dvddecrypter wouldn't rip it.
dvdfabdecrypter wouldn't rip it.
magicdvdripper wouldn't rip it.

I couldn't do it.

So I watched it instead. It all seemed fine to me. No splotches of colour. No hang ups.

Even given 'hang ups' - the worst kind of 'interference' - a primitive basic video editor, editing the saved video RAM contents, would be able to remove them.



It's acceptable. It's useful. I wish I had it.

regards,

ab :)

[abrogard]

Well I finally burned my first home-made dvd, made from my digital camera film clips and stills.

I got Pinnacle and tried it.

It wouldn't do it. I had about 30 or maybe more video clips in it and it complained there was only 15gigabytes of disk space.

It also complained when I tried to drag in a film clip made at 10 fps. I've got just a handful of those, attempting higher resolution in the film clips drops the frame rate to 10 from 15. Pinnacle said this couldn't be done.

So that's that for that fancy looking package. It sure looks slick and I set off thinking this was going to be it. But it wants more than 15 gig to process a three gig dvd???? Where is it coming from?


So I went back to Nero. Vision whatever.

It did it all, no problem at all. Never made a murmur of protest about anything.

It has a limit of 100 titles for the film clips. Same as a limit of 100 stills per slide show.

No worries. You can merge as many titles as you like and possibly the best thing to do is 'make a film', which I haven't tried yet.

I'm still feeling my way. I don't know if I'd rather have dozens of menu choices - i.e. different spots to enter the dvd at - or just run it as one big film or maybe two or three, maybe four divisions.

Home film clips don't come as movies, not in my house anyway. They come as little two or three minute things and that's all you want to know about that thing.

And amongst this myriad of clips there's a few that we don't want in a dvd we'll send out to the rellies. Bit of family nudity in the bath with the kids, mainly. So if I merge everything in and then find I've included one of those clips or an included clip has a few frames like that - then I guess I'll have a bit of a job getting at it to get it out.

But Nero seems to have done it fine and there's transitions I haven't looked at yet and there's some kind of voice recording I noticed but didn't use.

The only complaint is the rendering of the movie clips. They look a bit coarse to me. I feel they were better before - i.e. as svcd or as played straight from the camera into the t.v. But all that might be my imagination.

I'd like to know what the experts have to say. They all seem to want to avoid burning with Nero. Is that because I'd get a better picture burning with something else? Seems unlikely to me, but I know nothing. :)

I'll see if I can get one or two of these other packages and try them out.

regards,


ab :)

[r0lZ]

It has a limit of 100 titles for the film clips. Same as a limit of 100 stills per slide show.It's probably 99 and 99. The DVD standard allow only 99 titles, with 99 chapters in each title. It's probably because the led display of a player is not supposed to have 3 digits.

They all seem to want to avoid burning with Nero. Is that because I'd get a better picture burning with something else?No, the picture quality depends only of the quality of the source images and of the encoder. Nero has many problems, especially when you burn Double Layer DVDs. It's why it is not recommended. But in simple cases like yours, it should do its job correctly.

[paglamon]

Abrogard
Try Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD.It is very easy to use and much better than NVE.

[abrogard]

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I've now got Ulead and had a first look at it. Very interesting. Seems very full-on. At this stage I don't like the hassle of getting clips into the library. Every time I go back to my directory to get the next one I have to scroll down to find the sub-dir I want.

But maybe i can do something about that. I'll play with it a while.

Thanks for the tip about Womble. I'll try to get it.

regards,

ab :)