Which Authoring Software?

[CouJo]

In the last week, I've bought a DVD+RW Drive (Ricoh MP5120).

The Drive works great but the bundled software is "crap".

I've tested the bundled Sonic MyDVD. This program can't read my DV-AVI Files (Pinnacle DV 500 Video Card). Then I've tested Sonic DVDit. This Software reads my AVI Files but makes really bad quality MPEG Movies !

I've also tested Pinnacle Impression DVD wich makes good DVD's but I'm searching for a really good DVD Authoring Tool. I know such tools are not very cheap... .

Has anybody experience with DVD Maestro?
...and know where to get a trial version?

Greets, CouJo!

[citate]

Have you tried MGI's VideoWave 5. Looks quite good and costs about £85 ish.

I'm still playing with it, but it looks quite useful.

[gazza]

Hi CouJo,

If you want a good authoring package, try ReelDVD. It was originally sold by Daiking but has now been bought out by Sonic. I think it is available for around $1500.

You are able to do motion menus, subtitles and have up to 3 audio channels.

Cheers

Gazza

[CouJo]

Thanx

I will try these software packages.
Maybe in a short time, I can give some impressions...

Greets, CouJo!

[mgolobay]

Authoring Software Adventure

I too am looking for a moderately priced DVD authoring tool.

Sonic MyDVD came with the HP drive I sent back. It wasn't very good and I never got it to burn a DVD. Uninstalled.

Gear claims to be able to burn DVDs so I installed the demo copy. It definitely isn't an authoring tool and only offers to import the .IFO files of a hard disk rip. After all that, I could never get it to enable the burn button and actually write the DVD. Uninstalled.

Nero has been my favorite CD-R burner now for years. It also claims to be able to burn DVDs but I haven't had much luck with it. Realistically, it looks like it can only copy or burn from a previously stored DVD image file. It does a real good job with VCDs! It stays.

VideoWave 5 that came with my IBM drive seems very capable. It is the only package with which I have successfully burned a DVD. However, the bundled version I'm using has some frustrating bugs. The worst one is that it doesn't seem to really know if your creation will fit on the DVD media provided. It will indicate that there is room, use up all of my 1 gigahertz Compaq for 4 hours and then report some sort of drive error. All I can do is clip off selections and try again until it fits.
The vendor, MGI Software (http://www.mgisoft.com) has several updates available, but the one I have is so backlevel there is no update path. They tell me IBM has to do the upgrade, so I am now listening to the X-mas hold music while the support person tries to figure out the situation.

[CouJo]

Now I have tested more software...

The buring software (B's Recorder Gold) which is included in the package is good. So I can write DVD-Images to my DVD+RW Drive. But it wasn't easy to find the place to put the image in .

Now I've tested some Authoring Software. I know, it's not the right way... but I found DVDMaestro ... somewhere in the Internet and I have played a little bit with this software.

I can say, this is the software I was looking for. It's easy to use and I can configure everything I need (and more). But the software can't burn directly to my Ricoh Drive... but this is no problem because DVDMaestro creates Images which I can burn with B's Recorder. I use the MPEG Streams from my Pinnacle DV 500 and make AC3 with Sonic's SoftEncode. Only the combination of various software will bring you all the features you need...

• Adobe Premiere (bundled with Pinnacle DV 500)
• B's Recorder Gold (bundled with my Ricoh Drive)
• DVDMaestro (... I really don't know where to find it)
• Sonic Soft Encode (Old Program, no more for sale...)

Greets, CouJo!

[Dr.D]

The best i used so far is the Ulead DVD MovieFactory http://www/ulead.com

It reads DV avi, can create menus etc.
This is the best !!!!

[gerry_baird]

I agree, the Ulead Movie Factory is the best authoring tool I've come across.

I bought a Pioneer DVR-103 and have struggled with the Sonic product that was bundled with it. I was fed up with getting build errors when multiplexing files which I knew were fine.

So far, the Movie Factory software has worked great, and it's only $44.

[tateman66]

Hey,

I've never used it. Can Movie Factory write any filetypes out to DVD? Or, is it one like MyDVD which forces you to choose graphic formats that they allow.

I guess my real question is, can Movie Factory take a VOB as input and write it to DVD?

Steven

[ptmsssg]

I have a audio/video sync problem with Ulead DVD Plug-in (also
DVD MovieFactory).
When I import a mpeg2 file made by TMPGEnc and convert it to
VOB file, always audio delays to video.

Does anyone know other better (but not expensive) authoring
software ?

Thanks,
ptmsssg