ReelDVD Menu and 5.1 Dolby

[apryan]

We've been using the limited software ReelDVD that doesn't allow motion menu's and has some very bad results. Does anyone know if the newer version fix any of these issues as stated bellow:

1) menu color 'beats' while displayed
2) We've tried using dolby .ac3 with reeldvd and when a disk is authored, we don't hear any audio on playback on certain dvd players. One dvd player was able to play it fine however.
3) menu creation is very limited. non-motion menus with no audio

If anyone knows about changes to this, let me know. We are thinking of going with Sceanartist but it does cost alot. If anyone knows of a place we can get a discount at, let me know
thanks.

[megamachine]

DVDLab is decent, as an alternative. You can do a lot with menus, including motion menus, and it's not nearly as pricey as Scenarist.

[apryan]

I did look at DVD LAB Last night and I am very impressed, however it's still causing a Memory Error (See other Forum Thread).

Does Sceanartist allow motion menus? If it does, we would possibly go with that. We also are looking to get into doing DVD-9 Authoring, so sceanartist would be best for that.

We wanted to try and upgrade our ReelDVD to a newer addition but realized our license is too far over due. We would have to pay $200 to get it done.

Is there any other suggestions?

[arky_123]

If you need to do SERIOUS authoring, then I would say you have two main options - one for Windows, and one for the MAC.

Windows: Scenarist. It covers more of the spec than anything else on Windows.

MAC: DVD Studio Pro 2 + TFDVDEdit. Combined, they cover as much spec as Scenarist, and, in certain respects, even more than Scenarist (e.g. proper DLT formatting and genuine Seamless-Branching).

Both options allow full use of scripting (DVD SP 2 does not offer full scripting on it's own - only when combined with 'Edit).

The downside of using the SP + 'Edit combination is that you must (for truly professional work) use 'Edit to remove SP's abstraction-layer-authored commands, and recreate more efficient commands (ala Scenarist) using Edit's tools for the purpose. In other words, it's a little bit different from Scenarist's workflow. However, the upside is that you save TENs of thousands of pounds and get the same end result.

Definitely food for thought.


Arky ;o)

[apryan]

Thanks!

I feel we must go with Sceanartist. I would love to get a mac for DVD authoring as well since I have seen good things with DVD Studio.