Decent DVD authoring software (1 Viewer)

I don't want to create multi-angle and super-complicated menus. I'd just like import the .d2v and audio files, add chaptering, simple menu, you get the drift.

Any suggestions?

I've tried TMPGEnc Author and while it's OK, it seems to do something odd with the resulting files - almost like they're encrypted without really 'being' encrypted.

Rob,

You can check out the tutorials here: DVD authoring guides at doom9.org

I have not used any of these packages so I cannot vouch for them personally. Good luck!

Ulead DVD Workshop is very good...

Rob, I use Sonic's DVDit PE for its Dolby Digital 2.0 and 16:9 Enhanced capabilities; however, it has many limitations. They just released ReelDVD, which seems to be DVDit's successor. I'm expecting a review copy, but I have not received it yet.

Ulead's DVD Workshop is a very good product as well in that it allows motion menus and a few other goodies; however, it only supports Dolby ProLogic.

Pinnacle Studio 8 is a very basic video editor, but its DVD creation abilities are pretty slick and allows MPEG audio to save audio space (and give it to the video bitrate, of course).

I've heard a lot of good things about Pinnacle Impression v2.2, but I have not had a chance to work with it.

John, the Sonic products have a lot of features I don't need and are very expensive. I'm not paying that kind of money for this. The TMPGEnc Author is about $60 and does what I need - the only problem is that I can't then use a package such as InstantCopy to resize the file down (rather than do another 15 hour encode in TMPGEnc Plus). It must be doing something unusual with the files.

I never said that they weren't expensive. I was just letting you know my feelings about the packages that I've worked with. :p)

Pinnacle Studio 8 and DVD Workshop (or is it DVD Movie Factory?) are inexpensive and work very well. Studio 8 also has the benefit of being a basic editing tool as well.

The AC-3 version is still almost $400.

Think I'll have to forget this idea.

Rob beat me to it. The cost of the AC-3 version is simply beyond the range of most people.

Pinnacle Studio 8 does support what they simply refer to as "MPEG audio". It's not Dolby Digital, but it's compressed so that it doesn't take up the space of a PCM track. I haven't been able to figure out exactly what the bit rate is though, because they don't allow you to change it and they don't display what it is.

Rob,

If I may suggest, download the trial version of ULEAD DVD Movie Factory 2. It will do most of the things you want. It's a simple program that you can feed .avi or .mpeg files into and create still menus with audio. It allows you a few choices for menu layouts, buttons and scene frames.

If you find you like this program, you can then step up to DVD Workshop which allows more flexability in menu creation.
DVD Movie Factory 2 is a good start-off program that will get you going. I believe the free download is good for 30 days.
http://www.ulead.com/dmf/runme.htm

regards,
-Gary

Thanks Gary - does Factory 2 support AC-3 files? I don't need it to encode them, just import the file and mux it with the .d2v video stream. I can do the .wav to .ac3 conversion myself with BeSweet.

Rob,

No, Factory 2 does not support AC3.

Regards,
-Gary

DVD-lab looks promising, $79. It accepts (but does not encode) AC-3 and DTS. Let us know if it's any good

One problem with MPEG audio is that NTSC DVD players are not obligated to support it. So your DVD might work fine on a PC, but you get no audio with your home theater. (In fact, an NTSC DVD is "required" to have at least one PCM or DD track.)

//Ken

That does look promising Ken, thanks. I'll give the trial version a go this weekend.

I've been using Ulead DVD Studio 2 after dropping the Sonic My DVD that came with my HP Recorder. I find the Ulead version to be quicker and it dosn't waste time converting my audio into something 'compatible' for the program itself.

Now if only HP could support both mediums on a $300 player, I'd be happy .

DVD-Lab is impressive. The only caveat I can see at the moment is that it only support a single audio stream, but that can be PCM, Dolby (including 5.1) or DTS. It can't encode audio but it can import what you already have. Exactly what I'm after.

The menu facilities are really good, though I still need to play a bit more with them. Adding chapters is a doddle and it can even 'guess' where chapters should go by detecting scene changes. I really like that you can pick out a frame from the video preview and drop into your image bin for use later in a menu. Very cool.

For $79 this is a steal. It has functionality unheard of at this price point and look well laid out. I'm very new to all of this stuff but even a dumbo like me can recognise a good thing when he sees it.

I agree with you that this looks like a sweet program. In messing around with it, it seems to be fairly intuitive, and it's easy to get through some quick projects. If you get DTS to work, please post how you did it.

Rob - thanks for the email, btw.

For DTS I imagine it means DVD-style DTS. DTS on LD was stored as PCM so it would probably see that as a normal WAV file.

I'll try and do test today and see how I get on.

No-go on the LD DTS to DVD conversion. The decoder can't lock onto the signal so it must be getting mangled in the 44.1-48khz conversion. Oh well, worth a try.

I thought I'd post a few results from my work on the Star Wars conversions so far.

These images have been captured from PowerDVD from the actual DVD files of the MPEG2 conversion. I haven't yet finalised all my settings so these are a work-in-progress. Pictures 8 and 9 show the Greedo scene with my replacement burned-in subtitles (which look better than any player-generated subs any day!)

http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/sw1.jpg
http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/sw2.jpg
http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/sw3.jpg
http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/sw4.jpg
http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/sw5.jpg
http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/sw6.jpg
http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/sw7.jpg
http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/sw8.jpg
http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/sw9.jpg
http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/sw10.jpg
http://users.surfanytime.co.uk/robgillespie/sw11.jpg