DVD Authoring and Burning program?

I just wondered what program(s) other people are using for editing
their home movies, and authoring to DVD?

I was using Nero 6 but have been having a lot of problems so am
thinking of switching.

I've been looking at a lot of different website for different programs
for example:

DVD Lab
Pinnacle Studio 11
Roxio MyDVD 9 Studio
Pegasys DVD Author 3
Ulead DVD Movie Factory 6

Anyone have any preferences/recommendation for a decent bug free non
bulky good value highly compatible efficient product for editing and
authoring your own home movies to DVD? What gives the best bang for
your buck?

John

 

I use Pegasys DVD Author 3, but then it's not really a full blown
movie editor. It's more a DVD authoring package that allows for some
simple near-lossless MPEG cutting and pasting. If you want full
frame-by-frame time-line editing then that's not what it does. But
if you want to simply transfer existing DVD or Sky STB material
(via a DVD recorder) and remove ads down to frame accuracy, then
it's first class.

Regards

Mark

 

If you need to do both what would you recommend? Would you buy DVD
Author and a separate movie editor or is there one package that can do
both and is pretty good?

John

 

Ulead Video Studio may do what you want...there is a free trial.

 

You don't mention the format of the "home movie" footage
that you want to edit. You could check out an editing program
that can handle both DV and MPEG, a good choice for
"home movies" would be something like Ulead's VideoStudio.
Check the tool listings at www.videohelp.com

Luck;
Ken

 

Sorry, I don't edit home movies so I don't have any experience. I do
know I tried earlier versions of Ulead's Video Studio and was surprised
at how poor it's menuing and authoring side was. It's probably got a lot
better now though.

Regards

Mark

 

As someone who is very familiar with TDA and who
has always discouraged trying to author with an editing
package, I also feel that a dedicated DVD authoring
program is the much better approach. But, there has
been some real improvement in the authoring function
of VideoStudio, to include 16:9 menus. I agree that
it is not as versatile or intuitive as TDA, and that I would
certainly continue to use TDA for any routine DVD
production, for the way it fits into a good workflow.

For someone with camcorder footage, that can benefit
from editing, though; VideoStudio offers a reasonably
good DVD creation process. Of course there is nothing
to prevent editing in VideoStudio then rendering the
movie as DVD compliant MPEG, for authoring in a
dedicated authoring program.

Luck;
Ken

 

I've been making some DVD's of our old home movies, mostly old VHS
tapes but I'll be doing some eventually with Hi8. I'm mainly just
creating a DVD of the old home movies. I'm not doing a lot of
"creative" stuff with the movies. I just hook my VCR up to my Magnavox
DVD Recorder which I got from Sam's Club for $82.00 and record
straight to DVD. I then copy the VOB files to my computer and edit the
VOB files into separate MPG-2 files using VideoReDo v1.6.0.243. I then
use TMPGEnc DVD Author v1.6.34.89 to make the DVD and then burn it
with Nero Burning ROM v6. Since I'm not trying to be fancy I don't
need a lot of transitions, or other film effects. I'm just trying to
convert VHS and Hi8 tape to DVD's.

I have tried a lot of the Movie Editing software out there. Sony Vegas
is very good. Pretty complicated but after the steep learning curve
very powerful. Sonic MyDVD is one of the first ones that I got and
since it would only acknowledge (on the version I got) that DVD's were
2hrs in length and to bad if your MPG files were at a different bit
rate (for a longer movie) it would reencode everything to the standard
that it wanted. I haven't kept up with the newer versions since. Some
people swear by it, I just swear at it.

I have edited some nice movies with Ulead Video Studio 8. The one
thing that I really like about it is the Ken Burns effect that you can
do with your still photos. If you've ever seen any of Ken Burns
documentaries particularly Civil War you'll know what I'm talking
about. Pan and scan and zoom on photos can make nice additions to a
movie if you don't actually have any movie to edit. It has a boat load
of transitions and effects that you can transition between clips and
still photos and you can add in some nice moving text, (including if I
remember right the classic Star Wars text scrolling into the far
reaches of space. It's easy and very nicely done. You can throw still
photos at it and combine it with video's and add sound effects and a
sound track. You can even add in mutiple sound tracks if you want to
have a narration track. If you want to be "creative" in your movie
editing I'd recommend Ulead Video Studio. I haven't used the newest
version, but if it hasn't been turned into bloatware I'd give it a
try.

Hope this gives you a little info to think about.

 

<snip>

Just curious: why don't you use 1.6's own burning facility? So far,
after making maybe 50 or so short family DVDs, I've had no failures.

 

Therefore, I would encourage the OP to check out MovieFactory 6. It has
fewer editing functions, but the DVD authoring component is better than
VideoStudio, IMO.

 

Mainly because I'm comfortable with Nero for burning. I ascribe to Ken
Maltby's contention to find the right tool to do each job and use
that. Nero is a very good burning program. I just have never
experimented with 1.6's burning facility. I know Nero will burn my DVD
with no problems. Each program iis tailored to do certain things well
and I try and find the ones that I like and that work well for me and
that's what I use until something else better comes along that I have
the time to experiment with or that are recommended. I used to use
Womble MPG to edit my MPG files until a lot of people in this group
(including I think Ken Maltby) recommended VideoReDo. I tried it and
haven't gone back.

 

That's my attitude too. But if I can find a program that handles
several functions easily and reliably, all the better! Ideally, if I
had one that could do *everything* easily and reliably, I'd use that.

Isn't that comparison of Womble v VideoRedo rather inappropriate?
Assuming you mean Womble MPEG Video Wizard, that's a full editor,
supporting effects, transitions, etc, and handles multiple file
formats (MPEG, AVI, JPEG, etc).

 

I've found that TDA's burning application works well with
my setup and NEC 2510A, so I also use it to burn DVDs.
In fact I also use it to burn Data DVDs, as it does the job
quickly with little fuss. I use Nero Burning ROM for any
tricky or unusual burning that may crop up, from time to
time.

IMHO, VideoReDo is an essential tool for anyone who
works with MPEG. While Womble's "Video Wizard"
programs can do some MPEG Editing, they are no longer
unique in that regard. There are more capable editing
programs in the same price range, Ulead's "VideoStudio"
and even Magix's "Movie Edit Pro" series. But whatever
program you use to edit with, VideoReDo will provide
some additional very useful processing and support.

Luck;
Ken

 

I agree "if" a program can handle several functions easily and
reliably, my experience has been that they don't. Not saying they all
don't but my experience has shown me that when a program tries to do
everything it does nothing well.

I did try 1.6's burning tool last night and it worked easily and
reliably. I may try it some more. Thanks for the recommendation.

The Womble program was the version before MPEG Video Wizard, it might
have been mpegVCR. I haven't tried Video Wizard.

 

use Total Video2Dvd Author, easy to use,

website:http://www.effectmatrix.com/total_video_to_DVD_Author/index.htm

 

I speak as someone who does NOT do this for a living, and I store all
the original movies on the original DV tapes, where they will last (by
far) the longest. I have an occassional need to make a movie for a
website, sometimes in the small WMV format and sometimes a
broadcast-size mpeg which is many megabytes.

Having played with a few products

Pinnacle 10
Liquid 7
Sony Vegas

I think the answer to your Q must be "it depends on how much time you
want to invest going up the learning curve".

The LC of these products can be massive. L7 in particular was
horrendous. After a few days I did finally manage to force it to make
the simplest movie. It is packed with counter-intuitive features.
There is a support forum on which some people do try hard to help but
basically most issues don't get resolved, or not fast - you have to
plug away posting on there for a few days to work out just one
feature.

Vegas was impenetrable, IIRC. I tried Adobe Premiere a long time ago
and after a day could not make it work.

Pinnacle is relatively easy, but is not without bugs. It is however a
lot better (in a v10, updated several times) than it used to be.

For home movies, Pinnacle is the way to go, IMHO.

Dedicated movie people will laugh at this, but they already know all
the paradigms that this business runs on. What the hell is a
"timeline" for example?

 

Your last question makes no sense, if you have the experience
with editing programs that you claim. If you never obtained a
grasp of such a simple and fundamental concept, you have no
means of evaluating any editing package. It would also explain
your difficulty with the other programs, what still makes no
sense is your claim that you can work in "Pinnacle" without
understanding the timeline concept.

There are plenty of inexpensive editing packages, in the
same price range as "Pinnacle" that are, at least, as easy
and user friendly. Liquid, Premiere, and Vegas are much
more expensive and complex professional packages. The
makers of each of those also offer less expensive and less
complex programs. In addition to those, there are good
packages from Ulead, Magix, and others.

Check the listings at

www.videohelp.com

Ulead's VideoStudio series may be the easiest to use.
Magix's Movie Edit Pro 12 may actually provide the
most useful features for the buck.

DVD Authoring should be done in a separate authoring
program - in my opinion. TMPGEnc DVD Author,
DVDLab Pro, for sure; and Ulead's DVD workshop,
perhaps their DVD Movie Factory as well.

Luck;
Ken

 

I suspect he has been using the story-board in Pinnacle (studio), as
you say, if he has no concept of what a time-line is it's any wonder
he found Vegas (and others) "impenetrable"?!

 

Yes, I have been using that mode, as well as the others, and I do now
know what a timeline is. What I was hoping to point out is that this
business is full of concepts which need to be learnt.

The problem I have with Liquid 7 was more specific and even repeated
posts on their support forum were unable to get to the bottom of it.
In L7 you can select which of a number of data sources (e.g. video,
sound, etc) end up being merged into the movie. You check the checkbox
for each one that you want, and there are various things which change
shade or colour of the selected source. However, every movie I made
turned out to be blank. The sound track was there but no video.
Obviously there was something really subtle (and probably obvious to a
user who knows the program) but I never worked it out. I don't
remember the details now. I should add that I am a hardware / software
developer with 35 years' experience, and have extensive experience in
IT, computers, networking. And a BSc in Electronics. Liquid 7 did
however beat me.

Speaking of Pinnacle, right now I am trying to make a movie from a few
thousand jpeg images. This is a feature in the program, and does work.
There are a few probable bugs though - the program has just crashed
for the 3rd time this morning, trying to render the movie. It does
mini WMV files but has problems with full size mpegs. The magazine
reviews did say it was the most unstable (meaning ridden with bugs
that crash it) video editing product they ever tested. This is v10 -
is v11 any better?

 

Pinnacle has earned its self a bad reputation in years past, but
since it was acquired be Avid (the originators of Liquid Pro 7)
it appears to be somewhat improved. Still many of us avoid
Pinnacle out of force of habit.

Why not try another economic editing package like Ulead's
VideoStudio, in place of the Pinnacle program. They have a
demo I believe.

Luck;
Ken

There is that "gladly" enough?