Best DVD authoring tools?

July 20, 2004 3:56 AM

DVD authoring tools. What are you guys using? Whats the best "bang for the buck" software out there for casual (non-professional) work?

I'm really getting sick of running video and audio through virtudub and tmpgenc. I'm looking for a one stop solution. I'm eyeing the Nero Suite. I'd love to hear what other people are using or if Nero is worth buying.

posted by skallas to computers & internet (6 comments total)

I found Nero horrible for authoring. A friend passed DVDlab onto me which I've been very impressed by - an excellent tool. Adobe Encore is also good, but probably travelling out of your price range.
posted by gravelshoes at 4:06 AM on July 20, 2004

It's not. Nero's avi conversion is still a lot less than perfect.

If you want an acceptable (and merely acceptable) solution, Ulead DVD Movie Factory will convert avi files to compliant mpeg-2 as its authoring. However, you have no real control over how much content there is on the disk--limiting your dvdr to 2 hours often seems like a waste.

However, Ulead's conversion will take FOR EVER. Extracting audio with Virtual Dub and then encoding with TMPEGenc is still the way to get the best results and it may even be the fastest.

You might try dvd2dvd. It's a very versatile program that does a lot of things. If you're just sick of the steps, this might well be for you-- making compliant mpeg-2 seems tricky to me, but I'm sure that it's easy to do once you figure it out.
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:29 AM on July 20, 2004

I've been using DVD Architect which was part of the Sony Vegas+DVD package. No surprises, works well.
posted by plinth at 5:21 AM on July 20, 2004

If you simply want to get some footage onto a playable DVD and aren’t too interested in menus and what not, I did some work the other week and simply used TMPPGEnc and IfoEdit; worked perfectly.
posted by ed\26h at 6:00 AM on July 20, 2004

BBmpeg (Yes, it does MPEG-2 DVD) + DVDAuthor. :-) (Can you tell I'm cheap yet?)
posted by shepd at 7:33 AM on July 20, 2004

skallas, I'm late to the party again, but I'm serious here ...

any question you have concerning video procurment is answered by this thread.
posted by Wulfgar! at 7:50 PM on July 22, 2004