Win DVD authoring sw recommendations

[TimOBrienFlorida]

Sony DVD Architect. It comes with the $50-or-less Sony Vegas Movie Studio.

(The combo is why I put Windows & Parallels on my iMac just to keep running it after I changed platforms...)

[theblue1]

Another reco for DVD Architect -- and for Vegas, too. I have the 'premium' consumer version (around $100) which also has HD support and some other stuff. (Make sure that you still get a copy of DVD Architect that will do everything you need in the lesser cost version of Vegas if you go that route.)

I can only compare Vegas with other vid editors I've used (mostly free, bundleware, or demos, stuff like NeroVision and AVID Free) and Vegas completely and totally blows all those out of the water. It was not just very easy for me to intuit -- it works very much like many modern DAWs -- I barely had to look up anything in the help system, ever -- but it is also exceedingly graceful at running on an older, underpowered machine (as 6 year old ~$500 refurb XP box can now be considered), providing no-wait realtime editing and preview (make the preview window too big and you get some dropped frames maybe).

I haven't been much of a Sony fan since at least the 1980's -- but they did really right when they bought Sonic Foundry -- by leaving the basic dev team and management in place here in the States.

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

I've used a couple of them, and own two Adobe products as well as the Sony product. To add to what has been mentioned, Magix Movie Edit Pro is inexpensive and easy to use. None are really that hard, though some are slowwwwww......

[Masaaki]

Another Vegas/DVD architect user here.

I use pro version, because it has GPU acceleration, but other than that, premium version (~$100) mentioned by Mr. Blue1 has all the basic tools and plue DVD Architect.

In Vegas, you import media files, such as the source video clips and audio files into a kind of 'preparation pallette'. Then, drag & drom these souce materials to tracks, pretty much like DAW. You can cross-fade, and use envelope to fade in/out video clips as well as audio. You could have multiple video and audio tracks, and actually use 'plugins' to do add some effects. In fact, I use quiete often color correction, white balance correction, and brightness/contrast correction, when the shooting was not optimal.

Then you 'render' to a single video clip file (or video/audio separate format), but this step requires patience, if the video is full HD, and long. But, with patience, you can get pretty basic title, fade in/out, cross-fade, background music, etc. If you like you can EQ/comp the audio track as well.

DVD Architect has a basic template for DVD authoring, such as basic background and typical submenu creation. I just use the basic one, and use large buttons and arrows so the viewer can navigate easily. Of course, it takes care of the final step, which is burning to the disks.

[brockorama]

Encore user for many years. I love the Photoshop integration for building unique menus. Build folders in encore, and burn with imgburn (the best IMO).

[Jeff Hayat]

Thanks for the replies.

Am d/l-ing a trial of Sony DVD Arch, and will see how it goes.

Cheers.