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Need a Pro Program, Fast!
I’ve been going nuts editing a video for a client for the past month, and I’ve just about go it down. Here’s the snag: they now want it on a DVD with a custom menu and everything. I’ve never had to author to a DVD master for replication before, and the only DVD program that I have is an old Sonic DVDit!, which can barely make stock menus – let alone customized ones.
This is where technology is heading (or has already headed to…), so I’m looking to upgrade to a professional DVD authoring program. Problem is, I haven’t a clue which one to get! I’ve heard good things about DVD Studio Pro and Adobe Encore, but I don’t know if they fit my workflow. I am editting on Avid Xpress Pro 4.6 and I used to compress to MPEG-2 using Sorenson Squeeze. Can anybody give me a tip on what DVD authoring programs are known to work well with an Avid pipeline. They need to be professional enough to allow the use of motion graphics, layered menus, etc. etc.
Don’t worry about the learning curves; I taught myself Avid in a week when I was in high school, so I’m confident that I will be able to get the basics of any DVD program pretty quickly.
Thanks for the help guys, I’m on a tight schedule!
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8 Replies
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For the money you can’t do better than DVD Lab. For the custom motion grpahics and menus you’ll need a compositing program like After Effects or Motion and Photoshop..
https://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/dvdlabpro.html
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As long as it can loop video files created in After Effects, I’ll be happy.
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Just went through the site, and it seems at least to me that DVD Lab is pretending to be top of the line… The menu screenshots I managed to find show a very simplistic UI, and all that the site does is brag about how many cool presets it has. Are they foreign as well? The english on their website is pretty faulty grammar-wise. Sorry, but it really did not make a very big first impression on me. Are there any serious Professional programs that work well with Avid/Sorenson? DVD Studio Pro is apparently geared towards FCP, and I can’t figure out how to buy it seperately. Encore seems to be the same thing, except it is for Premiere. Do these programs work outside of their company’s branded pipeline?
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Just because a program is bundled with other software does not mean you have to use them together. Basically you can edit on whatever editing system you want, encode to mpeg2 with whatever encoder you want , and author with any authoring system you want. The only limitation is some authoring systems will be picky as to the file extension of the mpeg 2 file.
the bundles do work well together but if you are not impressed with the way DVDlab looks check out Sonic Scenarist or Creator, both are spec level tools (Expensive at that) and the interfaces are nothing like DVDSP or Encore.
I dont think DVDlab is a bad program, try the demo and go through a couple tutorials for it.
Good luck,
-Luke
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Like lukeny said…DVDLab is, by far, the most feature-packed tool available for the money. You could use Encore but it doesn’t come close to DVDLab’s advanced feature like you were asking for.
You could try Scenarist or Creator but your looking at an investment of 10s of thousands of dollars while the learning curve runs way more than a week 🙂
DVDSP is great but its mac only and you have to buy the complete FCP bundle to get it.
All DVD tools will loop a menu so if thats all you need you don’t have to look far.
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well, I’m on the trial, and their program is better than their grammar. I’ll admit that… it def seems to have everything I need. It still seems a bit childish in a few aspects, but hey if it works it works. Lets just hope I can get the encoding right, haha.
Thanks guys
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For an Avid workflow, get Roxio DVDitPro(HD) and use Sorenson Squeeze for encoding. I’ve recently seen Avid Studio Toolkit going for $399, which has the same DVD program.
Bill Stephan
Senior Editor/DVD Author
USA Studios
New York City -
Sony DVD Architect 4….do yourself a very big favor!!
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