Best Software for Authoring BD on Macs and PCs?

[Jon Geddes]

“Best” is subjective. If you are a Hollywood studio authoring a new movie, you would be using Scenarist to incorporate all the features that are supported by the technology such as BD-J Advanced Interactivity.

The average video production company would not be best off using Scenarist, as it would be extremely expensive to purchase, make the authoring process take MUCH longer, and possibly require a specialist to use the program.

The other option is to use DVD Studio Pro or Adobe Encore for authoring, as it streamlines the authoring process yet still allows for a decent amount of control and integration with other necessary programs (such as Adobe Photoshop).

Unfortunately DVD Studio Pro does not currently support BD Authoring, so your options are to use Adobe Encore, or a more user friendly (and less control) alternative such as Ulead, Roxio, or Cyberlink products.

I actually prefer using Encore over DVD Studio Pro, and recommend it for use with our Pro Motion Menu Kits, which use advanced motion menus for Blu-ray and DVD. Many people have been turned off from Encore because of the many bugs it has. Luckily we have discovered the cause and found a solution for each and every one we encountered, allowing us to successfully author a Blu-ray disc which incorporates completely custom motion menus, seamless menu transitions, Scene Selection Menus with animated video of the chapters, Pop-up Menus, and wonderful H.264 compression.

I provide complete walkthrough tutorials on our website which demonstrates how to author a Blu-ray / DVD disc in Encore, and avoiding the many bugs of the program. This is available for everyone, not just customers. It can be accessed from the tutorial section of our website, under product tutorials.

Jon Geddes
Providing the Best Motion Menu Templates Available for Video Production
http://www.precomposed.com

[Greg Wallace]

Hi Thomas,

I agree with Jon that “best” is very subjective. I also think he does a nice job outlining the options, with the exception that he left out my company’s DoStudio line of authoring tools – these range from $2,995 to $4,995. There’s been plenty written about DoStudio on this and other forums.

I should also say DoStudio is PC-based, though we have several customers running it on Bootcamp…

Greg

[David Cervenka]

Which of these applications support creating a BluRay master that can be used for replication?

[Michael Sacci]

if you are going out to replication, you probably want to look at Do Studio.

[David Cervenka]

Thanks Michael! Do you have any personal experience with their product?

I checked their website and it appears they have “200+ Replicated Titles Worldwide”, but after the Encore mishap I want to avoid anymore costly road blocks. I noticed in their comparison (https://www.netblender.com/main/products/dostudio-bd-authoring-edition-dsa/comparison/) that the DoStudio does *not* offer “Sony CMF Formatting” How critical is this to the replication process?

[Larry Applegate]

Hi David,

The Sony replication plants started with their own format, Sony CMF, but they now support the more widely used BDCMF, so that should not be a problem.

Regards,

Larry