What’s the best/most popular DVD authoring software for Windows???

[Craig Townsend]

Personally speaking , I really like DVD Lab Pro(www.mediachance.com). I have Encore 1.5 and ReelDVD but prefer DLP, which is even the cheapest. They have a 30 day demo- give it a try. BTW, their Menu Studio works quite nicely with it also.

Craig

Craig Townsend

[Jason Casey]

I would go with ReelDVD from Sonic. I’d avoid DVD Lab unless they got all the problems fixed that were in the earlier versions.

[Robert Wilson]

I’ll second DVD-Lab Pro. It’s an amazingly powerful software package for the price. I’m not sure what Craig Townsend meant by problems as I haven’t experienced any and I’ve authored many DVDs over the past two years with it.

[Jason Casey]

A while back the program took a lot of “shortcuts” to author dvd’s and often caused playback problems because the discs we not within the DVD Spec. It also allowed you to use files that weren’t within the DVD spec, and people who didn’t know what they were doing would use those kinds of files and cause lots of problems. I work at a DVD duplication place and when this program first came out it was a nightmare. Pretty much every time we had a problem duplicating someones discs and we would ask them what program they used…they would say DVD Lab. Their Multimedia Program rocks and I absolutely love it….DVD Lab on the other hand…still wouldn’t reccomend it to anyone.

[Robert Wilson]

I wasn’t aware of those issues. I guess I’ve had great success with DVD-Lab Pro (I didn’t use the non-pro version much) because I am fairly aware of what the DVD spec requires.

[Chris Borjis]

I’ve heard from some DVD-Lab Pro users that most all of the
early build bugs have been worked out and it is now quite
solid with every new release.

I’m half tempted to buy it now.

[Craig Townsend]

You’ve probably already noticed this but it was Jason, not me, that mentioned problems with DVD Lab Pro. 🙂 I just made a master using it and the duplication place didn’t have any problems at all with it and it’s played fine in a number of players now. I did avoid it until recently because there were some issues but mainly because I needed DLT support earlier. I’ve been very pleased with it and have run into fewer problems than with Encore. It does check the source files and will give you a warning if it doesn’t like what it sees- severe or just informational, depending on the reason. It also gives you anumber of utilities that other apps. don’t have for looking at GOP’s, NTSC levels for menus, etc.

Craig

Craig Townsend

[Robert Wilson]

Yes, I looked at the thread incorrectly. You have my apologies.

I also agree that DVD-Lab Pro seems to be very good about reporting possible problems before compiling a DVD project. I remember it reporting to me once that I had a hanging menu and darned if it wasn’t right.

[Frank Weber]