Just wanted to post up some new software that is available. It's called dvd2one found at dvd2one.com. Anyone who has been making backups of dvd movies knows that it can be a time consuming process. Especially if you have to let your computer re-encode the file over night for 10 hours. With this new software, you can use either dvddecryper or smartripper, then put the files into dvd2one, and it will re-encode the movie in less than 30 minutes. It's the big buzz around all the dvd recording forums, so I thought I'd share it here. It's a very small and cost effective program. I can rip, re-encode and burn a dvd at 2x all in 1hour now.

I've been hearing about this as well. Am looking into getting it.

It doesn't really re-encode the file, however. What it does is drop enough frames so that the file size is just perfect for a DVD-R. I havn't actually seen anything it's produced, but it seems like a good fast method that would end up looking better than uncompressing/recompressing. If I had a DVD Burner, I'd try it out.

Matthew

Now if only there were a decent program made to create real DVD videos of your own making. I've now gone through "trial" tests of all the software I've seen available to do this, and not one is a good program.

I have tried:
Ulead DVD Movie Factory
Ulead DVD Workshop
RecordNow (came with the burner, simply crashes on my PC)
RecordNow Max (several versions)
Pinnacle Studio v8
Pinnacle DVD Impression
NeroVision Express

NeroVision was technically the best because it was a free download if you own Nero 5.5, but it is still template based with very few real tweaking options. Plus, I tried a "trial" of the MPEG2 Encoder Plug-in, and I still was unable to import pre-made MP2 files (didn't give me the option).

I think the closest program to what I want to do, and isn't wizard/template based, is Pinnacle DVD Impression, or Impression Pro. However, these programs are insanely expensive, especially considering they don't do all that much, and are quite hard to use (they are the exact opposite of a wizard-based program, hardly even a help file).

Conclusion: it is still far too early in the evolution of DVD burning to have a good program for creating DVD videos. sigh...

ps-I'm so psyched. my local movie store sells all their used DVD cases, which are all in very good condition, for 10 cents each! I just picked up 19 cases for two bucks!

Again, iDVD.

It sounds to me as if DVD creation is important to you, so it might make sense to get the right tool for the job.

Actually, I just looked. Impression DVD SE is $200 retail. That's ``insanely expensive''? Or is that the one you didn't like? Even still, Pro is $400.

Well, I suppose that's not as expensive as I thought. However, a look at the interface tells me that this probably wasn't the most difficult program to make. When I see programs like Paint Shop Pro, which I get a great amount of use from, going for $70 with the JASC animation studio, I start wishing there were more decent inexpensive programs out there.

Plus, Impression Pro is not nearly worth an extra $200 over the SE version. It simply allows for more menus and additional audio tracks, which are nice, but not $200-nice.

I appreciate the plug, but if I'm not about to spend $200 on a DVD program, I'm not really ready to buy a mac just to burn some videos. I'm probably just going to wait a while for the software to catch up with the times.

I've done absolutely no research into this, so I don't know how silly a question this is...

I know that iDVD and and all the others have templates and the like for menus and such. How flexible are they? Can you create your own animated menus completely from scratch? What sort of control do you have over the background image, button placement and shape, etc.?

I should look into this further, but most reviews do not seem to care about this. They just brag about the number of stock transitions and menu layouts.

To be honest, I don't know. I don't even have a DVD burner at all. I just like giving Dignan a hard time. Sorry, dude.

Hehe, no problem. I should get used to product loyalties on this board anyway It may be the most civilized place on the internet, but it's still the internet, and everyone on it has an opinion

To answer your question, bootsy:
I've used all those programs I listed there in the past few days, and none of them are flexible. Ulead products have always been pretty crappy, and these are no exception.

Movie Factory has a list of templates. You can choose which template to use and what the button style is and what text is displayed on the menu, and that is it. Your DVD, when loaded into a player, will go right to the menu whether you want it to or not, and you can pick your chapter there.
*edit* NeroVision gives you the layout options, I think. well, the programs were very similar, but NeroVision is more reliable *edit*

Ulead DVD Workshop adds the features of choosing slight layout options and fonts and colors, and you get a little more control over the flow of the DVD, but that's it.

Pinnacle Studio 8 is much like Movie Factory.

Pinnacle Impression is the tough one. You create everything. There is no such thing as a wizard or a template in it. It is very much like Premiere in how you lay out how the video will flow, including "go to" commands/actions, how each button works, etc. You design the background for your video. You design the buttons. You connect the buttons to chapters and titles. It's a great amount of flexibility, but a steep learning curve. This is the program I'm doing the most experimenting with. However, I can't seem to import and damn video file!! I think you need "elementary streams" to import things correctly, so now I'm in the process of splitting the audio and video of a file. I'll let you know how the rest of my experiment works out...

Where did you find a trial version Pinnacle's Impression? I've wanted to try that out because it has Dolby 5.1 if I remember correctly

*cough* "trial" *cough*

Given how many of these programs are either inept or disfunctional, I think it was fair to try it out first. If the image I'm attempting to burn now works, I'll consider buying the program. I'll tell you, though, it sure took a hell of a lot to get this program to work. It seems to have specific requirements for everything, from file types to encoding settings to the file names themselves (*.m2v causes errors, but if you change the name to *.mp2, it works ).

Has anyone tried DVD X Copy? It supposedly can burn a 1:1 copy of a disc (no compression ).

I have it. It works as advertised.

Thanks, Rob. Rather than read between the lines, I'll just outright ask: do you recommend it?

I only used it to "back up" a couple DVDs. I am trying not to use it too much because almost every DVD movie has to be spanned over 2 discs.

I have double-sided DVD-Rs for this purpose, but I still have to get up to flip it.

Verdict: It does a good job of making copies of DVDs easy. However, I would not recommend it due to its best feature (1:1 copies) which is also its worst.

Dignan will NOT be satisfid with iDVD. Not even with iDVD3. It is such an simplistic program that it becomes a pain to use unless you want to drop in the most simple of files onto your DVD. you are absolutely restricted to using their templates and modifying even some things you would consider simple are often just not possible given the constraints of the program and/or templates.

There is a difference bwteen something designed to put together a movie and something to put movies onto a DVD. iDVD and most of the others listed are simple template-driven authoring packages for setting up your menus and putting content in palce. They are not designed to create the mass of that content. You'll want a good video editing application for that. Don't even say iMovie. If you were to say Final Cut Pro, then I'll agree. And Apple also has their high-end DVD authoring package which goes a thousand steps beyond iDVD.

But there are programs for Windows that are just as capable. On the template-based front I only have first-hand experience with iDVD. Blech. I have to finish burning a DVD of images and video I shot in San Fran last month. The biggest pan was that adding an MP3 seemed to suck up 12 minutes of the DVD recording space (when the disc is listed at 90 minutes using the unspecified settings that iDVD chose for me). I can't get more than one MP3 (which is really only 3 minutes of playing) onto that disc. Bummer.

Bruno

As far as editing goes, and I know this has been mentioned before, I say these three are the best, in this order:

1. Avid Xpress DV v3.5 - $1,699.00
2. Final Cut Pro 3 - $999.0
3. Premiere v6.5 - $549.00
   

As for actualy DVD authoring, I'd have to say DVD Studio Pro ($999.95) on the Mac, and (for the very serious) Scenarist ($2995.00 - $7999.95) on the PC.

Keep in mind, this is assuming you have a budget for the software, are completely dedicated to creating a quality product. I wouldn't say these are for people just fooling around, unless, of course, you just happen to have a ton of money to throw around, then why not.

I tend to always want the best of the best, hence the reason I ended up with an Empeg. I'm sure a lot of others think the same way.

No, I think your preferences are valid. The real problem is a lack of quality low end software. I refuse to believe that it is impossible to make an inexpensive product that gives you a good amount of control over everything. I would think it would be more difficult to write all that template-making crap.

Like I said, I use JASC's Paint Shop Pro over Photoshop. It's a preference that has to do with ease of use and the fact that Photoshop just has some higher level features that I won't use. PSP costs $80. I get by better in PSP, and I still have a good amount of control over the product. I'm not using MS Paint here.

So analogously, there are plenty of MS Paint programs out there (Ulead), and plenty of Photoshops (Studio Pro), but no PSP's.

Very true. However, low-end and quality, more often than not, don't go together. It's like the old saying goes: you get what you pay for. Not to say that you're wrong, I totally agree with you; there should be quality software that isn't ridiculously expensive. A major contributor to the fact that reasonably priced software is rarely high-quality is that the company does not want to allocate a large budget which provides the resources to a product that isn’t going to turn a large profit. This makes perfect sense from that point of view.

On the other hand, a product doesn’t necessarily need a large budget to be high-quality, if there are people with the knowledge and the enthusiasm to create said software and not worry about profit. This, however, is extremely rare, which you’ve already pointed out.

I think licensing of technologies, and intellectual property, play a big part in driving costs of the final product up, especially when it comes to video related software.

That makes sense. I've been wondering for quite some time now exactly how this all works.

In reply to:

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To answer your question, bootsy:

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That's what I was afraid of... thanks for the information. It is very helpful...