DVD authoring/editing software

[bystander]

Can anyone recommend me some good DVD creating & authoring software?

I've got Nero Vision Express 3, but it's a bit limited in some areas (for example the DVD background animations and sounds can only be 11 seconds long and the menu construction is a bit limited).

I've tried Ulead MovieFactory, although that keeps crashing when trying to burn the finished project. Roxio Easy and CD & DVD is too limited (anyone know what Easy Media Creator 7 is like?) like Nero Vision Express, so I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for me to try?

 

[Zaphod]

Have a look at DVD-lab.

 

[NVNDA]

Try a demo of Sony Vegas 6 and Sony DVD Architect. Both are really simple to learn, and can be quite powerful for editing and making DVDs. (Vegas is used for video editing)

 

[TheAutomator]

Premiere Elements

If you are working with DV files, and are looking for a combination video editor and DVD authoring software, I'd check out Preimere Elements. Top notch editing and effects, and the DVD creation is very flexible. There are a bunch of templates, or it integrates with Photoshop to create custom layouts.

I would not recommend Premiere if your source files are already in Mpeg2/DVD complient format, like from a capture card. I have had a ton of problems with the transcoding.

For files that are already in Mpeg2 DVD compliant format, I use Ulead Movie Factory and Video Studio almost exclusively. They are great for doing simple edits (like cutting commercials) and creating a DVD with a simple Background, Icon, and Text menu. These are also the only programs I have found that allow you to make edits/cuts, export video and burn without transcoding. Saves me a ton of time, and there is no image quality difference from the original.

I would recommend you investigate why your Ulead software is failing. Also since it is just the burning portion that is causing the problem, I'd consider using Ulead to export to an ISO or the VIDEO_TS structure and using Nero to burn.

 

[DigitalSoul]

I use TMPGEnc DVD Author. Its pretty straight forward and much better than NeroVision, imo. DVD-Lab is also good if you want to get into more advance DVD authoring.

 

[bystander]

Thanks for everyone's help and suggestions.

DVD-lab is a little overwhelming for me. Sony Vegas and DVD Architect the trial version doesn't allow the use of MPEG files so I didn't end up using that.

I also tried Intervideo WinDVD Creator, although it, like Nero and Roxio, is too limited and is a bit buggy.

TMPGEnc DVD Author is probably the best out DVD authoring software although it unforutnately for me sticks watermarks across the menu (I'm just converting some SVCDs to DVD, so I'm unlikely to use the software again once I've done this).

The Ulead VideoStudio software was the software I ended up using, easy to use wizards and fairly flexible. I also used Womble MPEG video Wizard to edit the videos (mainly just joining the two SVCDs segments together). If I tried to use VideoStudio to join the two parts of the movies together it would end up being over 6 GBs! If I added them separately to the DVD creator section I could see they were only 1GB each...

As for my MovieFactory problems it was crashing out during the transcoding so I'm not sure what's up with that since Video Studio works. Edit: forgot to add that I used SUPER (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer) to transcode the videos, which is free and supports quite a few formats.

On a side note I've learned not to use Nero when trying to join to video segments together, as it reported to me it would take 6 hours to complete!