You can try free for 30 days Ulead's Video Studio 8.0. http://www.ulead.com It's the full featured program. I'm a newbie at this so I can't really comment on ease of use. It all looks difficult to me and very time consuming. I have made one great looking dvd from my mini dv camcorder though.
try Ulead Video Studio 8, it uses Nero's engine to burn if you have Nero already installed. Does a great job for slideshow of stills with transitions. also can do video production. MY 13 year old son has made some pretty neat wakeboard and snowboard videos without my assistance. Has a nice timeline for both video and audio. Can add any mp3 as soundtrack. Can burn to several formats including DVD.
DVD-Lab pro is pretty good, I tried Ulead Video Studio and I hated it! Ulead is more of an eye candy than usefullness IMHO. For basic to semi-advance authoring I recomend DVD-Lab or the pro version.
I'm beginning to suspect that most of the programs will never totally eliminat lost frames leading to the jitters (shivers...) in the final DVD-Video. So far I've tried 3 ulead products and cannot get a perfect movie without lost frames. Wasted more than 2 weeks just trying to make 3 50-60 minutes home movies. My setup are 2 P4 3GHz (laptop & desktop), 512 to 1000 megabytes RAM, more than 30G free resident HD with an empty 80G portable HD (USB 2/Firewire). Am I wrong in being pessimistic? Any suggestions short of forking out the dough without trying? Did download Ulead VS 8 more than a month ago, so I can't try it anymore. Thanks.
Hi, What do you mean By Lost Frames?? Are you Captureing Video with a Analogue Capture device or are you getting the shakey effect with DVD"s Made from Downloaded AVI files?? Let me Know Cuz I"m sure I can help you, and if you are Captureing which Capture device and Software are you useing??
Sorry, Minion. I'm using a miniDV camera now. When I view the miniDV footage on the camera playback, it looks good. When I transfer/capture (I hope that's the correct term, for downloading the footage into the PC before authoring) it into the PC (via firewire) using Ulead MF2SE or VS7SE or Ulead DVD Workshop AC-3SE, the preview screen shows jaggies or double images on moving objects which wasn't there in the original. This remains in the final DVD Video disc. Unwatchable and definitely not for archiving. I presume the capture is into AVI format which the programs then convert to MPEG2 format for the DVD Video format. I hope that clarify my comments above.
Hi, What you are seeing are Interlace Artifacts and if it Shows up on your TV Set/DVD Player then the File is probably being encoded useing the Wrong Field Order which will Make the Video Look Jumpy especially in High Motion Scenes..... Interlaced Video allways Looks that way on a PC Monitor because a PC Monitor Displays Progressive Images so when Interlaced Video is Displayed on a Progressive Monitor it Displays Both Fields at Once were it should Only display One Field at a Time... To Solve your Problem you are Going to have to use a Standalone Mpeg encoder to encode your DV AVI files to Mpeg-2 with the Field order set to "Bottom Field First" (DV AVI is allways Bottom Field First) as the Encoder built into Ulead doesn"t really have Many Encodeing settings so it basicly uses the Same settings for every File were the Settings should be setup a certain Way depending on the Type of Video File it is.... Another thing you Can do which you Might be able to Do In Ulead is to DeInterlace while encodeing to Mpeg-2 which will get rid of the Interlace Lines but can Lower the sharpness of the Image.... If you don"t know the Differance between Interlaced and Progressive check out this Page.. http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/interlace.htm If you use "Tmpgenc Xpress" to encode your DV AVI files to Mpeg-2 it will scan your File to see if it is Interlaced or Progressive and if it is Interlaced it will scan for the Field order and it will automaticly set the Field order to the Correct settings.... If you need anymore help let me know... Cheers
I have just tried TMPGEnc DVD Author and loved its easy interface, custom menus operations and really fast rendering times. The catch is my DVDs are out of a/v sync. So back to PowerProducer Gold. It has a funny kind of proprietary .RFD file extension in place of the more conventional ISO or VOB, but it does have some fairly elegant menu options and the sound sync was perfect the one time I used it. I don't know too much about the slideshow options however. One thing nobody else mentioned here is the inordinate time taken to render any DVD output - typically an all night job for anything of 90 minutes duration. I used U-Lead Video Studio 7, but found it buggy, but their help desk is really responsive. Can't say that for Sony Vegas however - tried their trial download only to find it doesn't support TV analogue capture or MPEG files off my HDD. How do you try a product that is that badly castrated? So TMPG DA is the only really fast rendering program I have encountered, but their help desk won't respond until you purchase, so I can't get answers to the A/V sync issue without paying up front - still waiting patiently to find out what their refund policy is like. Why do these guys make life so difficult?
wordsmith: "Tmpgenc DVD author" Doesn"t render your Files because it doesn"t have a Built in Encoder, all it does is Compile your Menu"s and Chapters with the Mpeg-2 file and saves it as a Video_TS folder..There is No re-encodeing going on so that is why it is So fast....If ulead Takes all Night to Make a DVD then it is Because it is Re-Encodeing the source Files which should not happen if the Files are allready DVD Compliant because it just Lowers the Quality of the Video ,so if it does it Just means the Program is Crap.... Any DVD Authoring Program that is any Good will Not re-encode allready DVD Compliant Mpeg-2 files which Most shouldn"t...If you want to try something that is Fast But has awesome Menu features is Way Better than Tmpgenc DVD author then try "DVDLab" or "DVDLab Pro" which also do not have a built in encoder so it will never re-encode your source files... Vegas Video isn"t a DVD authoring Program it is Specificly made for Captureing from a DV Camera and doing DV editing and rendering so it"s Purpose is not for the Creation of DVD"s But for Capture/Editing of DV Material... Because "Tmpgenc DVD author" doesn"t have an encoder then it shouldn"t have any effect on your Source Files Includeing affecting the Sync as Sync Problems are caused by the audio and Video Streams being Different Lengths so I suspect that your Files Might have been out of Sync allready before useing Tmpgenc DVD author ,That is Unless you are Useing Files captured with a Mpeg-2 Capture Program because some Mpeg-2 Capture Programs keep the audio and Video in Sync useing PTS Time stamps in the Video and audio stream but when Complieing in a DVD authoring Program the Files gets Re-Muxed which in Turn rewrites the PTS time code which is why you will get sync problems after editing or Authoring to DVD with Files that were previously perfectly in sync, So if this is what is happening with you then the Problem is the Capture Program you are useing and Not Tmpgenc DVD author.... Programs Like "Intervideo WinDVR 3.0" use the Proper way of keeping the audio and Video streams in sync so you should never get sync problems after editing or authoring to DVD when useing it to capture your Mpeg-2 files Pluss it"s quality is Very Good..... Cheers
Minion, what in you opinion is the best overall program transfer/capture miniDV format into the PC, video author and the convert to MPEG2 format (ISO?) and then burn onto a DVD for posterity? Or are there no such programs? Is Adobe Premier Element 1.0 any good? How about Nero Vision Express? Or should I stick to Canon Videopresenter 2.1 which came with the videocamera? This program capture the miniDv into DV format. It then convert it into a Quicktime format (?AVI) which I maybe able to the import into Ulead/Adobe/Nero to author (eg create menu/chapters and then burn into a DVD Video format on a DVD-/+R. Many thanks.
ray123. Jitters are caused by your capturing or encoding process, not authoring. Authoring doesn't modify video. YOu could have dropped frames. Here's the way I do it: Capture into virtualdub, edit, frameserve to my encoder (Mainconcept or Canopus). Author with DVDLab Pro.
Capture with WinDV or DVIO and then encode to Mpeg-2 with Tmpgenc Xpress and author to DVD with DVDLab....
If you have an Mpeg Compliant file and you are editing it in Ulead Video Studio 8 you can use/turn on SMART RENDER (DVD Compliant because it just Lowers the Quality of the Video ,so if it does it Just means the Program is Crap....) No not crap you just have to know how to use it. M
I would suspect your jitters are caused by a framerate difference between the source, and the encoded mpeg product. If the source is 25fps or 23.976fps and you're encoding to 29.97fps, you get jitters. The reverse applies as well. A little bit of file information would help here.
Now that I do all my captures from my Daytek PVR, I am finding TMPGEnc DVD Author the best by far. The amount of customization that you can do when creating tiltles is awesome. I like the editing feature where you can move through the clips a few frames at a time and really zero in on the cut points when removing commercials and other unwanted material. For those who complain about the lack of background images in TDA, try placing one of your own "stills" in the first clip. The fact that TDA allows you to enlarge the title clip to almost full screen size, means you can use the custom menu feature without worrying too much about the limited background selection. The rest of the editing features are extremely flexible, since they allow you to select button styles and position the clip frames pretty much at will. Rendering compliant digital files is quite fast compared to some other programs. So if you want simplicity and speed try TDA, and spend you money on a decent PVR (you are going to buy one sooner or later, I guarantee it).
