I have no interest in paying another $200 for a super deluxe DVD authoring program that I'll never use. What are my options?

I have heard that vegas is the program of choicefor audio and video editing.

Thanks
Bryan

Vegas 4 +DVD includes DVD Architect for authoring DVDs. It also includes the Dolby 5.1 encoder.
And yes, Vegas is an excellent instrument for video and/or audio editing. Download the demo and give it a try.

And while the cost of Vegas+DVD is about $200 more than just Vegas, think of it as buying the AC3 5.1 encoder and getting the DVD authoring program thrown in for free. If you look at the price of the AC-3 add-on, you'll see what I mean.

That wasn't my question.
"I have no interest in paying another $200 for a super deluxe DVD authoring program that I'll never use. What are my options?"

I've spent enough that i don't want some marketing person parting me from another $200 foe absolutely no good reason.\

It is very doubtfull that I would ever afford the sound system to capture such an extravgent scenario.

When you ask a wide open question like "What are my options?" and imply that you are looking towards Vegas, you shouldn't be surprised that you get answers detailing the benefits of that particular applicaton, even in regards to the cost of it.
You should be more precise about what or who you mean with "some marketing person". And if you think you won't use what you buy, why do you bother buying anything at all?

Again , no answer to what I thought was a simple question.

Let's try this one more time
1. I need a better NLE and I will buy Vegas 4.

2. I don't want to spend an additional $200 on a 5.1 authoring program that I will never use. I don't care how wonderfull it is.

3. Does BASIC Vega 4 have basic DVD authoring available?

4. If not are there reasonably priced authoring programs available that anyone would recomend. This would be used in concert with Vegas4.

I think it's very reasonable to not want to waste $200 on something I consider useless.

"3. Does BASIC Vega 4 have basic DVD authoring available?"

Vegas 4 without +DVD doesn't have DVD authoring. Maybe you should explain what you mean by "basic DVD authoring".

Vegas 4 cannot author DVDs without the +DVD option. The following programs can be used in conjunction with Vegas 4 to author DVDs. They sell for US$100 or less.

1. DVD Lab (http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/)
2. Sonic MyDVD (http://www.mydvd.com/plus/default.asp)
3. Ulead DVD Movie Factory (http://www.ulead.com/dmf/runme.htm)
4. NeroVision Express (http://www.nero.com/us/631898241456563.html) - comes with Nero version 6

Hello Bryan,

Do you already have your DVD burner? Most of the DVD packages I have seen come with some sort of basic DVD authoring program.

There is another site you might want to look at for strictly DVD related information: http://www.dvdrhelp.com

They have one tutorial on authoring a DVD with strictly free software.

Hope that helps.

Even if you will NEVER use the 5.1 encoding, you STILL need the AC-3 encoder to make your audio smaller. You can get much more video on a DVD at a much higher bitrate when the audio is encoded to STEREO AC-3. So, yes, it is still a feature you NEED.

1) You have a bad attitude.

2)

"3. Does BASIC Vega 4 have basic DVD authoring available? "

No.

3)

"4. If not are there reasonably priced authoring programs available that anyone would recomend. This would be used in concert with Vegas4."

Yes, Vegas + DVD. You will need the AC-3 and MainConcept MPEG-2 encoders it comes with anyway That's what you should get. If you want to spend less, then I suggest you get an even more "useless" DVD authoring system that comes free with your burner. That would be Sonic DVDIt "Lite" or some other piece of junk that can't even do 16x9.

Peter
I seem to get along fairly well in all the other DVinfo forums. Bad attitude, I think not, because I dare to question an extra $200. I think it is you that have the bad attitude. Comments like yours can be found on other forums, usually not DVInfo.net. We share information here.

If I know a subject , I will endeavor to spend hours sharing my knowledge. thank you , Peter for yours.

Thank you Hans, Darrel , Michael and Edward for attempting to answer my question. With all my recent expenditures, I'm a little gun shy (cash shy) and only want to spend what i have to.

Darrel
Thank you for your interest. Yes I have a burner although I've spent more time on the production side of things. I probably will go the whole 9 yards.

Right now i can't see or don't understand the value of 5.1 technology

Bryan,
English is not my first language and maybe I don't read it right, but I think your original question requires a clairvoyant person to find out what you mean. And when someone else tries to guess what you mean, in order to help, because your question wasn't properly put together, they're met with "That wasn't my question" and "I don't want some marketing person to part me from another $200 ... "
If that's not bad attitude, what is it then?

Lets refrain from calling people things etc., please. It is obvious
that not everybody is understanding your question(s) Bryan, but
they are trying to help you answer it.

Keep in mind that AC3 encoding (dolby digital) does not have to
be surround. You can do 2.0 (stereo) or 1.0 (mono) too if you want.

Even though the DVD option of Vegas offers a lot it isn't an
advanced DVD authoring package. To the best of my knowledge
it can't do subtitling or have multiple audio streams and multiple
video streams to do multiple angle DVD's.

If you just want to burn a movie to a DVD without a menu etc.
or other fancy stuff, Michael proposed some fine alternatives.

In its basic form Vegas has no DVD capability whatsoever with
the exception of supporting MPEG2 export.

So you either buy the + DVD package to get a DVD authoring
application that supports the basic authoring needs and a few
extra's like AC3 encoding (in stereo or surround if you want)
or get another authoring application to use.

As said earlier, you can get demos of both Vegas and Architect.
Perhaps you should try the authoring package and see if it is
worth $200. If you don't want to spend that kind of money look
at other authoring applications.

I think Nero can make a movie only DVD disc as well. Keep in
mind that a DVD is something other then just exporting an
MPEG2 file. You need authoring in form or another [which Nero
is offering as a very basic feature in their burning program]

Hope this has helped and explained things a bit "better".

Yo Beaser---Let me step in here---I think that DVD Architect is a sufficent program to author basic DVDs. Its version 1.0 and not bad for a first effort---Is it worth the extra dough---I'm not so sure at this point---Some one wrote a real neat DVD authoring software that is very cheap and as powerful (short of the 5.1 stuff etc) but I forget the name. I would pull the trigger on Vegas and maybe do some more research on basic DVD authoring programs. Hope you are well.