i am curious as to whether or not a high-end DVD authoring program such as SCENARIST has any advantages compared to a mid-range program such as DVD ARCHITECT, when burning with a not so expensive LG 4082B burner to DVD-R or DVD+R media.

not that i have nearly enough money to purchase scenarist, but i was wondering if higher end applications are an overshoot for what i have and need, or if there is better software out there that will create more reliable DVD's (using the same hardware i have), but just cost more.

thanks

Yes Scenarist does have the advantage as you can do pretty much anything the dvd spec allows and you have complete control over the domains. So you basically can make a more efficient disc and you wont need to have lots off commands which aren't needed.

There are many factors though aside from the authoring app as to how compatible a disc is. Pretty much all abstraction layer apps are going to make spec legal builds these days so you might find something your app can't do but it wont reduce the compatibility really.

Jake

As indicated you get full access to the DVD spec including full
programming and multiple angles / audio tracks etc. It can do
a lot more than a prosumer application, but it has a very very
steap learning curve. It is not a simple application to use.

The only thing it cannot do (nor any other application you can buy)
is seamless branching.

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman :

The only thing it cannot do (nor any other application you can buy)
is seamless branching. -->>>

Not totally true. You can by the Toshiba and Panasonic systems and TFDVDEdit already adds that functionality, but will soon add it to any authoring app there is out there.

Oh and it depends on your knowledge of the dvd spec as to how easy or hard Scenarist is. If you've used spec based apps then it's not that hard to pick up really. But if you haven't it can be a journey :-)

Jake

Jake: I know those products have it, but it was my understanding
they are not affordable to anyone but big companies or has that
changed? The most advanced thing I know about is Scenarist.

I talked to Scenarist and Apple at IBC last years regarding
seamless branching and neither was working on support in
their products for that.

Thanks for pointing me towards TFDVDEdit, didn't know that!

Oh you are totally correct outside of tfdvdedit. I was at NAB this year and basically there is one guy in Europe developing Scenarist, part-time! The other apps are proprietary and six figures, so yep basically we can't buy them lol.

Scenarist can sometimes trick people to think it's supports it but for true seamless branching it's big bucks or Edit+any authoring app that supports stories.

Jake

Guys:

Novice question: What's "seamless branching"? Some sort of nomenclature for menu transitions?

Regards,

Kyle "Doc" Mitchell

Seamless branching is where you have multiple different versions
of a movie on the same disc without needing to put the full movies
on there. So there is only the parts on there that are the same
and the different parts.

The most famous DVD is the Terminator 2 DVD with it's different versions.

Yep that's it but you can do lots more with it too. But due to it's highend nature that's been the main use for it. T2, Alien etc

www.tfdvdedit.com/public/83.cfm

Jake

One thing to note is that this seems to be a Mac solution. Us PC
users are out of luck it seems... (with TFDVDEdit)

There is nothing stopping a pc user from getting a mac :-) you can even get Virtual PC if you want :-)

Yep it's mac only but you don't have to have a G5 to run it. So a iMac or something would do the trick just fine.

Jake

That's true. Perhaps it will run under The MAC OS X emulator (http://pearpc.sourceforge.net/index.html) as well? <g>

I just happened to came across the DVDLab (http://dvdlab.net/dvdlab/) page today and
noticed that their Pro version seems to support seamless
branching as well! This IS a PC product. Doesn't seems to be
out either yet though.

rob, you can download and run the latest beta version of dvdlab pro for free... it'll time out after 30 days, because the developer will have an updated beta available by then... dvdlab pro is going to be a killer app.

i've heard people say that when it comes to making dvd's, you should get a mac just for dvdsp(?), it's that good... if i'm thinking of the correct app, i've run the old pc version of it, loved the interface.

Rob thanks for the MAC OS X emulator link. I'll check it out or get someone too. Nope not seamless branching I'm afraid. Just branching. But the pro version seem like a useful app for pc users. There is nothing at that price range that has that feature set on pc.

Dan, dvdsp is very powerful, at the price range it hard to find anything to compete. This dvdLab app is as close I've seen any app on the pc offer the features that would come close to dvdsp(at the price range of course). The old dvdsp was Spruce Maestro on the pc. Dvdsp isn't quite Maestro but a poor mans version that is very good.

I'll check both those links out further though guys,

Thanks,

Jake

Jake; why do you think DVDLab Pro does *not* do seamless
branching when they list it as a feature?

I'm still waiting to run PearPC (the emulator) myself as well. It
looks very interesting. From what I understand it isn't very usable
yet though. It runs pretty slow it seems.

Because:

1. I know that there would be more hooo haaaa if they did.
2. I have a very very very small I idea of what is involved in getting SB implemented having spoken and worked with TFDVDEdit programmers and there is no way that DVDLab guys would charge $200 if thats what they had.
3. I know that there would be more hooo haaaa if they did.
4. There is no where on the sites I've seen:
http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/dvdlabpro.html or
http://dvdlab.net/dvdlab/dvdlabpro.html

that seamless branching is mentioned. Movie branching is Stories in dvdsp and not the same as seamless branching.
5. I know that there would be more hooo haaaa if they did.

I think I'm going to have to check that app out, the only problem is that they say it's a *pro* app but don't answer pro questions like if it supports writing to DLT(DDP/CMF), support for dvd-9 projects, region coding, copy protection and so on. That said it looks like a very good app for $199.

Jake

Ok I now see seamless :-)

http://dvdlab.net/dvdlab/

Well they describe stories when they explain it, that is what it'll support not true SB. I'm downloading the demo to have a play though,

Jake

It doesn't smell good indeed. I couldn't believe they would have
it either. I know a bit about SB and how it works as well. Let's
just say that a Scenarist tech told me something along the lines
of: "we'd have to rewrite the engine to support it"

What I do find weird is that the program does not seem to
support multiple angles. Even in its Pro version or did I somehow
miss that part?

I guess it's easy to get excited about this stuff but when I saw the company themself say that you shouldn't use their app for commercial work I came back to reality before even opening the app! They say to use Scenarist or dvd studio pro type apps and not DVDLab.

I know at the end of the day there has to be reasons that SB is hard to come by, and that Toashiba have a dediacted encoder and system just for it!

Nope no multiple angles but they plan to add it they say. It's a beta app still and a small company so lets hope good things come for them even if they have to work up to the *pro* status.

I do like that they are trying to go the spec route and not offer all the bells and whistles that even dvdsp offers.

Jake

thanks for checking out those links jake... it was maestro i was thinking of... i believe that it used to be a very expensive hardware/software package before it all got sold to apple... i think you can still get it used on ebay and such, and the software will run without the hardware, including preview capability if you have the right player codec on your pc.

oscar has indeed advised that the beta versions of dvdlab pro should not be used for professional authoring... but when they bring out the commercial version, it's gonna rock! there is also a great support forum for the product as well... some real hard core dvd guys post regularly there.

Hi Adi.

ReelDVD belongs to the Scenarist family. Look at it as the little brother. Their program base is the same, but ReelDVD costs much much less. It's not the easiest program to work with (nor Scenarist) but it will give you DVDs as reliable as Scenarist.

Best regards,
Arnaldo

I wouldn't be fooled by the Sonic blurb. As far as I'm aware it's 'built upon the same tried-and-tested DVD formatting technology' as Scenarist but that doesn't mean it has the exact same formatting engine! Also that's just the muxer anyway right?

I've got very limited knowledge of ReelDVD. Do you have control over the domains? FP, VMG, VTSM and VTS? Can you add pre and post commands to PGCs and not use the automatic programming? Do you have access to all the spec based navigation commands?

I don't think Scenarist has family! Maybe the diff versions, Studio-Adv. ReelDVD isn't a spec based app is it? It's a very distant 8th cousin maybe as it is made by Sonic but not really a family member.

Cheers,

Jake

i don't believe that reeldvd has access to the command sets that you are referring to... why would they want it to compete with scenarist, anyway? the target market for reeldvd is simple corporate and event stuff.

imho, reeldvd is way long in the tooth, and pretty overpriced for what it's capabilities are... but it's very reliable.

various versions of the sonic dvd authoring engine(s) are in a whole bunch of pc dvd authoring packages.

Hi Dan,

thanks and I didn't think so. I wasn't trying to suggest that reeldvd was or should compete with scenarist. Just trying to get my head around the comment by Arnaldo in terms of this thread. As, as I've read things it's not been so much of a what should I use thread but more of a how does that work and how is that an advantage,

Cheers,

Jake

Just curious but where does Adobe's "Encore" fall in the spectrum? Seems like a decent program to me.

That is at most pro-sumer. This is not what you call a highend
authoring application.

Yeah that was what I was thinking but just wanted to check :) Thanks for the reply!