Has anyone compiled a list of the DVD authoring programs, maybe with features -- or are there too many to do that.
Are there a few that are somewhat considered best of breed.
I wouldn't mind spending the money (within reason) for a good one, that is powerful, yet relative easy to use. I would just like to get everything all at once, not find out later that the program is lacking some basic features.
Best bang for the buck: DVDLab
Best advanced app :DVDLab Pro
Best professional app: Sonic Scenearist
Average home user apps: Ulead, TMPGEnc DVD Author, and almost all others.
There are others, costing thousands, that are "true" professional apps, but usually not worth it for the home user.
Yeah, I take back my comment about a list of DVD Authoring programs -- there are way too many and they become a big blur after awile.
I have probably a hundred VHS tapes to copy to DVD (I am backing up some VHS tapes, most 1/2 an hour) to DVD. I figured after I got them to DVD, I would combine some of them together with a good authoring program.
As I mentioned, I want a good, no, I want the best authoring program I can get (without spending thousands of dollars, or course) -- so I appreciate your input.
I was playing with DVDLab Author (not even the PRO) and it will let you do a lot of things. I know it will let you design your own menu and I think you can add music, but not really sure about that. I stopped messing with it when I finally got everything figured out enough to burn a pretty nicely designed menu and chapters, but I couldn't get Nero to burn it -- but when I burned it with the internal burning program, it worked pretty good.
However, I abandoned it as an authoring tool that my father-in-law could handle -- it is way beyond his capabilities. (I guess I didn't mention that in this thread that all of this VHS conversion is a project of my father-in-laws -- I am just doing the research in finding him the tools to burn these 100+ VHS tapes to DVDs, with maybe a little editing thrown in.
But getting back to authoring, I find the TMPG Authoring tool to be a great little basic authoring application -- and I think even my father-in-law could learn to use it (he's 80 and not computer literate). I was impressed with my first project I did -- set up 3 tracks, 5 film clips, and a dozen chapters on one of the tracks -- and everything worked, it burned with no problem, and played well on my DVD.
