DVD Creation Software

[Kanati]

Since I've been working on archiving a bunch of stuff to dvd lately I thought I'd bring up the subject (it was touched on briefly in another thread totally unrelated to the subject but I figured it shouldn't hijack that one)...

Someone mentioned menus. Some people like simple menus created with a wizard (ala Ulead DVD, or Sonic MyDVD). And this person mentioned that he likes to create elaborate menus with WinOnDVD 6. Which isn't available any more I don't think.

I found a program that probably does more than Winondvd last night and thought it might be useful to mention it here.

DVDComposer is 100 dollars I think so it's not exactly cheap. But it's extremely easy to use for the amount of complexity you can toss into a dvd menuing system. It lets you import "tracks" which are the videos, chapter them if you want, create playlists, add any number of menus, buttons, etc... And once you have everything added you can tie them all together in any way you want. Video tracks can call other video tracks when they end, automatically jump to other buttons, buttons can lead to other buttons, menus, tracks, playlists...

I spent about an hour creating a rather elaborate menu for a dvd containing FLCL (for those that know what that is) with multiple menus, a soundtrack, animated buttons, each episode leading to the other when the previous one ended... I'm quite impressed with it.

However. It doesn't have burning software built in. It just creates the video and audio directories. You have to drop those into a project in nero, cdcreator, or whatever when you are done building the dvd.

But it appears to be quite worth the price.

http://www.codejam.com/download.htm

[SHS]

DVD Composer look cool thanks for the link I going have try it out
Ulead DVD MovieFactory 4
WinOnDVD is know as Roxio Creator

[nielm]

I have used tmpgenc dvd author with good results. Basic menu generation (chapter/title menus with embedded video) is supported, and it includes a burning tool, so no need for Nero: $68...
it can also create dvds from a mix of ripped VOB files from other dvds: your own 'mix tape'
http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tda.html

[SHS]

Damn this one very nice tool which eazy to use

[Kanati]

yeah... It's insanely powerful for the ease with which you can use it. It has a "wizard", but the real power is tweaking and touching things up by hand. I did find that upon my burning my dvd, there was no audio tracks. I'm not sure what went wrong there, but I'm rectifying that right now. Oh... and I forgot to add any highlighting to any of the buttons, so you didn't know where you were in the menu. Also fixed.

I looked at tmpgenc's option and it looks nice, but nowhere near as powerful as dvdcomposer. But for a more budget minded solution it would certainly do the job.

[SHS]

Kanati that why you should alway per-test before buring to a DVD disc save on trashing the disc.
Pettey all Soft DVD Player allow to run DVD folder from the hard drive.

[Kanati]

yeah, I know. I'm a dunce sometimes.