Other DVD programs?

Do anyone use anything else then DVDSP here?
I have only been using DVDSP for about a year now, and I never used anything else. So I don´t know how well DVDSP holds up too other applications.

I been told that Sonic is a bit more free, but I´m not sure what that means in the everyday workflow.

I went to sonic´s site hoping to find a free trial, but now luck. If anyone know of any other app that has stuff like that, please let me know.



Dodo
(Sweden)

I played with the Sonic apps. ReelDVD was okay, quality was good, but not as flexible for my needs as DVDSP. The only other Sonic product I looked at was Scenarist. It had all the flexibility I needed, but the steep learning curve and outrageous price turned me off completely.

Until I run across something I that I need and can't do in DVDSP, I'll stick with it.

I use Sonic Scenarist (Win) & Creator (OS9)! They are very different beasts... They are spec based apps so you have complete control over Domain layouts and PGC structure etc.

DSP does lots of work for us. When we click add track and set it to the first play it all seems so easy but DSP is adding commands to the first play PGC and then jumping off to PGCs in the VMG before heading off to the Title PGC in the VTS where the track is etc. In spec authoring you have 16 GPRMs cause nothing is done for you, DSP uses 8 GPRMs for the behind the scenes programming.

There are a lot of different options with the two Sonic Apps but they are basically the high-end DVD apps. Spruce Maestro (Win) is no longer being developed, its been discontinued but ranks just after those two. DSP has grown and grown and is now even more powerful than ever. It has to win the award for biggest bang for the buck.

[www.dvd-replica.com]

-Jake
(I love Stockholm)

DVD Studio Pro compares very well with Adobe Encore, which is its' main competitor (PC only). Encore doesn't have ANY scripting support, which kind of rules it out for pro work, right? I would like Motion to export DVD SP highlight maps, in the way After Effects does that for Encore (but Motion embeds loop point markers, which is really cool). Also, as far as I have seen, Encore doens't support multi-language menus. And since it doesn't have scripting, I'm not sure if multi-language can be "forced" in the way some users do with scripting in DVD SP (by the way, multilanguage menus are BROKEN in DVD SP 4, let's hope they find out and fix it soon).



Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

IMHO, DSP is way above Encore. I'd say that the lesser-known (possibly?) DVDLab Pro is probably a closer match in the bang for the buck stakes... as it has command sequences etc. even pre & post command access AFAIK...

-Jake

Yes, Jay, I also believe DVD SP is way above Encore It does support video out, but it does it through Firewire DV, which being such a different compression scheme to MPEG-2, it's "getting an image to a monitor" more than "monitoring" in the sense of getting a reliable output. Apple seems to be aware that it's not really a solution (why they don't do it through Decklink or AJA is another matter!)

DVDLabPro, I've been to ther web site and I really didn't see a reason to use it instead of DVD SP, other that not having a Mac. It looks good on paper (or screen) but I have no idea how well it actually works.



Adolfo Rozenfeld
Buenos Aires - Argentina
www.adolforozenfeld.com

DVDLab works *very* well. I bought a copy after running the demo for a while and was very impressed with what it can do.

There are plenty of reasons why you should look at alternatives to your current software - for me it is about flexibility. I don't actually envisage using anything other than DVDSP for the vast majority of the work I do -but DVDLab provides me an alternative and a very good one at that... and well within most folks' price range.

I've yet to use some of the more advanced features on it, but it has scripting, cell access, templates, play lists... menu allocation to any domain... in fact, it rivals many of the features of Scenarist and is easier to use, IMO.

Don't get me wrong - I will continue to be using DVDSP for many years yet, I dare say, but in terms of an alternative PC app within the same price range, this is the puppy!

I was very impressed with the image quality of Devideon when i experimented with it a couple of years ago but because you can't "own" a copy of it if you don't own a Maxtor burner (I think its Maxtor) I gave up experimenting. I turned to FFMPegX for alternatives to DVD-SP and iDVD, it's a very clever program for all sorts of different formats but there it ends, no authoring!