Suggestions on Blu-Ray authoring software

Hi all. I'm a PC user, using lately Sony Vegas Pro ver 8 to do my editing and encoding and currently using DVD Architect 5.0 for authoring the DVDs that I make.

I'm buying a blu-ray burner soon and looking for suggestions on what disc authoring software to use for the Blu-Ray disc authoring, so that I can make nice menu's etc. I suspect there's something a bit more feature rich than DVD Architect for the PC platform? Would upgrading to Vegas Pro Ver 9 be worth it? It appears to me that Vegas Pro ver 9 uses the same DVD Architect ver 5 that I currently have.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Hi

Well there is DVDit Pro HD

You can make a Blu_Ray and then a normal DVD from the same project.

Hi

Well there is DVDit Pro HD

You can make a Blu_Ray and then a normal DVD from the same project.

Thanks Wagsy.. I'll take a look at that.

I like TMPGEnc Authoring Works. It's very robust and also quick to get a project done, but it's actually less featured than DVD Architect. It only does 2 subtitle tracks and I cannot find a way to put a "resume" function in the menu.

One problem with DVD Architect is that it won't do a smart render of HDV material (by which I mean it always re-encodes the original footage with a slight loss of quality). Not a problem where your footage has effects/titles because it has to re-encode anyway but unnecessary if you want to get your original footage direct to Bluray without any re-compression. TMPGEnc Authoring Works will do a smart render.

By the way, do your research on the Vegas forums before diving into 9.0. There have been numerous reliability issues with it. If you're getting on well with 8.0 then probably best stick with it.

I found this online if it helps anyone ...

http://www.macvideo.tv/dvd-authoring/featu...pe=samechandate

Dive safe

DeanB

I feel that 2010 is going to be the year of the Blu Ray, it's funny I never thought it was that popular until I was doing some Christmas shopping on the 24th (like most men!) and an electrical store was selling Blu Ray players for $150 AUD and an HD TV for $499. Pretty bloody cheap if you ask me.........

By the way, do your research on the Vegas forums before diving into 9.0. There have been numerous reliability issues with it. If you're getting on well with 8.0 then probably best stick with it.

Thanks for all the input from everyone.

I've discovered a "bug" in my ver 5.0b of DVDA.. that has me at my wits end. And of course no help so far from the tech support at Sony Creative Software to date. It seems that whenever I add any "music" to any menus.. the menu will only play for 10 second then the menu stops functioning. Menus without music work fine and all buttons and actions work, menus with music wont play for more than a few seconds. It only cost me about $50 in BD-Rs to figure this out. Im about ready to check out some of these other authoring programs that were suggested.

Good to see you are having fun Mike.

Yeh.... DVDit Pro HD works pretty good.

Blu_Rays have been out for many years now and Sony are pushing them but the cost of blank disks is just stupid and so is the replication.

Then there is the Hollywood blu_ray thingy.......O you have not got the correct screen, cable and video card so .......you can still watch me but I'm going to drop the resolution on ya.

Disks need to get down under a 1$ each, they probably make then for 5 cents each.

That's why it has not taken off yet for small business and home users.

The best it to make your blu_ray, compile it to your hard drive then make sure it works.

If happy then burn that to a disk or even a rewrite one.

Its not good to burn straight from the authoring program to disk.

Good to see you are having fun Mike.

Yeh.... DVDit Pro HD works pretty good.

 

Blu_Rays have been out for many years now and Sony are pushing them but the cost of blank disks is just stupid and so is the replication.

Then there is the Hollywood blu_ray thingy.......O you have not got the correct screen, cable and video card so .......you can still watch me but I'm going to drop the resolution on ya.

Disks need to get down under a 1$ each, they probably make then for 5 cents each.

 

That's why it has not taken off yet for small business and home users.

 

The best it to make your blu_ray, compile it to your hard drive then make sure it works.

If happy then burn that to a disk or even a rewrite one.

Its not good to burn straight from the authoring program to disk.

Thanks Wagsy for the tips.. I really appreciate it. Good idea on the testing to Disc from the HDD first. Yes.. them discs are not cheap.

I wasnt able to locate a "trial" version of DVDit PRO HD.. and the cheapest that I can find is around $250. Last night I tested the trial version of TMPGEnc Author Works. With that one simple quick test I already see that TMPGEnc is much better at the task than Sony DVD ARchitect. DVDA always re-encoded the material which was often unnecessary and time consuming.. not TMPEnc. I've also noticed that the text in the menus in TMPGEnc is much crisper.. plus it supports popup menus, something different. My DVDA has a "bug" as noted earlier and I've spent a week emailing with sony support and have them stumped. Not a good sign. So.. I may give TMPGENc Author Works a try as it is only costs around $90 USD.. a reasonable price for my home use.

When ya coming up to Seatte WA? Make it this way someday and we'll take you on a real "muck" dive.

I've discovered a "bug" in my ver 5.0b of DVDA.. that has me at my wits end. And of course no help so far from the tech support at Sony Creative Software to date.

....

I have similar experience. DVD Architect 5.0b (build 180) which is the latest available version, seems to have surprisingly many and fatal bugs. However, for editing the Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 is really good.

Unfortunately Sony has not had interest to develop these product to same quality level.

In my project, I have tried to compose a blu-ray, containing ca 24 videoclips, with total lengt of close to two hours. This seems to be too much for DVDA; it freezes in menu building phase. This is very frustrating.

I tried also blu-ray authoring feature in Nero -package (Neero Vision), but it is also very unflexible - you are allowed just to use existing layouts.

Thereforee I'm also currently looking for better authoring software. I see there already some tips - have too take a look at those.

/ Kai

I have similar experience. DVD Architect 5.0b (build 180) ...

 

Thereforee I'm also currently looking for better authoring software. I see there already some tips - have too take a look at those.

 

/ Kai

I still use Vegas Pro for editing and encoding.. I'm happy with it.. but I have now switched to TMPGENC Authorworks 4 for the Blu-Ray authoring and burning. It works MUCH better than DVD Architect, is stable (for me), I've seen no bugs. It has a wizard to walk you throught a menu based design.. or you can dig deeper and totally customize your menu's. It supports the Blu Ray spec way better than DVDA did in that it has popup menus, and a few other tools that DVDA did not... and most importantly it will not re-encode the video if its already in the proper format thus making the process faster and the final disc quality better. I'm very pleased so far with Authorworks 4. They have a trial version that you can download and run for a short time to get a look at it before buying.

The best it to make your blu_ray, compile it to your hard drive then make sure it works.

If happy then burn that to a disk or even a rewrite one.

Its not good to burn straight from the authoring program to disk.

Completely agree with Wagsy. Though I am on a Mac with DVD Studio Pro, once the DVD is built and archived as a disc image, I can then test it out on with the Mac's DVD player. If it plays well there, I know it will be a good burn and then use Disc Utility to actually burn it.

Steve

.....

The best it to make your blu_ray, compile it to your hard drive then make sure it works.

If happy then burn that to a disk or even a rewrite one.

Its not good to burn straight from the authoring program to disk.

Technically - if we mean quality of the video - it does not matter if you burn at first to HD and then to blu-ray, or directly to blu-ray. However, your procedure has a point: writing to HD at first might be faster way to get the first touch to the video, and go back to editing if tuning is needed.

Alternatively, I often leave my PC to build blu-ray over night, and I use re-writable blu-ray (which costs ca 13-14 eur). This allows me to do testing also in "real environment" in addition to PC. So this is another way to avoid burning of test copies to expensive blu-ray discs.