What the best DVD Authoring Program out there?

[Wolvereen]

I am looking for several options. What are the best SOFTWARE DVD authoring programs out there? Under $1000 and over $1000?

I basically need some options to research for my work place. Price may or may not be an issue.

Thanks!

[BurninMan921]

I've yet to find one that works 100%. But I can say avoid Dazzle DVD Complete. Buggy, buggy, buggy. Sonic 4 seems ok but is dog-a** slow, as is Pinnacle 8 (assuming you're trying to convert AVI/MPG's into DVDs).
Nero 5.x's Nero Vision is another biggie to avoid: no video options what-so-ever. TMPEGenc DVD-Author seems quite good, but it's menu creation system isn't the easiest to use.

The programs also seem to greatly vary in how much video they'll let you pack onto a disc. Using ~440-450MG MPEG2 source files, Sonic allows 6, TMPGenc DVD Author 9, Nero 6's Nero Vision *2* (WTF??). It would seem TMPGenc/Sonic mostly keep the video format intact, while Nero recodes into weather or not the orginal video file is DVD-compliant (case in point: try adding fresh-from-the-DVD .VOB's and Nero either takes forever transcoding it for no reason or just crashes and says it can't transcode it. Argh!! Stupid Nero!).

If you just want to take videos from several DVDs (TV episodes, music videos, etc). then the new DVD Shrink 3 (currently in a very stable beta) is about the best you can get...but it is 100% a DVD-Video backup tool only. But hey, it's free...

[burninfool]

It depends on what you want to do:Ulead Media Studio,SonicFoundry Vegas Video 4+ and Scenarist are professional authoring apps. that cost $600-2000USD.
www.ulead.com
www.sonic.com
www.sonicfoundry.com

[Wolvereen]

I basically want to take my output from an NLE (I use Avid XPress or Sonic FOundry Vegas) and create menus, etc for DVD.

How is Adobe Encore? Or Sonic Solutions Scenario?

[MikeTR]

I basically want to take my output from an NLE (I use Avid XPress or Sonic FOundry Vegas) and create menus, etc for DVD.

How is Adobe Encore? Or Sonic Solutions Scenario?

Do you happen to mean Sonic Scenarist? It's a very good, though difficult program. Check out this site for all the info you need:http://www.doom9.org

[UALOneKPlus]

Can you explain some more about the problems with Nero 6?

What is transcode?

I'm waiting for Nero 6 to stabilize before I install it and test out encoding my camcorder .AVI files into MPEG2 format to burn to DVD. Is this an issue with Nero 6??

I've yet to find one that works 100%. But I can say avoid Dazzle DVD Complete. Buggy, buggy, buggy. Sonic 4 seems ok but is dog-a** slow, as is Pinnacle 8 (assuming you're trying to convert AVI/MPG's into DVDs).
Nero 5.x's Nero Vision is another biggie to avoid: no video options what-so-ever. TMPEGenc DVD-Author seems quite good, but it's menu creation system isn't the easiest to use.

The programs also seem to greatly vary in how much video they'll let you pack onto a disc. Using ~440-450MG MPEG2 source files, Sonic allows 6, TMPGenc DVD Author 9, Nero 6's Nero Vision *2* (WTF??). It would seem TMPGenc/Sonic mostly keep the video format intact, while Nero recodes into weather or not the orginal video file is DVD-compliant (case in point: try adding fresh-from-the-DVD .VOB's and Nero either takes forever transcoding it for no reason or just crashes and says it can't transcode it. Argh!! Stupid Nero!).

If you just want to take videos from several DVDs (TV episodes, music videos, etc). then the new DVD Shrink 3 (currently in a very stable beta) is about the best you can get...but it is 100% a DVD-Video backup tool only. But hey, it's free...