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**wkulecz** · 15 January 2003, 07:31

Hopefully Brian will chime in, but he's mentioned a problem in DVD MF 2 where it insists on making two level menus. Which in the case of a single mpeg file with chapters means a menu with only one item and then the scene selection menu.

I'm holding off on updating untill there is a fix for this. I can't recomend DVD MF 1 -- too many bugs.

Lots of people like DVD Workshop, but its overkill for what I want to do, and can't seem to do the one "advanced" feature I want -- auto play the video only bringing up the scene selection menu if requested. Best way to buy it is get the ADS PyroDVD 1394 card bundle. About $150 on the web, you can sell the TI based 1394 card on Ebay or throw it away and still be ahead on any other way of buying DVD Workshop as far as I can tell.

I've heard good things about DVD complete from Dazzle (unfortunatley). I tried a version bundled with some Dazzle hardware that I retuned because it didn't work right. DVD complete had more bugs than DVD MF. DVD MF stacks up its operations until the end, then you can go do something else while it does its thing. DVD Complete stops dead in its tracks and makes you wait while long operations are done on imported files. This and the bugs made me not try the standalone version -- which is supposed to have more feature than the bundled version. If it was from anyone other than Dazzle I might have given it a try.

--wally.

**Brian Ellis** · 15 January 2003, 09:37

Kalispera, Mits

Brian chips in

I agree that DVD MovieFactory 1 is buggy. Movie Factory 2 has a few quirks (rather than bugs) which hopefully will be fixed with a patch (do you hear me, Jack?). The worst one is definitely what Wally mentions, about not being able to add chapters to the main menu, only to sub-menus. This may be acceptable to some, but certainly not to all users. I've now burnt about 4 real DVDs since I got it and have done many trials while beta testing MSP7, using a DVD-RW. On the whole it will work fine for most operations whether inputted with compliant or non-compliant files. It is extremely good value for money and, once the quirks are sorted out, it will be an excellent item at a fraction of the price of other comparable softwares. I say, buy it now and wait for the patch: it will be usable in the meanwhile.

One tip for MF2 though, for those in PAL- or SECAM-land. After installing it, open it up, hit the preferences and project menus (bottom left-hand corner). Set it up for PAL. Exit the menu and hit the Close button, before introducing any files. Start it up again and re-check you are in PAL. Only then start introducing your files. If you don't do this initial intermediate close, and you introduce PAL files immediately after setting it up for PAL, it may revert to NTSC all by its little self. This can cause havoc to the way it works. I know. Been there, done that

I think this is about the only real bug I found and it's easy to avoid once you know about it. Since I did it, my system has remained solidly PAL.

I've inundated the beta team with remarks about this software and I believe that a patch will be fine, hopefully as soon as possible.

**John Wray** · 15 January 2003, 19:36

I actually prefer the way DVD MovieFactory V2 handles its menus over the way it used to work in V1. The 2-level menu results in a DVD that behaves much more like a commercially-produced DVD compared with the single-level menu that you got with V1. With V1, you'd be dropped straight into a very busy chapter menu when you first started playing a disk made from a single MPEG file. With V2, you start with a pretty clean initial screen where you can put a logo, or an illustrative frame-capture from the video program, and if the user presses "Play" the program starts. However, they have the choice to select the program icon which takes them to the chapter menu.

I agree that allowing the author to choose would be best, but if Ulead can only give us one style of menus, I far prefer the V2 style than the V1 style.

John

**Ted222** · 15 January 2003, 20:05

Wally,

I think you might be wrong here: "Lots of people like DVD Workshop, but its overkill for what I want to do, and can't seem to do the one "advanced" feature I want -- auto play the video only bringing up the scene selection menu if requested."

I just did just that, just drop the video into "First Play" and then you watch the whole thing, until you press your DVD Menu button, bringing up the scene selection.

Ted

**Brian Ellis** · 16 January 2003, 03:05

Wally

I just tested MF2 for auto-starting without going through the menu procedure: pas de problème. It works faultlessly AND if you ask for the menu, up it comes

To do it, on the second phase, you Add/Edit Chapters to your delight with Create menu checked. You then check First clip as first play video and a little thingummy comes up on the thumbnail. However, there is a big but. It does not seem possible to add the first clip to the chapter menus, only the second clip onwards. There is an easy way round this: make the first clip a, say, 1/2 second black clip and make sure that the "After playback: Continue to play the next clip" is selected. This dummy clip will not show on the main menu. I'll mention this problem to the Ulead guys.

**wkulecz** · 16 January 2003, 06:58

Ted,

Does FF/REV and chapter advance buttons on the remote work while this first play item is playing? When I tried the DVD Workshop trial (when it first came out, so things might have changed) it seemed the first play item disabled FF/REV and chapter advance while playing. I might have done something wrong, but if Brian is right about DVD MF 2 it'll be all I need.

I don't think I'm wrong about "Lots of people like DVD workshop" :-)

Brian,

Sounds like you've found what I've been looking for, now are you sure they've fixed the >4GB file problem and the dead-zone problem when setting chapter points? This is the bug that has me really PO'd!

So you are saying it creates a two level menu where I never see the first menu with items: the dummy clip and my video, (I usually prefer a single mpeg file) and when I insert the disk it plays the dummy clip which chains to my video where FF/REV & chapter advance buttons on the remote will work as expected, but I can get the second level scene selection menu by pressing the remote's menu button . This is exactly what I want! I can live with using a short dummy clip to start things off.

This sounds like the Warner Bros "Mad Max" DVD that is the example of how I want my disks to work, it automatically briefly puts up the WB logo and then plays the movie, I can FF/REV or do chapter advance and never see a scene selection menu unless I ask for it to randomly access the scenes.

What about choosing a different thumnail frame in DVD MF 2, has its user interface improved? DVD MF 1 was pretty useless until I learned about the little MFscene.exe download. Unless this has improved or MFscene still works for V2 I'd still be an unhappy camper.

John,

To each his own, but I'd hold up HBO's "Sex In The City, 3rd season" as an example of self-indulgent menus that really interfere with enjoying the disk. The motion menus etc. of DVD workshop I most definetly do not want. I'm basically cheap, and prefer not to buy stuff I don't ever plan on using.

If someone thinks I'm expecting too much, tough! My New Year's resolution is to quit wasting money on stuff that doesn't let me do exactly what I want. All the money I've been wasting is instead going to getting a full-frame 35mm SLR digital camera (Kodak DCS 14n, 13.8 Mpixel, is the leading contender) and a 3-CCD DV camcorder (Sony VX2000 is leading choice so far, waiting to see what its replacement has to offer). I'm spending only the absolute minimum on computer stuff this year!

--wally.

**Brian Ellis** · 16 January 2003, 09:45

Wally

I've not had a problem with > 4 Gb files or with dead zones, to date, but it is still early days.

If you have more than one item on the main menu, you can have a sub-menu for each. Obviously, you would have to go thru' your main menu to access each, as it stands just now. Hopefully that will change.

Dunno about Mad Max: is he also a Super Mur Cer?

As for sex in the city, I live in a village of 1110 inhabitants, so I'm woefully ignorant about that kind of thing.

For your camcorder, Panasonic has some nice gear in their Pro range at not-too-exorbitant prices. I believe they're better value than the Sony kit.

**Ted222** · 16 January 2003, 11:59

John,

The FF function on some DVDs I have already created, with a short start-up video, seems to work just fine. Don't know about the Chapter Advance.

P.S. Motion menus are cool.

Ted

**wkulecz** · 16 January 2003, 12:02

For my camcorder low light performance is the key feature. Which models can claim better low light color image quality that the VX2000?

I'm not opposed to other suggestions. VX2000 is about $2300 from www.bhphotovideo.com whom I've happily done business with in the past.

Don't want to go too much higher if I can help it, their price on the Sony PD150 would be about my absolute upper limit, but the PD150 doesn't seem to have significantly better low light performance than the VX2000. I want at least 1 stop better for that much extra, which may just not be possible.

Could you take a file that had "dead zones" in DVD MF1 and try it in DVD MF2? Changing from VBR to CBR only changed the dead zone locations and durations only slightly so I'd expect a file that had them in MF1 but doesn't in MF2 to be a reasonably sufficeint test to cause me to part with my $50.

--wally.

**mits** · 16 January 2003, 13:22

Thanks a lot guys for your suggestions. I think i'll go for the ulead DVD MF2 since the DVD WS is too expensive for just home use (and i can't buy an ADS Pyro with dvd ws since i've already got one)

**wkulecz** · 16 January 2003, 15:53

Mits,

ADS PYRO ProDVD is the name of the product. Its a TI based 1394 card (worth maybe $35-50) bundled with MSP 6.5 Directors Cut and DVD Workshop. It does not include a DVD burner. Its about $150 on the web, DVD MF is about $50.

If unlike me you want flashy "professional" menus, its probably a better choice in the long run. This is the cheapest way I know of getting DVD Workshop. ADS had the 1.3 upgrade on their site a good while before Ulead got around to putting it up, so you are getting the real deal.

--wally.

**mits** · 17 January 2003, 02:08

Thanks wally,
but it was not quite clear when i wrote "i've already got one", you see, i mean that i've already got an ads pyro (basic dv model) and i don't want to get in the process of selling it and buying a new one.
Thanks anyway.

**wkulecz** · 17 January 2003, 08:03

My point is even if you throw the 1394 card away, this is still the cheapest way to get DVD Workshop, making it only about 3 times more expensive than DVD MF 2.

If you are like me and don't want the extra features in DVD Workshop, then give DVD MF 2 a try, but if you want fancy menus and control over the buttons DVD MF 2 will be a waste of $50 you could have put toward DVD Workshop.

--wally.

**Paddy** · 13 March 2003, 04:22

Hi guys.

This is my first post over here

I am looking to buy some media for a DRX-500UL (DRU-500A). Its quite expensive so i want to make sure that I get the right sort.
DVD-R seems to be the fastest and cheapest media at the moment. What brands are you guys using, or is the generic stuff OK?

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Sony DRU500, my first DVD

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