DVD Authoring with menus

Rhyan

New Member
Hi,

I've been reading various posts about .ts editing and authoring with interest. I see there's a lot of love for VideoReDo in terms of editing and authoring. Having played with a trial copy of the TV Suite for a short while, I think it's great.

However, as you can see from this thread on the VideoReDo forum, I've discovered that it doesn't do all that I'd like it to.

Basically I'd like to take multiple titles (in my case episodes of Peppa Pig recorded from Channel 5 - for my 2 year old, I might add!), trim the padding off, and burn them to a DVD. On the DVD, I'd like a simple menu system (not that bothered about animated thumbnails and all that kind of jazz) that gives me the option of either selecting an individual episode (after which it returns to the main menu) or selecting "play all" (so all titles are played in sequence, after which it returns to the main menu). It seems VideoReDo can only do one or the other, not both at the same time.

Does anyone know of any alternatives that can do this (other than DVD Lab Pro, which someone suggested on the VideoReDo forum - I don't have $250 to burn on software!)?

I see that ConvertXtoDVD ($50) might just do the trick, so I'm playing with a trial version at the moment. It looks quite invovled (the manual is 300 pages!).

The only downside I can see to ConvertXtoDVD is that it doesn't have any video editing software for trimming the episodes down. I'd rather not pay for VideoReDo purely for the editing, so I'm trying out Freemake for that at the moment (not particularly successful so far - it ground to a halt when I moved the slider bar to the end of the episode - but it's early days). It's a shame that HDTVtoMPEG2 only handles HD files, as that looks good for editing, too (and allows you to save it back to .ts, whereas Freemake does not).

Any further thoughts or suggestions for DVD authoring?

Thanks!

Rhyan
 
I agree with what you say - my trials with a few free or low cost video editing suites leads me to the same conclusion about DVD authoring, which is capable of far greater flexibility than these suites are able to support and it is very disappointing. I have a long-term project where I would like several paths through the video material, and for the video sections not necessarily to be at the same encoding quality (to make it all fit).

I have opened a similar topic previously - when I find it I will insert the link into this post.
 
Nero Vision Express will trim and produce menus, It is not exactly free but it is quite often bundled with DVD writers (or it used to be)
 
From what I've seen after a brief search, Sony DVD Architect seems to tick all the boxes ... I see that Amazon sell v11 of the Movie Studio for not much more than the v10 (given in the above link).

I think I'll download a trial copy tonight and try it out.

Thanks!
Rhyan
 
Not sure if it depends on what flavour of o/s you've got but I ended up with Vista Home Premium on my laptop which has Windows DVD Maker on it and that does what I think you're after in terms of making the DVD but not clipping though - you drag your movie files on (like Windows Movie Maker) and then define a menu screen which allows 'chapter select' in DVD speak and press OK and you get a "menu'd up" DVD.

Alternatively I have been a fan of this website (www.techsupportalert.com) for some years now and always check here for Freeware - I've never had any trouble with applications recommended here and they usually list proper freeware not trialware (but as always please take whatever precautions you feel are necessary with downloaded software).

This is their page on DVD Authoring Click Here which might provide some useful free solutions.
 
Well, the Sony Vegas Movie Studio is stumbling at the first hurdle for me. None of the .ts files I exported from my HDR-T2 seem to load (SD and unencrypted). Although, oddly, the same .ts files that I trimmed (and re-saved as .ts files) with VideoReDo do load fine. As does the mpg test file I trimmed and saved using Freemake.

Anyone had experience with this problem? Is there anything I can do except convert the native .ts files from the HDR-T2 to something more palatable to the Sony software (which is an extra faffy step I don't really want - this is taking long enough already)?
 
Wht don't you do the basic editing in videoredo and output the edited files, there's no need to use the editor at all. Then just use DVD architect to create the DVD structure you want from the Videoredo created output. Use each file to create a multititled DVD with whatever menu structure you want. .

eg
Play All, Select Individual Titles (and chapters within each title if you wish).
 
Wht don't you do the basic editing in videoredo and output the edited files, there's no need to use the editor at all....

The thought had crossed my mind, but that would mean me buying the VideoReDo software as well as the Sony software (I'm only running the free trial versions of both at the moment).

I may well have to persevere with Freemake as the (free) editor/converter when my VideoReDo trial ends, until I find something more stable for SD content (not having great experiences with Freemake so far).
 
That's odd Freemake is not doing it for you - especially on SD stuff and more so on short kids shows (for me it's Fireman Sam, Roary the Racing Car as well as PP!) and before edit on the box turned up I used Freemake all the time and had no issues at all. In fact for peacekeeping when we travel and I stick some content on the laptop (or a portable drive) I still use Freemake to edit so I don't get in the way of watching TV.

What's sort of trouble is Freemake giving you?
 
What's sort of trouble is Freemake giving you?

I think it was on your recommendation that I tried it! On the face of it, it looks great (although not as great as the editor on VideoReDo, but then that's pay-for software).

However, it sometimes stalls when navigating through the program (e.g. dragging the slider to find the cut point) and all the buttons grey out. It can take a few minutes before any of the controls become active again. I don't think my laptop is particularly slow (~1 year old Dell 17", Dual core 2GHz Pentium 6100 with 3Gb of RAM) and we're only talking about relatively small files (~10 minute SD files). Maybe I haven't played enough with it yet to see how I can improve things, but I'd be interested to hear any nuggets of advice in terms of settings.
 
Well there aren't many settings in terms of the inputs and editing to play with. I do have an Nvidia card on my laptop which there is some support for in the Options menu although I had to go and force a check for the latest firmware for my card (and my laptop is nearly 4 years old now so hopefully your newer one will be better at this) so maybe that is helping me. I also have 4GB of RAM which I guess can only help. Other than that I use the left/right arrow keys to fine tune the cut point rather than the mouse but that shouldn't make a difference. The only other thing I found when I tried larger files was even though Freemake reacted quickly to me dropping the file in (or clicking the Add button) if I tried to skip through it straightaway it didn't always like it - it felt like even though the thumbnail would be listed it was as though the software was still 'taking the whole file in' so to speak. If I waited a little longer for the larger files after dropping them in then it seemed to go wrong less often.
 
Maybe that's what the problem is - it's making it look like the whole video is ready for editing, but maybe it's not actually all there yet. The freezing certainly seemed to happen more when I was trying to trim the end of the episode, rather than when I was trimming the beginning. I'll try leaving it longer after opening the file before editing next time. Thanks.
 
I've never managed to trim the end off an HD file - when the cursor is moved to the end, Freemake invariably crashes.
 
I've never managed to trim the end off an HD file - when the cursor is moved to the end, Freemake invariably crashes.
Yeah same here - luckily most of my editing needs are the same as Rhyans - to tidy up the kids shows which are all mercifully short and only in SD (don't panic Fenlander I'm not going to talk about HD editing again ;) - for anyone else that wants to know that's already well documented on the Wiki!)
 
Thanks for all the hints and tips above. In the end, I opted for the Sony Vegas Movie Studio (v11 Professional Studio was only £35 on Amazon). Ordered it today after trialling creating DVDs with various menu options. It's a pretty powerful piece of software - more than I'll ever probably need, but it seems to do what I want.

I've had a bit more success with Freemake, but I still seem to be able to use VideoReDo, despite the trial period ending (although I have noticed that it now only allows up to 10 minutes of video to be ouput; not a problem for me, since each Peppa Pig episode is only 5 minutes). I'll stick with VideoReDo until it stops letting me use it, and then deal with Freemake when I have to.

Cheers!
 
Do you still need Freemake/VRD now you have Vegas? I have found using the "Extract to MPG" WebIF option produces a StDef file which imports directly into Serif MoviePlus (I have yet to try HiDef but I plan to) which then converts and burns to DVD (but with fewer menu design options than I would like).
 
The main problem with Vegas is that it doesn't recognise native .ts files from the T2. Although, oddly, it does recognise .ts files exported from VideoReDo.

I'm nervous of fiddling around with the custom firmware, so for the moment I'm happy to use VideoReDo for basic trimming and converting before importing into the Sony DVD Authoring software. Hopefully I can use the Vegas software for all steps at some later stage.
 
The main problem with Vegas is that it doesn't recognise native .ts files from the T2. Although, oddly, it does recognise .ts files exported from VideoReDo.

I'm nervous of fiddling around with the custom firmware, so for the moment I'm happy to use VideoReDo for basic trimming and converting before importing into the Sony DVD Authoring software. Hopefully I can use the Vegas software for all steps at some later stage.

Try remuxing a T2 file to .mts using tsmuxergui (it's free).
 
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