DVD Authoring Software Buyer's Guide

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The heart of any DVD-creation package is the DVD-authoring tool. This is the part of the software that compiles and formats your media into a DVD, complete with menus and titles. But DVD-authoring suites can do much more than that, from capturing and editing video, all the way to printing labels for the finished disc. In the next few pages we will explore how to determine what you need and help you find a product that fills that need.

The Spectrum
About a year ago, we were all flush with excitement about the promised potential of burning our Magnum Opus to DVD and popping it in the mail to send to relatives, friends and festivals. With living room DVD players invading more homes more quickly than any comparable product in history, widespread distribution seemed certain. We had vague memories of the daze when CD-R first arrived, surrounded by compatibility problems and discs that just wouldn't work in our home stereos or other people's computers, but surely the DVD industry wouldn't repeat that scene? Unfortunately, compatibility problems are less than rare (see Magic It's Not sidebar).

DVD-authoring applications themselves, however, are full-featured, capable and impressive. With plenty of competition, there are lots of products to choose from. Prices range from less than $20 to more than $1,000, so there is a product for you. There is also a product to match your time commitment. Some applications do all the work for you, automatically creating DVDs, and some act as a blank canvas, requiring you to specify every variable and parameter.

At the most basic level, you run the application, import your media files and select a template. The program will lay out your DVD, complete with menus and navigation buttons. Apple's iDVD 2 ($20) works like this. Usually, you will also be able to enter brief titles under the menu items, but that is about it. You click the burn button to create a new DVD automatically. Capture, select a template, burn and enjoy. The end.

A step up to the middle range of programs includes customizable templates (with a choice of backgrounds), different frame styles for the thumbnail images, a variety of font colors and styles, and so on. Many mid-level applications, such as DVDCre8's DVD Complete! ($99), also allow you to specify background music for the title page, a startup video to play when the disc is inserted and more complex navigation, including specifying chapter points and jumps within individual clips. Some, like Pinnacle Express ($49), come with a capture utility and simple clip trimming tools. All but the most advanced aspects of DVD authoring software are available at a very reasonable price.

Most of us will never need subtitles, multiple language tracks, multiple video tracks for multi-angle scenes, AC3 audio, DVD scripting tools or any of the more advanced features that distinguish the high-end authoring applications from the friendlier programs. The high end of consumer-level DVD-authoring programs, like Apple's DVD Studio Pro ($999), allow you to control very nearly every aspect of DVD creation, but more features mean much greater complexity. These applications will remind you of your full-featured editing environment and will require a significant time investment to master. Many are devoid of templates, do not capture or edit video, require that all of your media be 100% prepared and do very little hand-holding through the process. Be prepared to become an expert in IBP GOP VBR encoding, DVD scripting, multi-path navigation and muxing if you decide to go this route.

Those of you considering these professional applications probably do not have a choice, however: you need the right tool for the right job. This is one area where we expect to see some progress and additional competition in the coming year.

Price
What can you get for $20? Are the $1,000 applications really worth the money? The price breakdown of DVD-authoring applications very neatly mirrors the amount of control you have over your project and breaks down according to the various categories outlined in the previous section.

At the lowest price level, somewhere around $50, you get the fewest customization options for your project, perhaps being able to select only a background, titles and thumbnail images for your menus.

The middle range, from $100 to $400, gives you a lot more control. Many of these applications are template-driven, but you can often select startup screens, specify navigation options, add your own buttons and more. For most of us, these products will satisfy all of our DVD-authoring needs.

Above $400, the prices jump steeply and there are only a very few extra features that few of us will ever use. The catch is that many of these advanced features may be required for some projects, necessitating the extra expense. These features might include multiple audio tracks for various languages or support for AC3 audio.

Templates
Almost all DVD-authoring applications use some sort of templates, with the notable exception of the highest-end programs that basically open to a completely blank canvas. Templates are huge time savers that guide us through the creation process, automatically taking care of many basic functions, such as what the disc should do after a chapter has played. Templates can also serve as creative foundations and help with attractive layout and design.

The downside to all of this is that templates can also greatly limit your creativity. Novice-level programs rely on templates for two reasons: to make the program easy for beginners and to prevent them from messing things up. The critical balance for an authoring application, then, is how it handles templates: whether you can customize these templates and to what extent.

The programs that we have felt most comfortable using allowed us to select a template and burn a DVD, yet also allowed us to change the background to any image on our computer, had a broad selection of thumbnail frames and allowed us to use any font of any color or style on our computer for titles and menus. More advanced template-driven applications may allow even more enhancements, such as rollover menu items that become highlighted when selected or navigation and chapter marks that occur within a single clip. Of course, any application that did not allow you to save your heavily-modified template for future use would not be worthy of consideration.

Flexibility
We have confidence that we'll all be DVD veterans in short order, but until that time, we need flexibility. In other words, we want a program that we can grow into, perhaps with a little template handholding initially but with enough features to allow us to do some of the fancy stuff later.

Will you eventually be distributing your DVD in Brazil with Portuguese subtitles? None of the consumer-level applications that we have seen so far have had particularly good subtitle capabilities. Likewise, audio AC3 support is a very advanced feature and the process of creating AC3 audio in the first place is no small task.

More realistically, do you want an FBI warning or a production company splash screen? If you do, you need to make sure the application you select has the ability to set a clip or clips with a first-run property that plays when the disc is inserted. Motion menus - menus with video in the background - are another feature that some programs allow and others don't. If you are considering authoring DVDs, you probably watch movies on DVD on a regular basis: pay attention to the navigation and features on these movies to get ideas.

Full-Manual Control
A very few high-end applications give you full control over every aspect of DVD creation. This can be a blessing and a curse. For example, if you have absolute control and you specify a first-run video splash screen but fail to tell the software what to do after the video has finished playing, the DVD will sit with a blank screen until the user pushes the Title button on the remote control. That's probably not what you intended, but that's technically what you told the software to do.

A template would have taken care of that for you, of course, but perhaps would have limited you in other ways. For example, a template might only allow you to specify one first-run video before automatically opening the title menu, when what you really wanted was to have an FBI warning, then a splash screen and then the title menu. These details are hard to anticipate. Fortunately, many DVD applications have trial versions that allow you to try out the product before you buy.

Sweet Extras
DVD-authoring suites may come with additional utilities. At the core of all of these applications is a program that collects and organizes media together and formats it for burning to a DVD disc. Most also have menu creation tools, titlers and possibly thumbnail generators. There are a number of extra features you should look for, however.

Do you need to capture the video that is destined for DVD? Do you need basic editing and trimming tools? Do you have the tools to encode MPEG-2 ? (See the MPEG-2 Encoding sidebar.) Some applications even come with label and cover insert printing utilities to put the finishing touch on your project. Most of these features are icing on the cake, but they sure can make your life easier.

Whether you need a foolproof capture-to-burn suite at a rock-bottom price for your vacation videos or you're ready to cannonball into the deep end with a fully-professional application for your corporate marketing strategy, there is an app for you. So use our grid to compare features, and make every effort to try before you buy so you don't get burned while burning.