Tuesday, January 01, 2008

DVD authoring tools

In my quest for making good DVD's from both still pictures and videos this is a list of tools I've found interesting and useful. In my quest I started reading an article at Wikipedia. This list is only a working list for now - at a later time I'll post the definitive solution on how to make good DVD's.

I like to have full control of the output, so I will also try to create outputs with DTS and Dolby Digital sound... I am the first to say I am sorry that all of this cost money. Lot of money.

Disclaimer: I have not bought these programs, I have just compiled a list of them. Not all of them will work together and you will probably not need all tools on this list!

Tool Comment
DVD-Lab A cool tool for everyone who like to learn the inner workings of  DVD. With this tool you can write DVD bytecode and you have full control of every aspect of the DVD. You can not create the video stream with this tool, but the makers of DVD-Lab, MediaChance, have bought a company with a video stream tool. The tool is called editstudio.
editstudio From the makers of DVD-Lab, a tool to edit videos.
DivX codec The DivX codec is very useful when you capture video from your DV camera. This codec creates very compressed outputs that will save you lots of disc space.
VirtualDub This is an open-source tool that I just came across. With this tool you can do basic transforms to a movie like convert audio and video format, scaling, cropping etc.
ProShow Producer This tool is one of my favorites. It is not very good with large movies but when you work with small movies (compiled with VirtualDub or Windows Movie Maker) and still images you get very good output in no time. You can also make outputs for almost everything you want. I once wrote a review on Producer.
Plato Video Converter I got this tool free from Giveaway of the Day one day. With this tool you can convert between AVI, DivX, XviD, MPEG, WMV, ASF, MOV, QT and RealMedia format.
InterVideo DVDCopy A tool to copy DVD's to other formats for use on PC, a media server, PSP or similar.
WAV to AC3 Encoder This tool is a graphical frontend for Aften and will create unlicenced Dolby Digital AC-3 outputs you can attach to your DVD project.
Dolby® Media Producer Here it is - from the creators of AC-3, a tool to master audio content for your DVD. This software is expensive.
DTS-HD Surround Audio Suite To create DTS sound to your DVD you can use this tool.

PS! If you want to capture your screen I have a list of tools you can use.

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