The internet and the Cloud are the future... Open your eyes.
Huh? I just asked what people use to author DVDs. Why do you assume that I'm clinging to optical media like a life raft? Believe me, my eyes are very open to this.
I am already moving my company away from DVD, offering videos as quicktime and avi files on USB drives as an alternative. It's starting to take off, but right now, in the present, not the future, most of my customers still want a DVD or a blu-ray. I've been expecting Apple to ditch these programs at some point, but IMO they pulled the trigger a bit too soon.
And Apple is right, optical media is going away. But that's besides the point. They can talk about the future of the industry being totally online until they're blue in the face. It won't change the fact that we are living in the present. DVD and blu ray are certainly on their way out, but they're still long from dead. It's a slow process.
And believe me, I want them to die. Burned DVDs are the largest area of complaint that I've noticed in the event videography industry. That's speaking from my own company's experiences as well as other companies I've worked with. They're unreliable, they're cheap, they're slowly becoming obsolete, and many players have a difficult time playing them correctly. They skip. They freeze. Sometimes they can't even be read. I hate them. I'll be happier when I can export a video, put it on a thumb drive, maybe upload it to Dropbox or Vimeo, and move on to the next project.
But until then, DVD is still king.
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Compressor 4 offers blu ray support, but very basic menu design... I certainly would like to 'dress' it up a bit more as it won't even do chapter selections (like you can in DVDSP).
Will do. I'll give Compressor a go too. I've actually never used Compressor to author a DVD.
I've been looking at Encore, but from what I can see, not a product which can be purchased by itself unfortunately.
I was just saying yesterday in another thread...
"Right now Adobe is pushing to get disgruntled FCP7 users to switch over to Premier. I'd like to see them do a similar push with Encore. Offer it as a stand alone program. Market it to Premier/FCP7/FCPX/AVID editors alike as an alternative to DVDSP. It seems they could make a killing. It could also help to eventually convert people to Premier."
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You asked for the BEST DVD authoring program and the answer is Scenarist. But it costs a ton and you have to buy a PC.
Thanks. I'm probably not switching to a PC anytime soon, but this is good to know.
Heck, if Apple discontinues the 17" MBP and the MacPro, as has been rumored*, then I'll definitely check this program out.
*But personally, I doubt it.