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Maybe you're a video producer, and making DVDs sounds like a good idea. They offer a polished and professional way to deliver finished work to clients, a high-quality and inexpensive demo medium, and can be handy for file sharing. But you're loathe to spend thousands on software, then work dozens of hours to learn it. Thankfully, DVD creation has other, easier options.
In this third and final part of Video Systems' series on authoring DVDs, we review three software tools that solve the most basic needs of video professionals. These tools focus on getting clips and compositions onto disc without the fanfare or intricacy of high-end authoring systems. Pinnacle Systems Impression DVD Pro ($399) and Ulead DVD Workshop ($299) are priced just a step above no-brain easy, template-based, consumer-oriented products, yet each offers enough customization to complete cut-'em-quick professional titles.
Sonic ReelDVD ($999) costs a bit more, but at less than half the price of Sonic DVD Producer, it's in Sonic's middle range. We include it here in part because its interface is a helpful contrast to the less traditional authoring styles of the other, but also because it professes to do much the same job on the surface.
When Video Systems first planned this series, Impression was $599, and not long before that $999. As you might suspect from the low prices, none of these tools gets terribly sophisticated with DVD user navigation or programming options. But that, of course, is not the goal. Offering an affordable tool to get basic authoring accomplished relatively quickly is the goal, and each of these products claims to do that, but each product uses a very different method.
Managing Assets
ReelDVD is the direct offspring of the venerable Scenarist authoring interface, and was created with the same back-end code and many of the conventions. The most important similarity is ReelDVD's flowchart project overview, complete with Scenarist-like navigation lines and arrows. That might sound a little daunting for a novice, given Scenarist's high-powered interface, but ReelDVD's purposefully simpler feature set limits the potential for visual bewilderment. With very straightforward "play video and return to menu" projects, the flowchart is almost overkill. On the other hand, it will prove helpful with more complicated and asset-rich projects.
Neither Impression...