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Ulead DVD MovieFactory is the best choice I've seen for videographers who need to produce both Blu-ray and HD DVD for their clients now. HD DVD authoring is close to what you'd expect in terms of DVD authoring from a consumer product, but Blu-ray is more limited. If you need menus on your Blu-ray Discs, Roxio DVDit Pro HD is a better choice, but it costs a bunch more and has its own player-related issues.
PRICE: $79.99
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Ulead Systems Inc.
www.ulead.com
let me start by stating the obvious: the only reason to consider a $79.99 consumer authoring program is if it offers fimctionality that your current authoring program doesn't provide. In the case of Ulead DVD MovieFactory, that would probably be Blu-ray authoring, HD DVD authoring, or both.
Considering that none of the authoring software that videographers tend to use-Apple DVD Studio Pro (which has limited and sometimes-problematic HD DVD, at this writing), Adobe Encore DVD (which will do Blu-ray, but not HD DVD, when the new version ships this summer), Sony DVD Architect (no word on either HD format as yet, but non-Sony-friendly HD DVD hardly seems likely) and Roxio DVDit (Blu-ray only)-can produce discs in both formats, DVD MovieFactory's capabilities vis a vis the next-generation formats is at least worth investigating if you need to produce HD discs now. As it turns out, MovieFactory 6 does a credible job with both, but there are some limitations of the respective formats and some workflow issues that are worth knowing up front. (See "Right Here, Right Now: Three Solutions for HD DVD and Blu-ray Production," January, pp. 54-57, for more details on other HD disc authoring options.)
BLU-RAY AUTHORING
Let's start with Blu-ray. Like all consumer-oriented Blu-ray authoring programs, MovieFactory produces BDAV discs, which means no menus on the player; it's comparable to the DVD±VR format developed for set-top DVD burners, which was built for on-the-fly DVD creation without the graphical, customized DVD menus we associate with computer-based authoring. If you've...