Hello everybody,

I'm searching for a realy good authoring program. I'm trying to get a CD with some holiday pictures and video. The authoring program should allow me to add subtitles to the pictures.
I tested the uLead products (PictureShow and DVD Workshop) but no go.

Before testing more, there might be somebody out there with an answer.

Anybody ??

Hello,

I recomend you a middle-low level program.

Programas like these from ulead or similar are too much "easy" to make SVCD personalized with very custom menus, subtitles and maybe 2 audio streams, multiple volumes, slide shows with/without subs & audio, etc.

I think its better search for a more complete (and probably, more complicated) authoring program for two main reasons:

1. Although you would make a simple SVCD, learn a powerful program will be very useful four you in the future.

2. Normally this programs make SVCD more compatibles with standards and they are more flexibles (you can make differents types of SVCD) that p.e. "DVD2SVCD software bundle" which only is useful if you copy DVD to SVCD.

At this point you have two main choices: Philips SVCD toolkit, and I-Author. Personally I recommend you the Philips SVCD toolkit.

Philips is one of the SVCD standard specification publisher (maybe the one...?), and he says his toolkit is according to SVCD 1.0 specification.
This toolkit is split in 3 progs: SVCD Designer, SVCD Toolset, SVCD Verifier.

The SVCD Designer lets you make the project file, with all of your assests, menus, videos, subs, and (Wow!) simulate your whole (or partial) SVCD project in the planing step.

The SVCD Toolset, opens the project you made with Designer, and makes a CD image, that you can burn on a CD with your favorite burning program.

The SVCD verifier lets you verify the compliance of a SVCD or an asset (video, audio) to the standard.

You can download this software free in the Philips licensing site (and all programs comes with user manuals in .pdf format!):

http://www.licensing.philips.com/ordering/soft/documents199.html

If you choose the Philips kit I'm working now with it and "finishing" (I hope) a project (DVD to SVCD with different audio, my own menus, subs, etc.) and maybe I can help you a bit. It works fine only under NT 4 (no W2k, no XP, no W95/98/98SE/Me), I have installed a virtual machine with VMware, a good solution in my opinion. Only a bad new about this: the SVCD Toolset and the Verifier needs a key to run. I know there is a little key generator program but I haven't it.

About I-Author I don't know too much, seems it's easier than the philips, but some people reports supposed problems of audio out of synch if authoring with I-author. Also some people tell that SVCD mades with this prg run well on more DVD standalone, that the same made with philips. There are a lot of opinions about this. I-author is from Enreach but they don't sell it any more, nevertheless you can find a copy with a p2p (peer to peer) program.

It's better you ask to some other people of this forum about I-author, there are people that work with it.

I hope this too long posty will be useful to you.

Regards,

Darkblue
(excuse my english)

I don't really recommend I-Author. Because I-Author demands totally compliant streams during the mux, I have never had an audio sync problem with it. Audio sync problems are almost always caused by non-compliant video, in my opinion. If I-Author will mux your video and audio without complaining, you shouldn't have any sync problems. I-Author also allows you to set entry points (these are like chapters) and use menus. It has a lot of downsides though.
1) I-Author puts the SVCD video file in the MPEGAV subdirectory. This violates SVCD standards and some players may refuse to play such discs. I read once where some guy claimed it was possible to change this, but I have used I-Author a lot and I could never change it.
2) I-Author is incredibly difficult to use without documentation. The only guide I ever read that was any good on using it is at http://www.doom9.net. Even with this guide, I have no doubt that I-Author will still be incredibly difficult for some people to use.
3) I-Author uses a strange format for SVCD subtitles.
4) I-Author images require you to use EZ CD Creator version 4.x to burn. EZ CD Creator is awful, in my opinion. You might be able to use Daemon Tools to get around this, but that's not trivial either. Go to
http://www.daemon-tools.com if you want to try. You can not use EZ CD Creator version 5 or above to burn I-Author images.
5) EZ CD Creator version 4.x will NOT allow you to burn images greater than 80 minutes and there is no way to get around this.
6) I-Author is about 4 or so years old and certainly not state of the art any more.
7) Other programs offer SVCD menus (Nero, some variants of VCDEasy) and entry points (VCDEasy).
8) I-Author can not be used to make VCDs, should you ever want to.
If you're an experienced SVCD maker you might want to try I-Author, if you can find it, but if you're new to this, I really don't recommend it.

You can use mpegXmps to multiplex Non-Standard-Files for I-Author.

You can use CDMage to convert CIF-Files to CUE/BIN.

VCDEasy, TSCV and VCDComposer are able to produce Standard SVCD and VCD.

Valid points, but CDmage doesn't always work. The one time I tried to use it, it refused to convert my I-Author CIF file, so I gave up.

I never had any problems to covert my Files using CDMage. Maybe you have tried a wrong Version?

I use "Ulead DVD Workshop 1.3" and I haven"t had any problems with it and the newes updat version has some features that only high end authoring programs have like Importing AC3 Streams and mixing 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratio"s..I find it to a A very good entry level authoring program ,I think you would like it if you just spent the time to figure it out..There aren"t very many SVCD Authoring programs out there that support Menu"s and titles accept for "Ulead" and "Roxio" products and I would stay away for "Roxio" like it was a Rabid Dog....

I use "Ulead DVD Workshop 1.3" and I haven"t had any problems with it and the newest update version has some features that only high end authoring programs have like Importing AC3 Streams and mixing 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratio"s..I find it to a A very good entry level authoring program ,I think you would like it if you just spent the time to figure it out..There aren"t very many SVCD Authoring programs out there that support Menu"s and titles accept for "Ulead" and "Roxio" products and I would stay away for "Roxio" like it was a Rabid Dog....

hi there,
which SVCD authoring programs support 2 audio streams?
I am using VCDEasy and it ony supports chapters and menus.

Any Authoring program that supports SVCD Will support @ Audio tracks you just have to have the audio traX MuXed to the Mpeg stream before you author it...

I'm using DVD workshop 1.3 and works perfectly!!! The only think to do to avoid some imperfection playing the DVD on some DVD player is to create the ISO file and burn the DVD with NERO and the ISO created by DVD workwhop program.

ciao
Riccardo