AVI->DVD Architect to Make Superior Output?

[saramcd Profile Private message]

I I took my recent Cathedral show, output to AVI and pulled the AVI into DVD Architect and burned. Of course, the AVI file was huge, but I didn't worry about that at this point.

My result: There is absolutely a noticeable increase in quality!!

I am wicked encouraged

Well, I'm no longer so encouraged

I gave a copy of the show to a "guinea pig" friend to view, both on her computer and on her TV. She said that the show was terrific on her computer; however, the TV version (which I was so excited about the increase in quality on my TV): "the pics looked more pixilated (?) on the tv, almost unreal."

In the words of Yosemite Sam....Racken-Fracken-$%^&(^^#

Back to the drawing board.

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Odd. I've found Architect tests better on three totally different TV's (standard, projection, & LCD). Was it only on that one other TV that you tried it? Any other friends you can use as guinea pigs?

Barbara

[saramcd Profile Private message]

Hmmm...well, that makes me still hold out hope, at least! I have only had one guinea pig so far.
Now that I am back home from being out of town for 10 days, I plan to try to find some time to find a whole passel of guinea pigs

My very own copy of DVD Architect was waiting for me when I returned home, so I'm bound and determined to figure this sucka' out.....I hope

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Sara, perhaps the best thing about DVD Architect is that you can create gorgeous menus with it that go way beyond what you can do in Producer. Design the menu completely in Photoshop, then create your own buttons, and "hotwire" those buttons to all the shows you're including on the DVD. I have one where there are ten shows and one menu that accesses all of them.

Barbara

[Rich Barnes Profile]

Sara,
Have you by chance checked out Western Digital's TV HD Media Player which was released in fall of 2008? This is an excellent device which attaches to, up to 2, USB external disk drives for input and then attaches to your HD TV/stereo receiver with HDMI or composite cables. The media player will read a wide variety of video file formats including AVI and HD ISO files generated out of Producer... it also will play back all your music files as well as High Resolution Photo files. I've had the device for a couple of weeks and it has been working great... the resolution gerated on my Panasonic 50" Plasma screen is outstanding. I plan on just generating ISO files out of Producer and reviewing these shows directly from one of my USB disk drives... and doing so until I can get a new PC with Blu-Ray drives to place those particular shows on hard disk format.

It's real nice to be able to just generate the ISO file and then be able to review it quickly on a HD Plasma screen prior to burning any hard disks... saves me a lot of time, especially where I have large shows.

Just for you Info... you might want to check it out.
Rich

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Rich, you didn't mention how much this device costs, which might be of interest to Sara, but there's a more important issue: Everyone Sara gives or sells a DVD to is unlikely to have one of these devices.

Barbara

[Rich Barnes Profile]

Barbara,
The WD TV HD Media Player sells for approx. $100 which includes composite cables but does not include an HDMI cable or ISO storage device. The HDMI cable gives you higher quality results. I believe this would be an excellent device if you were presenting your work to clients for review... but later wanted to generate your final hardcopy DVDs. With an HDMI cable you can directly connect to a HD TV and/or projector to display your work to the client.

I'm still planning on generating Blu-Ray disks at some point in time... when I'm able to purchase a new PC with enough memory and Blu-Ray disk drives. I'm just doing this for my personal use and sharing with my extended family members.

This is just something to consider in your possible work flow... when trying to obtain a high quality final product. I'm constantly having problems with Producer rendering final products (e.g. missing audio, other types problems) that don't show up until after you render your show. I think some of my problems are related to PC memory and size of my shows... I believe this will cut down on my time in not finding out these problems until after the burn process... when I notice the problems. I hope this will cut down on expenses with disc media... expeciall when I get into HD Blu-Ray discs.

The quality coming out of the WD media player is excellent... possibly even higher resolution than when you view your work on a PC monitor (I'm currently using 21" monitor). The sharpness is very high and I notice detail that was not as apparent when reviewing on my PC. I don't know if this is due to the HD Blu-Ray format for viewing the show on a HD 50" Plasma screen... posibly combination of both??

Anyway... I'm just passing on information that I've encountered and sharing my results.
Rich

[Rich Barnes Profile]

Barbara,
I just wanted to pass along some recent information on the WD TV HD Media Player that I just encountered.
I was having some problems with a large ISO file dropping the music when played on the media player. After calling WD support they informed me that they don't really support ISO files. It was placed into their software as result of their initial testing... it seems to work fine for smaller files (approx 8+ MB) but not for my bigger (8 GB) files. As a result, I wouldn't recommend this device (at this point in time) as a device for ISO... so buyer beware.

It works great for other files but is questionable for ISO.
Rich

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

I'm constantly having problems with Producer rendering final products

I've never had problems. Rendering to AVI works fine, and from there, DVD Architect takes over.

You'll find I'm very resistant to buying ever more electronic equipment. I can do very complicated things on a computer, but I still can't properly program my VCR. Oh, and I refuse to use a cell phone.

Barbara

[Rich Barnes Profile]

Barbara,
Will DVD Architect enable you to build several shows together (e.g. to fill up your DVD or Blu-ray disk capacity) and then enable you to build a menu to link to these various shows... with the capability of linking to one show and then continue on without having to go back to the main menu after each show?

And, do you know if DVD Architect will support the HD formats generated out of Producer... so that you can take advantage of 1080 p resolution, as well as package multiple shows together using a main menu and/or linking menus together?

I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on this possible usage of DVD Architect... because this is exactly what I'm looking for? I know from using the WD Media Reader that the output from Producer (using 1080 p resolution) is outstanding?

Thanks so much for your thoughts and input!
Rich

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Rich, because I've only built menus that are returned to upon the completion of any included show, I can't answer that question, nor, for that matter, can I answer the other questions. You'd have to go to Sony's site and check the software's features because I haven't used Architect with PSP4 yet.

Barbara

[Carloscda]

Everyone says DVD Architect but what about DVD Lab Pro, has anyone used this software?

http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/dvdlabpro.html

[zookeeper]

Also, does anyone have any comparisons for the DVD Architect and Premiere Elements?

[Astra Profile Private message]

This is a great question:

Everyone says DVD Architect but what about DVD Lab Pro, has anyone used this software?
http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/dvdlabpro.html

...... Sony DVD Architect .... & .... MediaChance DVD-Lab .... comparison

Because I'm testing both of them (for project with multiple menus), and so far output for DVD was not so different.

Alexandra

[daacon Profile Private message]

Well this is interesting. Long-time member here rare time poster. I too was getting frustrated with Producers quality in pictures on the TV screen (and yes I am aware of the numerous reasons of why this is so). Not a professionla photographer but an enthusiast for sure (Pentaxt K20D 12MB DSLR and a number of lenses).

I downloaded DVD Architect last night and initially (only tried one show) the difference in picture quality is noticeable (Architect being much much better).

Like others this was from an uncompressed AVI file (was about 25 GB). As mentioned here it does not really seem to be an intuitive product however I was able to produce a simple menu and burn to DVD in a few minutes.

So initially for me another vote for Architect (fyi - I have always had issues burning a dvd from Producer so like a lot of you I create an ISO file then use Roxio or whatever I had at the time to burn the actual DVD). Also I now have a Blu-Ray burner and I can't get producer (latest version BTW) to create an ISO file, it dies about 3/4 way through. So I am looking forward to trying Architect for Blu-ray as well.

Has anyone tried the Big Brother (Vegas HD Platinum?) - This includes DVD Architect version 5 at this point. The great thing about Architect is the download trial appears fully functional (30 days maybe?). The one thing I believe is different is the sound support. The Vegas HS Platinum supports more formats including mp3 which is the majority of my collection.

More playing with Architect and perhaps the Platinum version this week. Right now architect would be a very worthwhile upgrade based on my limited testing. Since this is an old thread any other suggestions before I hit 'add to cart' ?

thx................Dave