Hi guys.

Just starting a long learning highway in video production. A very good photograph friend of mine, tell me about to start the activity to complement his business suply previously a rasonable period of time learning, practicing & improoving skills.

My choices for that were: JVC GY HD110, iMac 24" 2,8GHz Intel 4 RAM & Final Cut Express.

Now I'm just considering paying for a good DVD authoring application and want to ask you about your preferences or recommendations.

In a middle future (no more than year & half) I will be able (bank green light) to stablishe with a more affordable studio (Final Cut Pro, Macs Pros, better cameras with better codecs) BUT, this is that I have at this time & no need more for practice and in case of have to delivery any work to possible clients. iDVD has result an authentical disaster in quality.

So, what soft you like?

Thanks in advance.

Juan.

Each dvd authoring application has it's pros and cons. Some might be very easy to use, and not have many bugs, but seriously lack options. Others might give you so much control over the dvd spec you could easily get overwhelmed.

My specialty is motion graphics and dvd authoring. I have tested many different authoring apps over the years, and for my uses, Adobe Encore has been the best one. I create custom motion menus with Adobe After Effects, and design my button highlights in Photoshop. Encore has by far the best integration with those applications, in addition to supporting Blu-ray and Blu-ray Pop-up menus in CS4.

Encore is by no means perfect. I've ran into many bugs using the program, but eventually I discovered workarounds/solutions for all that might interfere with creating a flawless disc. DVD Studio Pro is another good competitor. It has better default menu templates than encore, and allows for complex scripting that Encore does not support. However, I don't use the default templates as I design my own far more advanced ones and make them available on my website. I've also discovered that some of the simple features that I use for all of my scene selection menus are extremely tedious to try and accomplish in DVD Studio Pro.

If you don't plan on purchasing any other Adobe products such as Photshop, After Effects, etc., and you don't plan on doing a lot of custom work with your menus, then you might be better off with DVD Studio Pro, as that will integrate a little better with Final Cut and Motion.

Thank you Jon.

Very complete whole aspects view. I'll take them in acount.

Juan.