Do you burn DVD's in a separate program?

[Kevin Lewis]

Who hear does their editing in one NLE and than uses another program to burn the DVD? If so, whats your workflow and what program are you using to burn the DVD.

[Perrone Ford]

I use Sony Vegas or Avid to edit, and I use Avid DVD or Sony DVDA to make my DVDs.

[Kevin Lewis]

Perrone, do you simply export the file and then import it to where you do the burn? If so, are you exporting an mpeg2?

[Perrone Ford]

Depends. For DVDs in DVDA, I export an Mpeg2 file from Vegas. With Avid, I export a quicktime reference file. Avid is a bit different. I can go from Avid straight to Avid DVD, or I can go into Sorenson Squeeze. If I need to do delivery to more than one medium (DVD, BluRay, internet) I'll do the Sorenson since it can do all of those at once. Otherwise it's straight to the DVD program.

[George Kilroy]

I'm editing in Premiere Pro (CS4) and put all the chapter marks on the timeline then dynamic link to Encore. All I need to do is make my menu and connect the links, Encore then does all the transcoding to fit the disc size and then burns it.
If I want to do something quicker I make a MPEG2 for DVD then take it into Ulead Workshop2. That is a very quick and simple fast burner.

[David Seguin]

I use Vegas to edit, and since I don't burn most of my videos to DVD right away, I usually just export it as a .avi. I'm not very familiar with different file types yet, so I'm not sure if I do it the best way, but it usually works for me. Then if I want to upload it to the internet, I drag my .avi into a new timeline and export it as an .mp4. Otherwise I just import it into DVD Architect (which comes with Vegas), and do the rest in there. I haven't used very many DVD burning programs, and the ones I have used other than DVDA are cheap little consumer programs, so for me DVDA gives me more options and flexibility than I need, which no other program I've used does, including my NLE. Honestly, I would never burn directly from an NLE, but that's because I like complete control over as many aspects as possible, which NLEs just aren't designed to do.

[Kevin Lewis]

Perrone: Do you shoot in HD? If so, what type of mpeg2 do you export? Is it a 1080 60i mpeg2?

[Perrone Ford]

Originally Posted by Kevin Lewis

Perrone: Do you shoot in HD? If so, what type of mpeg2 do you export? Is it a 1080 60i mpeg2?

I shoot exclusively in HD. It is VERY rare that I shoot anything interlaced. So my Mpeg2 files are 1080/24p about 95% of the time. I only shoot 60i if I need the extra stop that it provides on the EX1.

[Jordan Nash]

I render to an ISO in Encore, then burn the image to disk in CDBurnerXP.

[Jay West]

Typically, I edit in PPro CS5, export of Encore from which I an ISO image and use that to burn the copies with Nero.

[Kevin Lewis]

I'm surprised how many people burn their DVD's in another program. Why not just print to DVD from your time line? It seems that many create the final product in software other than their nle.

[David Seguin]

Originally Posted by Kevin Lewis

I'm surprised how many people burn their DVD's in another program. Why not just print to DVD from your time line? It seems that many create the final product in software other than their nle.

As I've mentioned (or at least I think I did...too lazy to go back and check), it's because most NLEs don't offer as much flexibility when burning as other programs do. They are designed to edit, and are (generally) great at their job, but they aren't necessarily efficient or useful for burning professional looking DVDs. Of course if you're looking for a quick, easy way to make a sample/demo, or are archiving on DVD (not recommended, too much compression!), then yeah, go ahead and burn in your NLE. If it's the fastest way, and you get satisfactory results, then why not? But from my (limited) experience, if you want to impress or at least look professional, you usually want to be able to control as much as possible so that you can make a great looking DVD.

Just my opinion. Feel free to disagree :)

[Jonathan Jones]

Originally Posted by Kevin Lewis

I'm surprised how many people burn their DVD's in another program. Why not just print to DVD from your time line? It seems that many create the final product in software other than their nle.

Hi Kevin,

The ability to author and burn DVDs from the timeline is not typical of NLEs. As David noted above, NLEs are typically designed to focus on a limited set of strengths in which they can excel, (cutting up and arranging video clips - adding some enhancements with titles and effects, and some degree of audio manipulation.) Many NLEs allow for increased functionality through interoperability with a suite of additional applications through which each application is generally dedicated to specific tasks - such as authoring DVDs.

I believe you are using Pinnacle Studio, which is itself a form of all-in-one video production system that provides the user to set up DVD templates from within the timeline, and also uses a unique system of optional add-on functionality, But for users of most other NLE systems, the recommended approach tends towards the multiple-application workflow to cover the full range of production needs.

For my specific workflow, I use Final Cut Pro on a Mac. When editing is complete, I use two different workflows for DVDs, depending upon complexity of the project and type of interface I want to use.

For less complex DVDs, I just export the final video from the timeline, and drop it into iDVD for rendering.

For more complex DVDs, I send the video to Compressor or Sorenson Squeeze to generate the mpeg-2 files, and then author the DVD using DVD Studio Pro.

Whether using iDVD or DVD Studio Pro, I only author the DVDs in those applications, but I don't burn the discs from them.

Instead, I generate a Disk Image from the DVD project, and then burn the Disk Images to DVD using a dedicated burning program - in my case, Roxio Toast Titanium.

Why the extra steps? Several years ago, when desktop burning of video DVDs seemed to be less approachable and applications for doing so a bit less refined, I was very frustrated by the coaster/frisbee ratio many users complained of. (frequency of bad burns or discs that didn't play properly for an inordinate number of target users.)

I spent a good deal of time, energy and money troubleshooting various factors of a typical workflow, and found that the developing diversification of application features wasn't always as much of a benefit of one would hope. Some feature-rich applications tended to excel at some tasks, but were weak in others. Specifically, with disc burning, I felt that even if an application was great at authoring DVDs, this didn't always translate into solid burn integrity. I found that authoring in my application of choice, and then burning a disc image in an application dedicated to that task, tended to produce the best quality discs that worked perfectly across the widest range of playback devices. (The quality of the blank disc is also a factor, but not relevant to this post.)

Diversified feature enhancements have continued in some applications. For example, later versions of Toast allowed for increased DVD authoring capabilities of its own, and eventually remedial capturing and cutting of content. I have never used any of those features, and continue to use that app only for burning my disk images, a task at which it excels.

My efforts may be pretty dated by now - this was all several years ago, and many of these applications could possibly have come a long way since. I don't do too many DVD-centric projects anymore so have not had a compelling need to change my workflow to that end.

-Jon

[David Seguin]

Interesting...I never really thought about DVD authoring programs possibly not being the best for burning. I'll have to try out a few different workflows. As it is now, I've barely experimented with that kind of thing.

[Kevin Lewis]

Jonathan, thank you very much for your input. Your experience with coasters/frisbees is the very reason that I created this thread. Despite Pinnacle being somewhat of a consumner based program, it meets most of my needs since I usually shoot in very controlled enviroments, which means less editing in post. I'm looking for a separate program which might help decrease the number of incompatible burns.