Well, the conversion of my Sony DRU-120A to use the Ricoh MP2125 firmware has been an incredible success. Been great to burn DVDs without creating coasters and artifacts. Not sure whether it was the firmware burn or the use of SiS IDE drivers.
But now MyDVD bundled with the Sony has given up the ghost with an obscure could not complete, error due to end of file (DVDErr, -16072) so I need a good authoring tool.
The search is on again for good DVD software. It is a little maddening how hard it is to find a good review site for this. Certainly, C|Net and PC Magazine are not. I’m surprised that there isn’t a personal web site that ranks higher with google. The workflow for these applications is actually pretty terrible. Here is how I do it now:
# Novasoft Video Explosion (nee SonicFoundry). this is a very nice video capture and editing tool. Let’s you suck via Firewire and is very good at doing transitions, fixing sound and music. Pretty intuitive. Where it falls down is that it doesn’t do DVD authoring and its actually output scheme just pushes out a constant bit rate DVD, so it is not that efficient on disk. So, I normally just have it produce an uncompressed AVI file for further processing.
# Tmplenc. This is a AVI to MPEG2 encoder. It has super detailed control over the compression actually used. Haven’t gotten it to work quite yet, but you use it to take the AVI that Video Explosion generates and turn it into a good tight MPEG2 audio and video
# DVD-Labs. Use this to actually create the menus, transitions, etc. Use it to generate the actual DVD layout on your hard disk.
# Ahead Nero. This generates the actual DVD with the right compatibility bits set. If you don’t need that, then DVD Labs does a good job.
Wow…that’s complicated. Nice to have one package that bundles all of this. So, I have the most hope for Nero Ultra. Downloading that now. In the mean time, here are some reviews to look at:
* 267 results for Video editors – CNET Reviews. Sorting this list by most recent reviews seems to be the right way to look at this list.
* “Nero 6.0 Ultra Edition”:http://reviews.cnet.com/Nero_6_0_Ultra_Edition/4505-3514_7-30422553.html?tag=pdtl-list. Prerelease review, but they seemed to really like it. Will need to givel this a try.
* “Ulead MediaStudio Pro 7.0”:http://reviews.cnet.com/Ulead_MediaStudio_Pro_7_0/4505-3514_7-21002895.html?tag=pdtl-list. This ones also is just released. No user reviews yet though. I tried the previous Ulead VideoStudio and it is much harder than the SonicFoundry (aka NovaLogic Video Explosion) that I use now. It uses DVD MovieFactory which I’ve used and found way too simple. There is no way to really format the DVD menu.
* “DVDLab”:http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/ which they are raving about as the best burning solution by some of the techies. Interesting to try rather than the various shovelware that seems to exist. Wow, this is a nice program for creating menus (at last). Also a nice interface overall. It is super picky about audio formats though. It won’t automatically suck in a MPEG3 file at least that I’ve found. Also, it doesn’t know how to set the DVD-ROM compatibility bit, so you need to use Nero to actually burn
Here are some forums that seem to come up that might be helpful:
* “DVDRHelp”:http://www.dvdrhelp.com/. Seems like quite a few folks who understand how to burn live here.
* “MMBForums.com”:http://mmbforums.com. Seems like the geeks live here.
No more coasters…now I need software
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9 responses to “No more coasters…now I need software”
The MyDVD stuff gets really poor reviews. In my old job, the stuff that gets bundled is often called Shovelware (with good reason). I tried MyDVD as well and gave up, lots of errors.
Currently use something called Sonic Foundry. Ironically Sony just bought the product about six months ago. It is wonderful. Then use DVD-Lab for DVD menu production. I’ve heard Nero 6.0 Ultra is also decent but haven’t given it a shot yet.
Granted Sony make one of the best quality hardware, but their software particularely Mydvd is pathetic.
I’ve been spending two weeks searching for solutions to this problem, its mostly caused (in my case) when i try to combine or add 2 or more movies to one dvd…
But anyway, the easiest solution i found which works is to Tools > make DVD folder, and make the DVD on the hard drive. You will still get the error, but the DVD will be written and will work.
Then afterwards, use pinnacle or nero or whatever, to burn the dvd.
Hope this helps,
I just set up a new computer with (2) 80 GB SATA hard drives in RAID 0 format with Windows XP Pro. It has a DVD+/-RW drive made by Optorite, which came with the Sonic MyDVD 4.0.4 (Build 73194) software. I can create the project, but just as it is about to write to the DVD I also get the error: “Could not complete the last command because: End of file (DVDErr, -16072)” Doing a seach on Sonic’s webpage resulted in the following find: http://cs.sonic.com/scripts/texcel/swise/ksearch.dll?DisplayDetail?12&0&0&1&12&330&12&16072%20
This article in the Sonic knowledgebase indicates that RAID controllers may not be supported by MyDVD. How many of you are using a RAID configuration?
I had the same problem. It is inherent with the MyDVD Software 4.0 with, it seems, non Sony DVDs. However, it can be correctect with a driver upgrade. Go to http://sony.storagesupport.com/freeupgrade/.
All the review of MyDVD have pretty much shown it to be not a great product. As I told Mike, I’d move to a different product.
I got the same error as well with bundled MyDVD software. Has anyone made this work?
Rich has figured out how to burn DVDs
Thanks Rich — Tong Family Blog: No more coasters…now I need software — I will probably dive back into this area when the school year starts. I also noticed that PCMag had a recent review on the best vidcap hardware,…
I would try DVDLabs. Worked perfectly. No coasters and no error messages. I’m trying Nero Ultra right now to see it works as well as a combination of SonicFoundry and DVDlabs.
I just got the *exact* same error with my bundled MyDVD software, and it’s killing me…so frustrated.