Author! Author! New DVD Editing Tools from Ulead and CyberLink DVD Workshop Aces Title Editing; PowerDirector 2.0 Offers Easy Capture and Output Eric Grevstad
Mon 3/18/02 -- Capturing analog or DV video, performing sophisticated editing operations and digital file format conversions, and sending finished movie projects to DV tape or recordable DVD or CD has never been easier, but choosing between DVD authoring packages is getting tougher all the time. Both CyberLink Corp. and Ulead Systems have issued updated, ultra-creative video editing and mastering packages.
CyberLink's PowerDirector 2.0, available in both Pro ($120 download, $125 boxed) and Standard ($80 download) versions, feature an improved, easy-to-use interface and cutting-edge InstantMPEG and SVRT (Smart Video Rendering Technology) features for encoding MPEG-1, MPEG-2, WMV, AVI, DV-AVI, and DVD/Video CD/Super VCD formats with minimal CPU overhead.
While the Standard edition, aimed at users without recordable optical drives, lacks authoring and burning capabilities, PowerDirector 2.0 Pro combines video capture and editing tools with a Disc Making Wizard that makes it easy to add an interactive menu (even with background audio), create chapters or photo slide shows, and output to CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, or DVD+RW media.
Ulead's DVD Workshop ($299) is a more powerful package or successor to the company's DVD MovieFactory consumer authoring program. It's built around a flexible menu authoring system that offers high-end effects such as motion backgrounds, buttons, and scene thumbnails, as well as over 60 menu templates and 300 background images, buttons, arrows, and other objects (plus the ability to import objects from Ulead PhotoImpact).
DVD Workshop can create instant DVD slide shows by dragging still images into the workspace and automatically create chapter thumbnails based on DV date codes. MPEG-Direct capture saves time and disk space by capturing video directly to the MPEG format using FireWire and analog capture boards, while continuous DV stream captures can exceed the 4GB size limit even on FAT32 Windows systems. As for output, support for variable-bit-rate encoding yields better picture quality with smaller file sizes, and no additional burning software is needed for DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, or most CD-R and CD-RW devices.
