Comments

bcbarnes wrote on 4/19/2004, 7:21 AM
No kidding - I'm VERY pleased with the new features. Come on folks - check it out!
MJPollard wrote on 4/19/2004, 7:22 AM
How about listing some of the improvements over 1.0 from an end-user perspective? The new features PDF is a lot to go through, and it might be nice to see what's been added to (and what is still left out of) 2.0 based on various suggestions/complaints over these many months.
craftech wrote on 4/19/2004, 9:15 AM
Intentional quadruple post:

In other words,
1. DVDA 1.0 was considered a premature release by virtually everyone on the forums.
2. DVDA 2.0 is a big improvement, but to get it I must:

A. Buy Vegas 5.0 along with it
B. Upgrade to Windows XP or Windows 2000
C. Upgrade my computer or buy another one to handle the "upgrade".

No thanks. I'll buy a different encoder.

John
jetdv wrote on 4/19/2004, 9:35 AM
Well, John, I think I've read all 4 of your "intentional xxxx post"

First of all, if you aren't using Win2K or WinXP then you are missing out on the simplicity of using >4GB files. That in itself would hamper me tremendously when trying to make a 4.3Gig DVD.

Secondly, Vegas/DVDA works on very modest hardware. I'm currently running Vegas5/DVDA2 on Win2K on a PIII 750MHz with 256Meg RAM. It is working VERY well. Granted I'm not going to win any races but it's definitely not any slower than V4.

Thirdly, yes you have to buy Vegas 5. Is that such a hardship for the additional improvements you will gain?
pb wrote on 4/19/2004, 10:30 AM
I just go the email inviting me to upgrade to Vegas 5 + (Vegas & DVD-A) for 199$. Now, try to buy Ulead DVD Factory 2 for that price. Or ReelDVD. Or Encore (oops, that runs on XP only).

Come on, we're talking pocket change here! I paid more than that for a box of 25 Romeo & Julieta Tubo No 1 cigars.

As for Boris Grafitti FREE -> there's easily 199$. Just the Continuum plug in for Premiere Pro cost me 249$ last week.

This is a great start to the week because since this job doesn't have to go to DLT I am going to abort my Adobe Encore authoring and build it with the new DVD-A2

Peter
LowPingBoy wrote on 4/19/2004, 10:50 AM
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But can you actually burn with a Plextor 708 and -R media? In fact, the 708 is generally not even recognized by DVD1.0, media notwithstandsing. Nero has no problem. So, unless they have enhanced the drives DVD will burn, all the features do me no good whatsoever.

Anyone know if Sony has this problem fixed?



pb wrote on 4/19/2004, 10:56 AM
I have a Plextor 708a in this PC that will burn to a rewritable but not to a DVD-R. No idea why. I always burn to rewritable first to test. If it works I take the disc to the duplicator machine and make the copies. All you need to do in your case is go to rewritable to test, if happy make a disc image with Nero or Record Now Max then burn your DVD-Rs from the disc image. I've been doing that ever since the company I work for decided Plextors were the most cost effective drivers and forced one on me.

Peter
bcbarnes wrote on 4/19/2004, 11:16 AM
The first things that jumped out at me were the end actions for both menus and media, and multiple audio streams and subtitle tracks for media. I'm sure there are also lots of other little goodies, but these are the things most people have been the loudest about wanting - and now we have them.

Brian.
SonySDB wrote on 4/19/2004, 11:34 AM
Peter, is burning to a DVD-R, with your Plextor 708a, a problem in DVDA1 or DVDA2?
SonySDB wrote on 4/19/2004, 11:35 AM
bbcdrum wrote on 4/19/2004, 12:28 PM
FWIW, I have trouble burning with my Plextor 504A. I burn with an old version of RecordNow Max using either an iso image or the _TS folders.
pb wrote on 4/19/2004, 1:40 PM
I haven't installed version 2 yet. It is version 1 of DVD-A that doesn't like Plextor708a containing a DVD-R

Peter
mdotnet wrote on 4/19/2004, 2:17 PM
We're buying the upgrade and downloading it now, but I was wondering, (as i'm scanning the PDF..), can DVDA2 do transitions between menu's? This is something i'd love to be able to do.. and until we got the upgrade email this afternoon, was looking at DVD Lab as an alternative program to accomplish it. It's not a vital feature, but something I really hope DVDA2 does.

Thanks.
jetdv wrote on 4/19/2004, 2:25 PM
Using end actions you can pretty well do anything you want. So, you have have it so that when a button is pushed, a short transitionaly movie is played, and then a second menu appears.
Aan wrote on 4/19/2004, 3:02 PM
Please any body !! show me how to link Mpeg2 files so it can play one then go to next one and on and on
wombat wrote on 4/19/2004, 5:16 PM
How do you get the $199 offer?

The email offer I got was 'Upgrade to Vegas+DVD Production Suite for $249' - which is the same price being offered at the mediasoftware.sonypictures.com online store.

Anyway, I am very pleased at specifications for the new products, especially DVDA 2. For several reasons the earlier version was close to useless for my purposes, and I had felt a more than a bit grieved at having purchased it. The upgrade prices seem very reasonable for what you get, so hopefully the investment will pay off in the longer term. But who gets the $199 offer?

Wombat
wombat wrote on 4/19/2004, 6:03 PM
To answer my own question:

- the offer I got must be for Vegas4 > Vegas5+DVDA2 ($249), whereas I qualify for the Vegas4+DVDA1 > Vegas5+DVDA2 deal ($199), so I will order the latter via:

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=912&SPID=272&keycode=6377

though if you look at:

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/shopping/item.asp?PID=272

it implies that this deal is $249!

*********************

At last, end actions and subtitles in a sophisticated DVD editing environment!!!!! woohoo!
dvddude wrote on 4/20/2004, 9:15 AM
Wow, where did you get this email? I'm depressed!! I'm a registered Vegas+DVDA user and have received no notification whatsoever, and the price you're quoting is much lower than what's being posted on this site!

Sony? Does eveyone get this deal...? If so, how?
ScottW wrote on 4/20/2004, 12:22 PM
Here you go:

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=271238&Replies=16&Page=0

I sent my request in to customer services for a refund of the difference; haven't heard back from them yet, but don't expect to for at least a few days.
PAW wrote on 4/20/2004, 2:39 PM

Aan

Select your media and drop them in the project window so you have clip1 clip2 clip3 etc

Double click the first media and in the right hand properties window go to the media end actions

select destination and choose clip2 and repeat this on ech clip

If you want menu transitions capture your menu and paste to the clipboard

Go to Vegas and show the clipboard in the preview window, save this as a snapshot then add it to the timeline from the media pool

Then work with it and the destination in Vegas to create what ever effect you need.

Render the clip and then go back and add it DVDA and set the media end actions so that menu transitions to the clip you created which in turn transitions to the media etc

Make sense?

Paul
PeterMac wrote on 4/21/2004, 2:36 AM
Very, very simply...

1. Start a new project
2. Drag two or more MPEG files onto the menu
3. Double-click the first one - see first frame of that clip/movie
4. In the Properties window (on the right) expand Media Properties->End Action
5. The Command option will say 'Link'. Leave it at that, or make it that if otherwise.
6. The Destination option will probably say Most Recent Menu. From the drop-down list make it MPEG #2 (the title of your second file will be in the list)
7. Repeat for succeeding files to link 2->3, 3->4 and so on

That's basically it. There's a lot more you can do to slicken it up and make the menus look professional. The best way to learn how to do that is to examine commercial DVDs and experiment.

Good luck!

-Pete