Impression Pro v DVDit PE

Any comments regarding the pro's/cons of these two packages?

Neither one of these programs seem to be available in a demo version so I can't check them out myself.

I'm leaning towards Impression due to the DD 5.1 support. I will be encoding the .ac3 files with Sonic Foundry's upcoming DD encoder for Acid Pro 4.

DV capture and editing and MPEG encoding will be done in Premiere 6.5.

John Hostick

I agree with Tyler. I had to return Impression DVD Pro to Pinnacle, after a period of trials and errors. Brought it for a piece requires subtitles but it doesn't work properly. Though on the surface DVDit PE appears to give a lot, ie. AC3 stereo encoder, the software usability and the final result don't match with what you're looking for. Hunt out for SpruceUp DVD or DVD Maestro.

John,
I guess I personally wouldn't be so down on Impression Pro. I think it's a better product than DVDit, and it has a number of features that at it's price you can't find in another dvd authoring application. Some people have had problems with it being 'quirky', but its worked reasonably well for me since the 2.21 release. It does not have a subtitle generator within the application itself, and importing them into the program has been a problem for some users--so if that's something you are going to do I'd look seriously at ReelDVD.

There is a back door method of importing ac3 files currently into Workshop.

Keith,
If you take your mpeg video stream and AC3 audio stream and use TMPGEnc via 'file'>'mpeg tools' and select one of the multiplex options, you can get a program stream(single video file with both audio and video) with AC3 audio that apparently DVD Workshop will accept. You need to make sure in Ulead that for the project setting that you have "do not convert compliant file"(or something to that effect) enabled. You apparently--since I have not personally done this--can not hear the audio play back during the dvd authoring phase (probably because since DVDWS does not officially support ac3 audio, such a decoder is not present in the emulation/playback interface from within the program). However, the reports out there are that the disc will successfully play once burned to a disc, with ac3 audio.

That's strange, I don't have any problems muxing the files together--whether they are 5.1 or 2 ch. I use the simple multiplex--which one were you using? Also, what did you use to create the ac3 files, and can you play and listen to them with Window's media player? I'm not using the latest version of TMPGEnc, so maybe that's part of it, although it would be odd that that funcionality would be taken away. I know of others who have been successful doing this (getting ac3 audio into Workshop via this method), but I haven't personally done this (but have muxed the files together to see if it works) because I don't use Workshop.

There might be something about the tags in the audio test file that is an issue. I will try downloading the file myself and see if I have a problem with it.