newbie: roxio vs ulead question about re-encoding

rod2 · Post by **rod2** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:48 am

I have question before i purchase Ulead and was wondering if someone here knew the answer. Previously I've used Roxio to burn DVD compilations of my movies, however, the files are often re-encoded and the resulting DVD video doesnt look as good as the orginal mpeg.

Someone said Ulead had a feature where you specified the DVDauthor software to "keep same settings as files" and then it would NOT re-encode the mpegs.

Is this true? If so, what Ulead product would I need to purchase to find this feature?

thanks

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 4:10 am

Video Studio -- and that control you mentioned in found in the Project Settings icon of the burning module of VS.

VS also has another feature called SmartRender. Essentially, if you have, say, a number of mpeg-2 clips with the same properties, and you put them in the editing timeline and add transitions between them, then produce a single mpeg-2 of the whole project, using SmartRender means that only the parts around the transitions are re-rendered...

rod2 · Post by **rod2** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 2:52 pm

thanks for the reply. a few more questions. I dont really know anything at all about Ulead so I'm trying to find out if its the best choice for me and will it run on my system etc.

Whats the latest version of VSstudio? 11?

a review on amazon com complained of horribly long render files, 7 to 8 minutes per actual minute of footage. Is this a normal scenario for this product? If I use the settings mentioned previously, "keep setting same as project files", shouldnt I expect fairly quick DVD burning as the author burn program will NOT be re-encoding the files? Or am i mistaken?

Lastly i've read some stuff about burn drive conflicts with Roxio. I've had three versions on my computer at one time or another and currently have EZ media 7. Drag and Drop was never installed. Is it still possible I wont be able to burn?

and one other question, i see there is a trial version of Studio available. Is it full featured or limited featured?

thanks

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:36 pm

a review on amazon com complained of horribly long render files, 7 to 8 minutes per actual minute of footage.

So you read a review of a user's experience. What was their pc setup like? What were they trying to render? Were they an experienced user? Render times are dependent on a lot of factors. Needless to say, I would take that review with a grain of salt.

I'm glad you didn't jump ship and decided to pose the question here. You will get much better feedback from this forum (IMHO). (But not from me, as I am still running v10+.)

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 7:33 pm

Whats the latest version of VSstudio? 11?

Correct.

a review on amazon com complained of horribly long render files, 7 to 8 minutes per actual minute of footage. Is this a normal scenario for this product? If I use the settings mentioned previously, "keep setting same as project files", shouldnt I expect fairly quick DVD burning as the author burn program will NOT be re-encoding the files? Or am i mistaken?

Most people who report horrendous render-times here are converting from DivX or Xvid. It's almost funny... Whenever I see a post with a title that says anything about taking too long I immediatley think "DivX".

In my situation, I often have MPEGs with compliant video, but the audio needs to be re-rendered. It typically takes 10-15 minutes to re-render and re-multiplex the audio (and whatever else it's doing), and another 10-15 minutes to burn a fairly-full single-layer DVD. (~3GHz single-core AMD).

Note that the burning-time has no direct realtionship to the playing-time. It's determined by the file size. It takes the same amount of time to burn a 1-hour 4.3GB movie as it does to burn a more-compressed 3-hour 4.3GB movie. So, the "4X" and "8X" burning speeds can be misleading...

Lastly i've read some stuff about burn drive conflicts with Roxio. I've had three versions on my computer at one time or another and currently have EZ media 7. Drag and Drop was never installed. Is it still possible I wont be able to burn?

Anything is possible. Worst case, you can render the AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders to your hard drive, and use Roxio to copy these to the actual DVD.

Download the 30-day free trial version! If you have a slow connection (like me) you can order the CD with all of Ulead's trial programs, but it costs ~$13 USD.