quote: Bobby Henderson

---

This is a tiny bit off the topic of the thread, but has anyone played around with dual layer DVD-R media? The stores in my town are still only stocking the single layer -R/-RW and +R/+RW blank discs. My new Dell notebook has a dual layer DVD burner. The stock software is Sonic's MyDVD. I may ditch that and get a full version of Nero's software or Sonic's DVD Creator program.

---

quote: Christopher Duvall

---

I have a dual layer burner (HP dvd630) but have not used any dual layer discs yet. They COST TOO GOD DAMN MUCH. Single layer blank DVD's are $1 a pop and the dual layered ones are about $10 each. F-that. The burner was only about $150 when I got it recently and it has been really faithful. Just cannot justify the dual layered discs yet.

---

 

---

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 03-28-2005, 03:48 AM:
 
Simply put, Sonic's MyDVD is a piece of crap that's only useful for people who just want to throw together a DVD that *might* work. Personally, I made nothing but coasters with the Sonic software.

I haven't done much experimenting with the Dual Layer media, but the couple of dual-layer discs that I've burned went off without a hitch. Nero handled the splitting of the layers, so I don't know if it followed the flag in the data or if it chose the split on its own. I used Verbatim DL media, as it was highly recommended (although more expensive). Also note that writing to DL media takes a lot longer than single-layer media.

My new Dell came with the NEC ND-3450A drive.
 

---

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-28-2005, 05:27 PM:
 
I'm leaning toward blowing the $50 to $100 for the Nero software. I have not been impressed with any of the OEM cheapie type software that gets bundled with DVD drives. The ULead stuff that came with the Pioneer DVR-A06 drive I bought for my old desktop PC was pure crap. About every other disc would be a coaster.

Late edit for Adam, my new laptop has the NEC-ND6500A dual layer burner.

[ 03-28-2005, 11:51 PM: Message edited by: Bobby Henderson ]
 

---

Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 03-28-2005, 08:43 PM:
 
My sony DL burner came with the full version of Nero 6 bundled. I have yet to get my hands on any dual layer media though. Since my set-top DVD player chokes on most single layer media I highly doubt that it would play dual layer media anyway. From what I've read, nero will split the layers when the first is full. I've heard that only Adobe's Encore will give you control over where the split occurs. (take that with a grain of salt though )
 

---

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 03-28-2005, 08:58 PM:
 
ALL the Nero stuff sucks ass big time! Too fucking confusing and complicated to use and not very user-friendly just like ROXIO Easy Media Creator 7.

I regret spending my $ for both. I went back to Easy CD Creator 5... GREAT program for burning CDs.

For DVD's I use (some other prgm that's on the other computer and I forgot it's name right now...)
 

---

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-28-2005, 09:06 PM:
 
You can design special venue equipment but you can't figure out Nero???
 

---

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 03-28-2005, 09:21 PM:
 
Ummm, yeah... So what's yur point? I admit it... I'm a dumbass and computer illiterate!

Tell you what, the 1st 19-21 y/o guy that emails me with their home address, I'll UPS them my NERO software CD and manuals for free and prepaid. NO strings attached!

I HATE that POS software. It's f*cking STUPIT!
 

---

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-28-2005, 09:27 PM:
 
I've read some bad reviews about Adobe Encore. The biggest complaint being that it is buggy. Another complaint is no 5.1 encoding capability out of the box (unlike Apple's DVD Studio Pro, which for the same amount of money will encode both Dolby Digital and DTS).

There was an interesting news report last week. Avid is buying out Pinnacle. Pinnacle makes a number of high end turnkey video editing systems as well as some entry level hobbyist video applications. Perhaps there might be some hope that the merging of those two companies might finally bring about something truly comparable to what Apple's Production Suite offers on the Mac.
 

---

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 03-28-2005, 09:54 PM:
 
Does anyone else see Phil's diabolical scheme for finding out addresses?

Bobby, the Mac really has video editing down. Some of FCP is a little bit harder to learn than PC programs, but in the end it really is THE way to go. I don't think the PC will ever be able to catch up in that regard.
 

---

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-28-2005, 11:48 PM:
 
I don't expect affordable video editing on the PC side to "catch up" to Apple anytime soon. But FCP has been out for a few years (four version cycles). One would figure the PC platform would have something comparable to at least FCP 1.0 by now.


Adobe is most guilty of dropping this ball. They have killer apps like Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects that can be leveraged into a video production suite. Lots of FCP users also use those Adobe apps.

All too often, Adobe simply chooses to aquire a title from elsewhere rather than develop a new product. I think this is why Adobe's current video suite kinda sucks. Encore and Audition were aquired and repackaged. And then Adobe has never really given Premiere the proper attention it needs. The only app Adobe has aquired and turned into a better product is GoLive. Still, Dreamweaver dominates.

Adobe needs to look at its success with InDesign. They finally bit the bullet on PageMaker (another bought not developed app) and started over with InDesign. The first version of ID was leaps and bounds above PageMaker. With ID CS, Adobe is really kicking Quark's ass in the print field. Hundreds of magazines and even major newspapers are shifting to it. InDesignCS2 could help Adobe finally capture the majority of the print page layout market.

It will take a similar strategy for Adobe (or even the new Avid/Pinnacle merger) to compete directly with Apple --especially if they intend to do it on the Mac platform.

As gigantic as the PC market is, I expect some company will finally get its shit together and market a worthwhile video production suite of tools on the PC platform. In one respect, I think Apple itself is kind of foolish for not taking advantage of the opportunity.
 

---

Posted by Adam Wilbert (Member # 1184) on 03-29-2005, 11:57 AM:
 
...but then you look at what Adobe has done to Acrobat. When I can get different output from the same acrobat 6 file running on different computers, you know something is really wrong. (particularly from InDesign CS PC, since the whole point is to maintain consistency)... anyway, I digress... I still haven't used any DL DVD media yet.
 

---

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 03-30-2005, 01:22 AM:
 

quote: Bobby Henderson

---

I've read some bad reviews about Adobe Encore. The biggest complaint being that it is buggy.

---