Sonic Solutions Bulletins
Monday, February 10, 2003
Matrox boards and MyDVD
If you have both a DVD recorder that comes with MyDVD and a
Matrox capture card like the RT.X100 or RT-2500 you should not use MyDVD.
Instead use the more powerful DVDit! LE that is included with the Matrox
card. The reason for this is that MyDVD does not read the MPEG-2 files
created by the Matrox hardware. DVDit! (LE, SE or PE) is written to
specifically recognize those files but MyDVD is not.
Friday, February 8, 2002
Getting the most on your DVD-R disc
Most audio used for DVD authoring is 16-bit stereo
48KHz WAV format. Unfortunately it is not the best format for compression. The DVD specification also allows for AC3 files
that support more channels of audio and use much less space. One hour of
48KHz WAV stereo audio will take up 720MB (1.6Mbit/sec) while the same
audio compressed using AC3 will use at most 60MB (192Kbit/sec, a 12:1
compression ratio). Both DVDit!
PE and ReelDVD can
actually encode AC3 audio (convert WAV to AC3) without the use of any
additional software.
Friday, January 29, 2002
Sonic Solutions updates DVDit! to version
2.5.2
DVDit! has been updated to version 2.5.2. This
free update improves timeline playback, device drivers and Dazzle file
compatibility, while also adding QuickTime file support. Users of
Sonic Solutions' DVDit! products can download the update from the Sonic
Solutions web site .
Thursday, November 8, 2001
DVDit! 2.5 update available for download
Sonic Solutions has released version 2.5 of DVDit! as a
free upgrade for registered customers. This release introduces
Windows XP support (including both Home and Professional editions), a faster
MPEG-2
transcoder for faster than real-time encoding on Pentium 4 systems, an
updated PowerDVD player, support for the new Panasonic LF-D311 and HP
dvd100i drives and much more. Users of previous editions of DVDit!
can present their serial number to download version 2.5 from the Sonic
Solutions web site.
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
Using DVDit! with DV500
Some people may be experiencing problems creating
DVDs if they are using Sonic Solutions' DVDit! software with the DV500
from Pinnacle Systems. The problem is that when the DV500 creates
an MPEG-2 file (with .mp2 extension) it puts what is called a "user
data block" on the end of the file which DVDit! interprets as a
data spike. This "user data block" conforms to the DVD
specification but not all software packages properly recognize it.
Pinnacle Systems is planning to revise their software for the
DV500 (the new Pinnacle Pro-ONE doesn't have the same problem) so that
it doesn't create this "user data block" but they could not
say when this will be fixed. Until then, there is a workaround
that requires the use of the Pinnacle Impression software that is
included with the DV500. It works as follows:
1 - export the MP2 file from Premiere to Impression
2 - create a DVD image in Impression and write the folders to your hard
drive
3 - go into the video_ts folder and rename any files ending with ".vob"
so that the file name extension is ".mpg"
4 - then import the files into DVDit! and write your DVD-R.
Monday, September 17, 2001
ReelDVD version 2.5 released
Sonic Solutions has announced that version 2.5 of their
ReelDVD professional DVD authoring software has been released. This
version adds support for the Pioneer DVR-A03 and MKE SW-9501 DVD-R for
General drives as well as the Tandberg Super DLT220 tape drive. This
version of ReelDVD does work under Windows NT 4.0 but Windows NT 4.0
will not be supported in the future and there will be no bug fixes to
address Windows NT 4.0 issues. Owners of previous versions of ReelDVD can upgrade to the latest version
for free on the Sonic
Solutions web site.
Wednesday, July 11, 2001
Sonic Solutions updates DVDit! to work with
Pioneer DVR-A03
Sonic Solutions has updated their DVDit! software to
make it fully compatible with the new Pioneer DVR-A03 DVD-R/RW
drive. Links to English language and Japanese language updates of DVDit!
2.3.3 LE, SE and PE can be found in the Sonic
Solutions support forum.
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
Creating DVD content on CD-R discs
A number of DVD authoring packages available for the
the PC also have the ability of recording that content on to CD-R
discs. Software that supports this includes, but is not limited
to, DVDit! by Sonic Solutions and Impression CD-Pro by Pinnacle
Systems. This has the advantage that anyone with a CD recorder in
a PC and the right software can create at very low cost what is
essentially a mini DVD with about 15 to 20 minutes of DVD-quality MPEG-2
video and it can be played in just about any modern PC. The
biggest disadvantage is that these discs cannot be played on standard
DVD players or in Macintosh computers. More information on what
Sonic Solutions has called the cDVD format, including the advantages and
disadvantages, can be found on the Sonic
Solutions web site.
Wednesday, August 30, 2000
Sonic Solutions DVDit! LE 2.1 software update available
Sonic Solutions has released version 2.1 of their DVDit! LE
software for the RT2000. There are many new features including
increased navigation capability with timed menus, improved editing with
support for custom button shapes, it can now write DVD content to CD-R
with embedded DVD player and there is now support for MPEG-2 IBP clips
greater than 2GB. More information on the upgrade can be found on the Matrox
web site.
|
