On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 19:47:59 -0800, Bill Wells
wrote:

On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:37:40 -0500, tony cooper wrote:

If you're saying Microsoft Windows Movie Maker or Microsoft Picture Story 3
directly outputs these DVD-format files, then I stand corrected.
- VIDEO_TS\{VIDEO_TS.IFO,VTS_O1_0.IFO,VTS_01_0.BUP,e tc.}

No, they don't.

Thanks. That's what I was hoping to achieve. BTW, I'm aware that I can
probably use something like DVD Flick to take the output that the Microsoft
programs do output to convert it to DVD-Video format. And, I might have to
go that route. But I was hoping to skip that extra step, mostly because
I've used DVD Flick freeware for years and more often than I like, it takes
8 hours or it hangs forever or the sound is out of sync.

But they don't claim they do, and you keep saying Microsoft is lying.

Well, here's exactly what they say on their tutorial for "making DVDs":
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/u...savetodvd.mspx

"Part of the tradition of home moviemaking is gathering the family around
the TV to watch the movie. You don’t have to give up that tradition when
you make the switch to digital video. You can save a Windows Movie Maker
project to a high-quality video file, and then burn (or write) that file to
a DVD using a DVD burner and video DVD burning program. You can then watch
the DVD in almost any standard DVD player. DVDs are a great way to share
movies with friends and family, and they make great gifts."

Now, between you and me, they didn't directly LIE because everything they
said is legally true .. but really .. we both know that the "high quality
video" file output by Microsoft Windows Movie Maker is NOT a DVD-Video
file.

And, we both know that the chances of watching that non-DVD-Video movie "in
almost any standard DVD player" is really really low.

Now, we both also know that even a perfectly good DVD-Video format DVD
won't play in every DVD player ... but c'mon ... you have to agree that
Microsoft is asserting implications here that are patently untrue in
practice.


Claim: "You can save a Windows Movie Maker project to a high-quality
video file..."

Truth: What Microsoft is talking about is creating a MPEG-2 file. Yes,
their Movie Maker application does that. Still buggy and slow.

Claim: "a DVD-Video file"

Truth. I rarely see anyone so hung-up on a term. Hint. There is no
specific thing as you keep referring to. The Video_TS structure
containing VOB and other files is but ONE format that can be
played off a DVD. With the right player you can encode a DVD to
play a slideshow of just raw JPEG images, or DivX, even AVI or
raw MPEG, even a mixture.

The Video_TS structure is by far the most popular and most widely
supported way to "burn" a DVD that has one or more videos and/or
slideshow. Remember... a slideshow is really nothing but a string of
still images converted to (usually) a MPEG-2 stream then made in VOB
files. Big deal.

I'll go way out on a limb and assume you know the difference between
the various media formats like DVD- and DVD+. That is one reason a
specific DVD may not play on some DVD players. Another reason is the
bitrate. Most beginners encode too high thinking that will result in
"better" image quality resulting in the DVD player stalling off and on
if it is able to properly decode the files at all.

As you can tell I'm no fan of Microsoft. They are simply using
puffing. A common advertising style that lets say stretches the truth
almost to the point it breaks. All software companies do it to some
extent.

Claim: Microsoft says it(DVD Maker)will create DVD's.

Truth: Well to stretch the point, yes. Assuming you have the correct
Vista version that includes DVD Maker which can (so I'm told)
convert the completed Movie Maker files. Maybe I haven't made
it clear yet. We're talking TWO separate programs Movie Maker
comes in all versions of Vista, DVD Maker only comes with
the Home Premium and Ultimate versions. So with Movie Maker you
will get as far as making compliant MPEG-2 source files from
WHICH another application can use to make the Video_TS file
structure, but you can't do it with just Movie Make. If you
have the RIGHT version of Vista, you also get DVD Maker which
will make the Video_TS file structure.

Claim: Chapters with DVD Maker?

Truth: Only the Rube Goldberg method. Again I'm told, (I wouldn't be
caught dead using Micrsoft crap) you have two choices, either
accept default breaks where Microsoft puts them or go through
the insane step of first making a separate project in Movie
Maker for EACH Chapter then add these to DVD Maker, but
(laughable) you still won't be able to add the chapter titles to
any menu rendering any such attempt useless.

Repeating until it sinks in ===

For video editing and even more importantly for DVD Authoring any and
all Freeware solutions are crap and will not give you anything close
to commercial grade DVD's. The reason is quite simple. Many of the
more advanced programming tricks are copyright protected and no
freeware author could afford to pay the royalties.

It's been years since I checked. I think it's called the red book, if
not some other color. Just to get the "book" which simply spells out
the full specifications of the DVD format and HOW to code for it costs
hundreds of dollars and isn't available to the general public even if
you wanted to get a copy and then you would still need to be a
professional grade programmer to understand the coding methods which
are complex.

The same is true for freeware video editors. The MPEG-2 encoding
scheme is also copyright protected and to get a LEGAL copy royalties
need to be paid to the owners. Again, something no freeware author can
afford. So if that's what you're using and the result looks sort of
crappy, now you know why. You're probably using a pirated knock-off
decoder and the decoder/encoder is at the heart of any application
that creates the necessary MPEG-2 files. A none standard encoder
meaning some rip-off hack can introduce all kinds of issues into the
files you need to make a DVD.

Learning yet?