Review MediaChance DVD-Lab 1.3

Today there are a lot of different tools available that allow you to create DVD's from video or photo material.All of them offer a common set of functions that allow you to create a DVD. Most of these tools are so simple to operate a baby can do it. Problem is that those programs are often limited to a baby's level.

Since these tools have to be easy to operate by anyone they use templates and wizards. A couple of clicks get you a menu. The problems start when you want to change the templates , or simply want to have a more professional look to your menu's. For an occasional user these programs are ok, but if you make on average 20 home movies a year and they all have the same 2 or 3 theme's for their menu's, stuff starts to get boring. Pretty soon these 'low-end' programs run out of gas.

Of course there are always the high end tools such as Impression or ReelDVD but these tools are out of reach for video hobbyists due to their price level or learning curve.

In our ever continuing quest to find the best tools out there we found this little gem. DVD-Lab is an incredible DVD authoring program that allows you full control of the DVD menu.

Most of you might not know this program or have heard of this company before, and that's a pity. Once you have used this tool you will probably wonder why nobody seems to know about it.

Strange we should start off with what looks like the negative points, but in this case they are not negative points. DVD-Lab is built from a different mind-set. The purpose of the program is to be a DVD menu builder. Other programs such as DVD movie factory, Sonic DVDit or Pinnacle's InstantDVD offer an integrated system that will take source material and turn it into a DVD with the least possible user interaction albeit greatly sacrificing flexibility.

In DVD-Lab you are responsible to supply the source video in a DVD compliant format. The well known Tsunami MPEG encoder (TMPGenc) is available as a plug-in. If your source material can not be handled by DVD-Lab it will tell you what is wrong and you have to correct it.

The advantage of this is that you will not be facing 'surprises' the moment the disc is being compiled. Other tools simply start a lengthy transcoding process over which you have no or almost no control, often using the same low cost and inferior quality MPEG encoding engines.

DVD-Lab allows you to create menu's, slide shows with music, animated transitions between menu's and create the exact layout of your choice. By drawing the links between all the elements on your DVD you create the menu 'program'. DVD-Lab has a rich toolset that let you inspect, investigate and tweak your raw media ( video,photo,audio) even down to the physical disc layout. It supports the full DVD standard.

What most people don't know is that a DVD menu is actually a program being run by the player. The DVD menu is based on the XML philosophy with specific extensions to the DVD system. The main interface looks a bit like Visual studio. But don't worry, there is not a single line of code to be written, everything is done using the GUI.

Normally the lower 1/4 of the completely customizable user interface shows you the assets browser. Here you can explore all the individual objects that will become your DVD. The video streams, still images, graphics, buttons, audio files etc are nicely catalogued

In the preview window a number of features are available that let you organize the way you want.

Information on each object can be pulled up,and for compliant video streams you can look at the GOP structure in detail.

There is even a bit rate viewer that lets you walk the graph and shows you the corresponding video frames in the preview window. Interesting if you want to learn a bit about MPEG encoding and see what the encoder you use did to your source material.

The preview window right of the asset browser allows you to see the movies.

The left sidebar shows you the parts that ar in use in your project. Elements are grouped per category. To open an element and modify it simply double click it. An editing window will open that allows you to modify at will.

his is the strong point of the entire program. While most other programs either rely on templates that can not or only very slightly be modified, DVD-Lab allows you full freedom.

The menu builder actually consists of 2 windows.

The connection window shows you the logical flow inside your DVD project.

The flow can be modified at will by simply drawing lines from one element to another. Conflicting entries will be automatically deleted so you can't create 'impossible' constructions.

On the left you see for instance that upon insertion (first play : the green ball with a power on button on it) you will end up in the main menu. Two connection link to 2 different elements form this menu. One connection goes via a small circle with an hourglass in it. That means there is an animation inserted there. The animation can be created right in the tool ( for instance for menu animation ) or you can simply add your own video segments.

since you have full control over the flow you can make your menu as elaborate as you want. You can also see in the connection window how many disk space is required for every element. This editing feature was only found in Videopack, an older tool to edit VCD and SVCD's.

For people familiar with a web editing tool such as Microsoft frontpage, or programming tools such as Visual Basic of Visual studio this will work very intuitive. It's all just a matter of connecting the dots. So far we have interconnected existing elements, so it's time to have a look at how we create a menu.