What do those of us do without Sorensen Squeeze???

DavidBeier

DavidBeier

Veteran
I have the Academic Version of Avid that came with Xpress Pro HD, Metasync, and Sonic DVDiT. In my quest to burn an 720x480 16x9 non-square pixel DVD, I'm finding that all the suggestions for doing this and all the guides from Avid and others involve Sorensen Squeeze. Does this come with the retail Xpress Pro HD because I sure as hell don't have it and it apparently costs $450. How do those of us go about encoding an MPEG2 the way we want when we don't have that kind of cash to blow?
 
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Yes, it comes with the retail Xpress Pro, and in my opinion, it's worth the price tag. But that doesn't mean a whole lot when you don't have the money for it anyway.

TMPEGEnc http://www.tmpgenc.net/en/e_main.html is a $50 MPEG-2 encoder with decent quality but it's horribly slow.

Cinemacraft Encoder Basic http://www.cinemacraft.com/eng/basic.html is $58 with great quality and considerably faster than TMPEGEnc

DVD-Lab is a fantastic DVD Authoring program for $100. Honestly, this thing has more features and functionality than most $1,000+ authoring programs.

Those are good places to start.

EDIT TO ADD: Here's a link to DVD-Lab. I don't know why I didn't include it originally. http://www.mediachance.com/dvdlab/index.html
 
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I think it didn't come with a manual or effects guide.

And krestofre... what's your take on DVD Lab vs. Sorenson? I've used Sorenson for everything, but an upgrade to a better product would be awesome.
 
I knew it was missing the manual but I figured that was a mistake. Didn't complain since I got my copy by winning my school's film festival. Grrr....
 
The retail version of Xpress Pro comes with Sorensone Squeeze, Sonic DVD (something or other), Soundfire Pro, Boris FX, and Boris Graffiti.

Squeeze is the only one out of that list that I use regularly.

Brandon, DVD-Lab and Sorenson Squeeze are two different programs for two different purposes. Squeeze is an encoder. DVD-Lab is an authoring program to actually build the DVD. That being said in my opinion DVD-Lab is the best authoring program on a Windows platform. The only authoring program I'd rather use is DVD Studio Pro, but I know you're not a Mac guy. :)
 
krestofre said:
Brandon, DVD-Lab and Sorenson Squeeze are two different programs for two different purposes. Squeeze is an encoder. DVD-Lab is an authoring program to actually build the DVD. That being said in my opinion DVD-Lab is the best authoring program on a Windows platform. The only authoring program I'd rather use is DVD Studio Pro, but I know you're not a Mac guy. :)
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I currently use Adobe Encore for my DVD authoring, and I've been real happy. What benefits would I see by switching over to DVD-Lab?
 
I, too, have the academic version and have had a very frustrating time exporting anything from Avid. Quite a rip-off compared to FCP. Sonic DVDit (or MySonic) suggest using Quicktime Reference File. Never worked for me. If any of the Quicktime options ever worked, the quality is horrible...and you don't get to find that out until you have spent hours transcoding! Always ended up having to output timeline to DV tape and then capturing that edited master through the Sonic program. Gave the best quality.

As for the Sonic DVD authoring that comes with the full version, forget about it. I had a big project (50th high school reunion) that I did gratis. Decided I would finalize the project on an Avid Adrenaline system, using that "big" Sonic version. After more than an hour of transcoding, the DVD program gave non-descriptive error. Tried more than once, altering the Sorenson settings et al.


Finally, I turned to my laptop academic version and its DVDit program and authored the DVD first time out no problems. No errors.

I'm in the same boat. Need exporting options, but don't have the Sorenson budget. (Have posted new question.)
 
Definitely buy the pro version of Quicktime (around $35 bucks?). Quicktime will convert certain Avid outputs. For one thing, you can get an MPEG4 out of Quicktime. That might be how I ultimately got MPEG2, as well. (But, quality of DV tape captured through Sonic gave me best result. Of course, there are lots of settings to play around with. I'd love to know what works better.)
 
NoPun said:
If any of the Quicktime options ever worked, the quality is horrible...and you don't get to find that out until you have spent hours transcoding!
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If you spent hours transcoding, then you weren't using Quicktime Reference. Reference files take literally seconds to export and retain the exact same quality as your Avid footage.

The workflow in and out of Avid is solid. I'm sorry that you had so much trouble with it.
 
Nah, it wasn't reference file that was slow transcoder. The reference file option simply did not seem to work with DVDit. Regular quicktime movie conversions took forever, as I recall.
 
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