By Douglas Dixon, November 22, 2005
Sonic Solutions (www.sonic.com) has been busy lately. In September 2005, Fortune ranked Sonic 14th on its list of the 100 fastest-growing public companies in the United States, due to a 59 percent growth rate in 2005. Not bad for a DVD-focused company, albeit one with an amazingly broad product line. Sonic's portfolio includes consumer digital media applications, expanded with the acquisition of Roxio, as well as high-end professional tools and hardware encoders for authoring movie titles (and now high-def DVD formats). Sonic also licenses its AuthorScript technology underlying these products for both computer applications and consumer electronics products.
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Both the basic and the Pro versions of DVDit 6 share the same familiar drag-and-drop interface that allows casual users to get to work with minimal fuss.
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The middle ground of DVD creation
But what about the middle ground-corporate users and video enthusiasts who have occasional needs to make customized DVDs? These users need to go beyond the structured template-driven designs provided by entry-level applications, but can't be expected to invest the effort to become full-time experts in a professional tool. Yes, there's a tier of midrange professional tools, including Apple DVD Studio Pro ($499) and-especially appealing for Photoshop fans-Adobe Encore DVD ($349), but these are a big step up in power and price for occasional users. Another player, Ulead, divided its product line to address this market segment. Ulead split the DVD Workshop application ($395) to create the more simplified DVD Workshop Express ($199) with the same consumer-friendly look, but for smaller projects and without professional mastering options.
Then there's Sonic DVDit-the long-time semiprofessional application for corporate and enthusiast users. It's solid and reliable; serious but still approachable. Not overkill in a power suit with pinstripes, and yet not excessively relaxed in a T-shirt and shorts. But Sonic, too, has been making some changes in its product line.
As part of its flurry of activity this year, Sonic consolidated the code base for its midrange tools. Sonic engineers have been busy developing a refreshed user interface, shared across DVDit and DVD Producer (also incorporating support for high-def formats in DVD Producer), rolling features like slide show creation from MyDVD into DVDit, and migrating shared project support from MyDVD into DVDit.
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You can use predefined templates for menus, buttons, and backgrounds in DVDit 6, or you can customize them by dragging and dropping new images onto them.
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DVDit 6: Base and Pro
The result is the new Sonic DVDit 6 for Windows XP, which sports a new, more refined interface, enhanced menu design capabilities, and deeper control over DVD options. The new DVDit still retains the drag-and-drop interface approach that allows casual users to pick up the program and get to work with a minimum of training and fuss. Sonic split DVDit into two versions: the regular version at the previous $299 price, and a significantly enhanced DVDit Pro 6 version at $399. You'll find the general authoring approach and functionality with DVDit Pro 6 similar to that in Adobe Encore DVD 1.5-not too surprising because Adobe licenses the underlying Sonic DVD engine for use in Encore DVD.
Major new professional features in version 6 include a full timeline with multiple audio and subtitle tracks (8 and 32 respectively), subtitle importing and editing, movie and slide show playlists, Dolby Digital stereo encoding and 5.1 pass-though, and pro mastering options, which include DLT support and content protection (CSS and Macrovision). As an extra bonus, DVDit 6 includes Sonic eDVD (see Reviews, Oct. '05 DV) for creating enhanced DVDs. The base version includes eDVD LE for adding Web links, and the Pro version includes the full version of Sonic eDVD 4, which also supports linking to local computer files and even applications (available separately for $199).
Working with DVDit
DVDit has a very familiar interface, designed for straightforward drag-and-drop editing. You can arrange the five main windows as you like, or click to switch between the built-in layouts. You start by importing video clips and other asset files into the Palette window, and then drag to the Project window to create the movies (timelines) and menus to be included on your disc.
DVDit can import most common PC formats, including AVI and Windows Media, QuickTime, and MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. You also can import selected clips from DVD+VR discs (i.e., discs created on a set-top recorder). To import the entire contents of a disc as a project, create the disc using Sonic's OpenDVD format, which saves project information as ROM data with the final DVD. (OpenDVD is supported by MyDVD, DVDit, and DVD Producer, and also by the CustomFlix DVD Transfer service.)
With DVDit's visual approach, the Project and Palette windows display your project assets as large thumbnail images for ready access. You can also choose an alternate detail view, with the Project window providing a nice hierarchical view of menus and buttons, movies and chapters, and slide shows and images. For playlists and slide shows, this nested list provides a quick way to reorganize the playback order of the included clips.
DVDit 6 now supports multimedia slide shows with up to 999 pictures, which is adopted from the slide show builder in MyDVD. You can select from a wide variety of transition effects, add multiple background audio clips with fades, and then fit the duration of the slides to the audio or loop the audio under the slides as they are displayed for a specified duration.
For editing your DVD's menus, the Palette window includes predefined menu template designs, background images, and buttons and frames. Again, you can drag and drop clips to perform several actions-to add buttons to a menu, to change the link of an existing button, or to change the button art.
New alignment tools help in laying out the design. And you can design your own menus in an external application and import them as two-layer Photoshop files with separate image and highlight overlay layers.
Beyond this kind of visual drag-and-drop design, you can use the Attributes window to drill down for more control in setting menu, button, and link properties. Motion menus can be looped or timed, end actions added, and links created to override the destination's end action and return to the menu.
In the Pro version, links can include the selection of an associated button highlight (for menus) or an audio or subtitle stream (for alternate language tracks), and you can set DVD remote Menu and Title button links for each title. With the button routing control, you can also create secret buttons to access "easter egg" bonus material.
Even better, you can reuse the content on your disc by creating playlists that link together segments from multiple movies and slide shows. Each segment can start playing at a chapter (or picture) offset within the longer clip, and you can specify the associated audio and subtitle tracks.
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DVDit now supports slide shows with up to 999 pictures. You can time your slides to a soundtrack and choose from a library of effects to create transitions between slides.
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Reality check
However, behind this nice interface design, DVDit 6 ran a bit sluggishly in my testing, from opening projects to visible delays for some editing operations such as Undo. Sonic reports it will release a version 6.1 update by the time you read this, with bug fixes and performance improvements.
DVDit 6 is a comfortable fit for its target market of business professionals and video enthusiasts, offering solid and accessible DVD authoring for users who want the flexibility of customized design without the in-depth commitment required by a more professional tool. More complex projects will be better served with the more advanced midrange tools, with their deeper support for project management, and menu and navigational design. Users still need to do a lot of manual twiddling in DVDit, even just to keep buttons together with their associated text.
Conclusion
DVDit allows occasional users to do their work quickly and with a minimum of fuss. The basic version offers drag-and-drop visual authoring of both menu designs and navigational control. And even if you're not interested in multiple tracks and professional mastering, you may be tempted by the Pro version, with features like playlists to provide alternate paths through clips, OpenDVD support for re-editing discs, and the full version of eDVD to create discs for enhanced PC playback.
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