Showing posts with label software. Show all posts
Showing posts with label software. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Blu-Ray Authoring Software for Wedding Videos



Blu-ray Creator - Best Blu-ray Burning Software Free Download
Has a menu designer and supports almost every available video format, so it doesn't matter what video editor you use to export your completed videos.
Caveat: this appears to be a 

Adobe Encore CS6
Must be purchased with a creative cloud membership now (as part of Adobe Premiere) because the disc version of the software has not been available for over two years.
Many professional video editors use Encore as their go-to for DVD and Blu-Ray authoring, but it does have a learning curve if you're not familiar with Adobe applications.

Thankfully you can overcome this learning curve by watching a few Youtube videos to learn the interface:
Part 1 of 3: Blu-ray Authoring and Adobe Encore Basics - YouTube

Adobe Encore Basics 2: Creating Menus - Duration: 7:30
 

Sony DVD Architect Pro 6.0 (at B&H Photo Video)
Can author both DVDs and Blu-Rays
$150 
Doesn't appear to require any other software, as long as you can feed it your final edit exported from your video editor of choice.  This seems like it would be a comparable alternative to Adobe Encore.
"supports popular video and audio formats such as AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and AVCHD so you can make a DVD or Blu-ray disc that will play on almost any DVD/BD player or DVD/BD-capable computer."

DVD Architect - creating DVD Menus - YouTube

PowerProducer 6 | CyberLink
$80 (Ultra version that can author blu-rays).  On sale for $63.
A less expensive option that may not provide as many deep options as Sony's DVD Architect, but will get you burning discs at about half the price.  Supports many different common video formats:
AVI/ 3GPP (3g2, 3gp)/ VOB / FLV/ MOD/ MKV/ MPEG/ MPEG-2 Transport Stream(m2t, m2ts, mts, tod, tpd)/ MPEG-2 TV Recorded (trp, ts)/ MPEG-4 AVC (MOV)/ MPEG-4 Video (MP4)/ Video CD (DAT)/  VRO/ ASF/WMV/ Windows Media Center Recorded (dvr-ms, WTV)

* Can create video slideshows from your JPEG or RAW photos.

Tips for Blu-Ray authoring:

Use high-quality, reliable media. Getting the cheapest discs possible may actually cost you in the long run because their lifespan will be shorter and you'll have more discs that fail to burn, leaving you with a coaster.

Deciding on encoding format.  In your video editor, you can export either MPEG-2 for Blu-Ray or H.264 for Blu-Ray.  MPEG-2 can be used for videos that are one hour or less.  If your videos are longer, use the H.264 encoding options.

Authoring Blu-ray Discs | Videomaker.com

Saturday, March 19, 2016

Make Your Own Ambient Audio Tracks for Video

When the right kind of electronic or ambient music is not available for your project, why not create your own?

Stretching a piano, guitar, or other single/double instrument song can sound interesting and tones and drones when done right.

Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch


To create your own custom stretched music tracks, check out Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch.  It's available for PC and Linux.

ZynAddSubFX (open source music generator)


If the sound of an enlongated song is not to your taste, another option is to generate your own instrumentation or chorus sounds with ZynAddSubFX.  It's an open source music generator for PC, Mac, and Linux:
a fully featured open source software synthesizer capable of making a countless number of instruments, from some common heard from expensive hardware to interesting sounds that you'll boost to an amazing universe of sounds.

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Use Windows NTFS External Hard Drives on a Mac


Exchanging large files between Macs and PCs has been a royal pain in the rear for several years now.  If you're a mac user, you're bound to encounter an external hard drive in the Windows NTFS format that needs to have files added from a Mac.  This is not possible without special software to add a NTFS driver on your Mac so that you can write (add files) to the drive.

This week I needed to copy 300GB+ of files from a Mac-formatted HFS+ external hard drive to a client's NTFS formatted backup drive, and here's are the best options I found after a little research.

Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X software ($20)
* supports OS X 10.9 Mavericks
* 10 day trial available, or available on TPB.

Tuxera NTFS for Mac | Tuxera ($31)
* Supports 10.4 Tiger and later
* stable version: Tuxera NTFS for Mac 2013.2 (Latest update: 2013-10-23).
* Latest version supports OS X 10.9 Mavericks
* 15 trial, or latest version is available on TPB.
* Personal license can be used on all your computers.

Paragon Mini-Bundle! for $29.99 - 70% off - MacUpdate Promo
** Promo ends Monday, April 7th at 10pm MST.
** Same cost as the 2-in-1 bundle below, but you get more.
NTFS for Mac ($20 value)
HFS+ for Windows ($20 value)
Camptune X ($20 value)
ExtFS for Mac ($40 value)

usb - Alternative to Tuxera NTFS and MacFUSE? - Ask Different
Includes steps to achieve NTFS support on your mac with free software.

Paragon software is offering a 25% off deal through April 30th, 2014.  If you work with Macs and PCs in your home studio or work environment, this bundle is a complete solution for external hard drive support between Mac HFS+ and NTFS (Windows).  This means you're not stuck if you're a Mac user and someone gives you a PC drive with files you need.  PC Users, this means that when that special Mac person gives you a drive, Windows can actually read and write to that hard drive.
If you have a Seagate external hard drive, this NTFS driver is free:
NTFS Driver for Mac OS | Seagate


Read more about writing to NTFS drives on your mac:

How to write to a NTFS volume (Windows) from your Mac | IT Gems
If you use an older mac, this will probably be helpful.  The MacFUSE software listed here is not longer being maintained.