Confusion Re Mydvd, Emc, And Others

[starrigger]

Hi all. I'm a fairly long-time user of Sonic MyDVD, currently on version 6. Ever since Sonic acquired Roxio, I've been getting confusing marketing emails trying to sell me upgrades, but with very little explanation. Most recently, I got an offer to upgrade to MyDVD 8. (But the Sonic web site still shows 6 as the latest version, and anyway, what happened to version 7?)

 

I found this area, where a lot of people are talking about Easy Media Creator, which seems to be at EMC 8. I occasionally see people mention MyDVD, but it seems all tangled up with discussion of EMC. The web site here is no help.

 

Can someone explain clearly the relationship of these programs? Is it really EMC 8 that they're hawking by email? If so, is that a real upgrade from MyDVD 6? Are they completely different programs?

 

I customarily use Windows Moviemaker (WMM) for video editing if I'm doing something with a lot of edits, and then I import into MyDVD to bring pieces together and create DVDs. This works fine, if I'm importing from my camcorder. Where it doesn't work fine is if I want to edit something that I already have on DVD.

 

I can do simple editing by changing filenames from .VOB to .MPG and opening in MyDVD's editor. But it's a pretty limited editor, particularly with no timeline editor. I would just take it over to WMM, but WMM can't handle the mpg files. And MyDVD doesn't seem able to convert to from mpg to avi. So I'm wondering if this upgrade from MyDVD 6 to MyDVD 8 would either:

 

a. give me a more versatile (timeline) editor that would edit the mpg files directly, or

b. let me convert from mpg to avi, so that I can keep using WMM

 

And where does EMC fit into all this?

 

Thanks in advance.

[ggrussell]

I'll agree that there has been some confusion and especially since Sonic/Roxio has released several versions. There was no V7 of MyDVD. Previous versions 6 and before that were designed and marketed by Sonic. MyDVD 8 is a result of the merger and it doesn't have much in common with those preivious versions. MyDVD is mostly based on Roxio's previous version (DVD Builder 7).

 

The first release of MyDVD 8 was included with Easy Media Creator 8. They have since released a 'stand lone' version - MyDVD Essentials. This version does not include all the other applications that are in EMC8.

 

MyDVD is for authoring DVDs and making menus. It is not intended for 'editing'. However, MyDVD8 does have an 'edit movie' function that has a timeline, but does have limited ability. You can not 'save as' and AVI, but then you don't need to either. I'm not familiar with all of the capablities of MyDVD 8 Essentials. Hopefully they will post more on the ROXIO main website fairly soon.

[starrigger]

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

The need to "save as" avi format kicks in if what I want to edit (from a VOB file on a DVD--i.e., an mpg file) is beyond what MyDVD's editor can handle. WMM can't read that type of mpg file as anything other than an audio file. I downloaded a few mpg converters, but none of them seemed to work very well.

 

MyDVD 8 is a result of the merger and it doesn't have much in common with those preivious versions. MyDVD is mostly based on Roxio's previous version (DVD Builder 7).

 

Do you know how the Sonic MyDVD compares with the Roxio version? I've never seen the Roxio.

 

Jeff

[ggrussell]

I may be a little swayed toward Roxio. LOL I've used their products for years. I did own MyDVD 6 and found the interface more 'simplified'. There is definitely more options in MyDVD8 and you should be able to do some simple edits in it, too.

 

The 'styles' for V6 are not compatible with MyDVD8, but you can use the files like the JPGs or MPG backgrounds and audio files to create a custom style.