- CNET Editors' Rating 8.7/10 Excellent Editorial policies >>
- Average user rating from 11 users 4.5/10 Mediocre Read user opinions >>
The good: Easy to learn and use; outstanding menu-creation tools; support for Digital Linear Tape, CSS, region coding, and Macrovision; flexible capture and import options.
The bad: No multichannel Dolby Digital encoding; no fit-to-disc function when burning output; no time-line editing.
The bottom line: Ulead DVD Workshop 2.0's wonderfully intuitive interface and huge selection of DVD-authoring tools will please professionals and advanced hobbyists alike.
Specs: License qty: 1 user; License type: Complete package; Min Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows 2000 See full specs >>
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 03/23/2004
- Released on: 01/29/2004
One of DVD Workshop 2.0's greatest strengths is its intuitive interface, which divides DVD-authoring projects into a five-step guided work flow: project setup, video capture, editing, menu creation, and output/export. A single screen handles each step, and the interface is smart enough to automatically switch steps if you wish to perform a task out of sequence.
DVD Workshop's content-editing and menu-creation screens do a fine job of shoehorning a lot of functionality into a small space. In addition to a nicely oversized preview window, there's a multipurpose content browser, as well as a tabbed tool area that lets you import and edit menu buttons, text, audio, video, images, and subtitles. DVD Workshop displays video titles in an easy-to-manage scrolling storyboard; selecting any title from the board displays a thumbnail filmstrip that provides access to that title's chapters. The program lacks time-line editing capabilities, but its storyboard implementation is so well integrated with the rest of the program's interface and toolset that you probably won't miss it.
 DVD Workshop is packed with learning aids such as detailed ToolTips, introductory step-by-step instructions for common tasks, and self-explaining placeholder icons that tell you where to drag objects. |
A wide selection of input options lets you use DVD Workshop 2.0 to capture live footage in both preset and custom formats; import AVI, QuickTime, MPEG, WMV, ASF, and other types of audio files; and even extract content from unencrypted DVD-Video discs. Better yet, every video title can be given 8 discrete audio and 32 subtitle tracks, each of which may be assigned a different language. The program can also convert still images into a video slide show that you can drop onto the storyboard and manipulate like any other video title.
DVD Workshop 2.0's powerful finishing options let you output to a host of formats, including DVD, Video CD, SVCD, and Digital Linear Tape (DLT); you can enable Macrovision, CSS, and region coding; and you can produce dual-layer DVD-9 projects and store ISO disc images and Video_TS folders on either fixed or removable storage devices. The program can also encode stereo Dolby Digital and multichannel Pro Logic soundtracks, and although it can't encode its own 5.1-channel Dolby Digital files, it can import previously created 5.1 audio content and pass it through as part of a finished DVD project.
DVD Workshop 2.0 turned in a speedy performance, comparable to those of other sub-$500 packages from Ahead and Roxio. On our test bed, Workshop 2.0 took 32 minutes and 43 seconds to burn a Video CD project, including the time it required to transcode a 350MB DivX file to MPEG-1. Its SmartRendering feature made it possible to write our 1GB DVD-Video project to disc in 4 minutes and 49 seconds and to a hard drive folder in a mere 2 minutes and 15 seconds. Unfortunately, unlike most other competing applications, Workshop 2.0 couldn't maintain a preview frame rate greater than a few frames per second when capturing live video.
Our other criticisms are fairly minor, given the program's enormous power and flexibility. Nevertheless, we found it strange that the software lets you specify that an initial First Play video show before the Root Menu is displayed, but there's no other way to disable viewers' navigation controls. We were also vexed that DVD Workshop 2.0 lets you manage the size of your output files by setting bit rates in 1Kbps increments but doesn't provide a fit-to-disc function that would automatically choose the highest-quality bit rate for your project. Finally, we missed a snap-to-grid feature to complement the alignment grids that you can overlay on the program's menu-editing screen.
 Despite their luxurious oversized video-preview windows, DVD Workshop's editing and menu-creation screens pack a huge amount of functionality into a streamlined, easy-to-navigate layout. |
Most impressive is the company's phone support, which, unlike that of most of its competitors, includes unlimited free calls for all registered users for the life of the product. The support line is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT and requires a toll call. When calling near closing time on a midweek evening, we encountered a wait time of less than a minute. The support tech who answered the call knew the product well and was able to quickly resolve our problem.
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User opinions
WRITE YOUR OWN REVIEW How would you rate this product?
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3/10 Poor February 3, 2005
"Good for capture and burn, Bad if you actually want to EDIT!" Read more >>
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6/10 Good November 3, 2004
"Easier than I imagined" Read more >>
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6/10 Good November 6, 2005
"Great when it works" Read more >>
- WRITE YOUR OWN REVIEWSee all 11 user opinions >>
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