DVDStyler version 1.7.1 - where to find manual?

[jonnyD]

I'm looking to make several DVD's of several short .avi files (165MB) and then a simple menu to navigate from one title to the next. I downloaded DVDStyler v 1.7.1 but I can't find a user's guide!! The most recent one I found is for v 1.5 Maybe that's good enough, I don't know. But I figure if a freeware program is put out there, it's guide would be too, right? :confused:

Does anyone know either if the recent DVDStyler v 1.7.1 converts .avi to DVD format? I heard that it did - but I don't have the guide to instruct me! :(

[setarip_old]

Hi!

I've got to believe that the DVD Styler homepage, at http://www.dvdstyler.de/ (the link you were given in your other related thread) contains the most current documentation available - including links to documentation created by others. If nothing else, that homepage clearly indicates that "AVI support" was added in v.1.70.

As an alternative (also suggested in your other thread), you might want to try the very easy to use (freeware) DVD Flick...

[dat720]

Taken from http://www.dvdstyler.de/features.html

Features


The main DVDStyler features are:

* creating a DVD video with interactive menus
* support for AVI, MPEG, VOB and other file formats
* using MPEG and VOB files without reencoding
* allows put files with different audio/video format on one DVD (support of titleset)
* drag and drop video files directly
* import image file for menu background
* place buttons, text, images and graphic objects anywhere on the menu screen
* change font/color and other parameters of buttons and graphic object
* scale buttons and graphic objects
* copy and paste any menu object and whole menu
* set chapters for each movie
* set pre and post commands for each movie and menu
* DVD scripting
* free

For more information see Docs.

[manolito]

@jonnyD

DVDStyler has been my main authoring application for quite some time, so I think I can answer most of your questions.

There is no user guide for the current DVDStyler version, the guide for version 1.5 is the latest one. But this guide does contain almost everything you need to know about this app.

It is true that starting from version 1.70 DVDStyler does support AVI to DVD conversion, but I am still not convinced that adding this option was a wise move from the developper.

Background:
Basically DVDStyler is an Authoring Application. Up to version 1.62 it used Mplex and DVDAuthor. Starting with version 1.70 the author switched to ffmpeg for muxing, and since ffmpeg can do a lot more than just muxing, the author decided that it was a good idea to also support AVI to DVD conversion.

This feature does work, but the user has no control whatsoever over the ffmpeg encoding parameters. IMHO there are other applications which do a much better job converting AVI to DVD, and DVDStyler should concentrate on its traditional authoring strengths.

And switching to ffmpeg for muxing really broke DVDStyler's authoring capabilities. Everything works fine if you feed already muxed MPEG2 files to DVDStyler, but if your source consists of elementary streams, no chapters will be created, and navigation also will not work.

Conclusion:
DVDStyler is an easy to use and quite powerful authoring application, but it is not an AVI to DVD converter. If you need to use elementary streams for input then version 1.62 is the latest stable version.


Cheers
manolito