DVD Studio Pro vs. Scenarist - Opinions?

[XStylus]

I found a post asking this same question (http://forum.doom9.org/archive/index.php/t-69393.html) dated back to 2004, but I figured it merits re-asking since a lot can change in that time.

For making a professional mass market DVD, is DVD Studio Pro adequate, or is Scenarist really that much better (and for its cost, it better be)?

What are the strengths and weaknesses between the two?

[Lyris]

The abstraction layer code generated by DVD Studio Pro is, as far as I'm aware, not too bad. I've never seen it trip up one of my own DVD players (whereas I've had compatibility problems with some other abstraction layer authoring tools).

Scenarist would be great if you have knowledge of the DVD spec and can afford it. If you're authoring a lot of discs, it's no-nonsense approach would save you time.

My recommendation: buy DVD Studio Pro and DVDAfterEdit: http://www.dvdafteredit.com/

This setup will cost you significantly less than Scenarist, and will let you multiplex your assets, build menus etc. in DVD Studio Pro, then 'after edit' the generated folder to strip out the abstraction layer stuff, and recode everything from scratch, similarly to how you'd do it in Scenarist in the first place. In other words, it's a convoluted (but money saving) way of generating a DVD that's as well authored as the best of them.