Sony DVD Architect

DVD Architect ships with Sony Vegas.  You can only buy the two together, just like you can only buy Adobe Encore with Adobe Premiere. Sony Vegas is a good editing program - like all programs there are things for and against it - if you want to read more on Vegasvisit these pages.   If editing in a different program Vegas does still give you some advantages.  Its sound mixing capabilities are excellent and it can mix and encode full 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound.  So you could edit the picture and basic sound in a different program, for example Canopus Edius, and then load the finished movie into Vegas, do the surround sound mix and export that as a 5.1 Dolby file to be included in your final Blu-ray or DVD disc with Architect.

What can Architect do?

Architect is a very comprehensive program and can do just about everything that is possible on a DVD.  This includes:

• Multiple menus which can link in any way you like to each other.
• Multiple timelines - and you specify everything such as the end action, what happens when you press the menu and title buttons on the DVD remote etc..
• Chose the first play item - a copyright message for example.
• Set permissions for each menu or clip - make people watch the copyright message.
• Various menu themes which you can customise and you can easily create your own.
• You can define the button routing or create your own.
• 8 different audio tracks (the maximum allowed)
• 32 different subtitle tracks (maximum for DVDs)
• Slide show editor.
• Add DVD-ROM content as well as normal DVD video - for example make a slideshow to be watched on a TV and then add the original JPEGS as well in a directory which can be viewed on a PC.
• Live preview of the DVD - either on screen or through FireWire.  Architect will even preview a moving menu without rendering it, although how well it will work depends on the power of your computer.
• Integration with Vegas - you can add chapter marks and subtitles to your video in Vegas and they will appear in the encoded file inside Architect.

It also has some features not found in many other programs, include Adobe Encore:

Timeline display

Architect shows the wave form on the timeline as well as the picture in filmstrip mode.  This can help when adding subtitles as you can see where the words start and end in the waveform. You can obviously add chapters and trim clips.  You can also add buttons over video - a typical example of this would be a film where, in addition to the main video, there is a different video angle to show off certain other aspects of the production.  You need a button to pop-up over the video when this happens to inform you of this and let you choose the different content. A DVD like the BBC "walking with Dinosaurs" had this feature where at certain points you could access a different video track which showed how the effects were achieved at that place in the DVD.

Scripting

If you have scripting you can usually achieve just about anything you want with your DVD - want multiple languages on your disc and when you start it it prompts you to choose a language and then that is used from then on for all audio, subtitles and menus - then you need scripting. Encore does not support this, although some things which are normally achieved with scripting can be done in other ways with Encore.

Different video angles

This is tough to get right as you need to have both pieces of video running at the same time so the program has to get the bit rates right otherwise the disc is a right mess. Thankfully. Architect does that really well.

Optimising the Disc

Architect lets you change and customise everything in your DVD. It has an “optimise DVD” option which lets you set bit rates and size settings for each piece of video or just maximises the settings so they fit on disc. You can even change the order titles will be physically stored on the disc!

Smart re-prepare

Imagine you have made a disc but there are some errors.  Change the sections which are wrong and remake the disc.  As long as you kept your working temp files (done as a default) Architect will only remake the bit which have changed - so making small changes to a disc takes very little time.

Blu-ray

Added in Architect Pro 5 we can now make Blu-ray discs in either MPEG or H264 format, and at a variety of sizes just like Adobe Encore. Architect will let you make Blu-ray discs with every feature found on a DVD; it does not support some Blu-ray specific features like pop-up menus.  It can make single layer and dual layer Blu-ray discs.  Interestingly it can able make Blu-ray style discs on single and dual layer DVDs - although we have yet to test how compatible these are with players.

AVCHD in Architect

When you load AVCHD into Architect it will take the footage and add it to a Blu-ray disc without re-encoding.  This means you can take the footage directly off the camera and write it to disc with minimal effort. Adobe Encore will always re-encode AVCHD footage.   If you intend to edit the footage this is relatively unimportant as it will all have to be remade anyway but for just archiving AVCHD to disc it is useful.

Should you buy it?

Architect is a great authoring program and the only reason more of our customers don’t use it is because you can only buy it in a bundle with Vegas and people may choose Premiere or EDIUS as their chosen editor!.

Encore vs. Architect

These are are two favourite DVD and Blu-ray programs. How do they compare?

Both have a very similar feature set and the same level of customisation.

• Architect has scripting and different video angles - Encore does not.
• Encore integrates tightly with Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects - the Photoshop link makes customising menus a breeze!
• Architect takes chapters and subtitles from Vegas, but customising menus with Photoshop is more hassle.
• Encore is a bit more intuitive - Architect’s interface is good but a bit more “dense”.
• Encore CS4 does have the option of adding a Blu-ray style pop-up menu.
• Encore can render video and audio in the background. Architect cannot.
• Encore has a great flowchart view for laying out DVDs.
• Architect accepts video as program or elementary streams and is less likely to want to remake something which is already in the right format for DVD - this does not happen often in Encore, especially not when encoding from Premiere, but has happened on some occasions.
• Unless you have an old version of Premiere to upgrade from, Encore is more expensive.

If you edit with Premiere then you will obviously author with Encore, and if you edit with Vegas, then you will use Architect.  There is not enough differences between the two programs to make you want to use Architect when editing in Premiere (for example).  If editing with Thompson Edius, for example, Vegas is a good option as it adds better sound support than you get in Edius and full DVD and Blu-ray writing - and will be cheaper than buy the Premiere/Encore Cs4 bundle.