Delivering HD discs: Roxio DVDit Pro HD.(New Tech)

We can shoot HD with today's professional and consumer camcorders, and we can edit HD, as video editing tools have stepped up to the higher resolutions and new formats. But we still can't quite deliver the final production effectively as the ease of burning a DVD is still not quite there for high-definition discs. The first generation of tools for nextgen DVD can at least dump video to disc, and now the next generation, the Roxio DVDit Pro HD can author Blu-ray discs with the full compliment of DVD menus and navigation.

Sonic Solutions has refocused its consumer/prosumer/corporate DVD authoring software under the Roxio brand, with Roxio MyDVD 9 as the entry-level authoring tool. MyDVD is designed for automated drag-and-drop DVD creation, importing clips from camcorders, working with both standard and high-definition, automatically generating clip and chapter menus, plus letting you create slideshows with transitions and music.

The base Roxio MyDVD 9 Studio is $49.99 (download), or step up to MyDVD 9 Studio Premier for $69.99 with basic Blu-ray burning (without menus). Roxio also has rolled MyDVD into its flagship Easy Media Creator 9 Suite for $79.99, with video, audio and image editing, data disc burning and more.

DVDit Pro HD

While MyDVD is focused on automating the authoring process--by automatically laying out linked menus--DVDit opens up your DVD project for extensive customization of both the look (menu editing) and the navigation (timeline editing). And yet it has a clean interface that still retains drag-and-drop simplicity for putting together a project, applying menu styles and adding and linking buttons.

The base Roxio DVDit 6 Pro is $299.99, with support for up to 8 audio and 32 subtitle tracks, plus Dolby Digital stereo encoding (plus pass-through support for 5.1 surround sound).

…