Jimco Software Reviews - Sonic DVDit 5.2 (continued)
Text Tab
The Text tab offers you all of the basic text editing options. Nothing too special here.
Effects Tab
The Effects tab makes it easy to add drop shadows and control opacity (transparency) of items on your menu. As shown in figure 7, the settings here are simple but quite functional. Shadow quality in DVDit is excellent and quite professional in appearance.
Figure 7 - The Effects Tab
The Global Style checkbox (also available on the Text tab) makes it easy to ensure that all of the menu elements are configured the same. If you've ever done much work with DVD authoring, one thing you'll know is that minor changes in formatting, etc., are quite hard to detect when you are designing the menu, but they stand out like a sore thumb when the menu is displayed on a television. DVDit is loaded with features to help you design the menu right the first time without having to suffer through copying attributes, etc.
ROM Tab
The ROM tab gives you the ability to make a multi-mode DVD. In other words, you can include data as well as video on the DVD. Let's say, for example, that you make a really great DVD slideshow for the family. DVDit will allow you to now only burn the video to disc, but you can also include all of the images that you used in the slideshow right on the DVD! Your friends and family can then open the DVD on their computer and have access to all of your pictures. This is a great feature.
The Authoring Experience
If you've read many of our reviews, you'll know that we are a huge fan of intuitive software. DVDit falls neatly into that category. The authoring experience is enjoyable. DVDit doesn't get in the way of your creativity when designing your DVD menus, and you can literally get as complex or as simple as you'd like.
Aligning items is quite easy in DVDit, although we would have liked to have had some visual feedback in the interface such as alignment guides that appear automatically as objects are repositioned. However, the alignment button makes it simple to align and distribute menu items easily so that your menus look professional. One of our pet peeves is items out of alignment in a user interface. If you've ever used software with buttons that don't line up, etc., you'll know how little confidence it instills in you. DVDs are the same way. If you want a truly quality appearance, you have to pay close attention to the details. DVDit can help you a lot in bringing all of that together. One thing we found missing was the ability to group objects. Sonic informs us that alignment guides and object grouping are slated for the next release of DVDit.
Figure 8 - Alignment Tools and more!