Digital Home Thoughts: PEGASYS Set to Release TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4

"Pegasys, Inc., the company that makes digital video easy, announces the upcoming availability of its TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 software. It's the perfect, all-in-one media authoring solution for any video enthusiast. It is easy enough for a beginner to understand, and sophisticated enough to meet the demands of an experienced videographer. The U.S. release date is scheduled for November 13th, 2008...With the capability to author the high-capacity Blu-ray format, users can enjoy high definition videos with menus without worrying about disc capacity. This allows the saving of high-definition videos taken with an AVCHD or HDV camcorder and keeping it in high definition. Add in support for high quality 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound or linear PCM audio (up to 192kHz/20bit) and the result is a superb audio/video presentation."

Aha - so this is the mystery product that they were teasing us all about a few weeks back. I have to admit that I'm confused by this product - it seems like it has a lot in common with TMPGEnc Xpress 4.0, and I'm not sure if you'd want to buy this if you have Xpress 4.0, because most of us have DVD burning applications already. I'm not alone in my confusion - our very own onlydarksets from the forums has posted a spreadsheet trying to make sense of how TMPGEnc products differ from each other.