[mjochim]

Make sure your preferred DVD authoring program is true MULTI-VTS software that can handle different title sets. You can place the separate artists each in their own VTS with a main menu domain linking to each set and submenus to each chapter. You also need a VMG menue (Video Manager -- kind of a switchboard to link to the different VTS's).

TMPGEnc DVD Author or Tsunami DVD Author or two fairly easy-to-learn authoring programs that can handle the job (both are the same basic build).

But for maximum flexibility without breaking the bank, I recommend DVD-lab Pro. I just finished authoring a DVD using a couple of the different versions of the Pink Floyd Live 8 set that are circulating -- a choice of watching the 16:9 BBC One broadcast or the 4:3 non-broadcast line-feed, and listening to the original audio or switching to two different alternate audio tracks (BBC Radio Two or Norwegian National Radio -- I could have put up to eight different audio tracks!).

The basics are pretty easy to figure out on this program -- you don't have to read all 270 pages of the manual to begin using it the first time. In fact, designing the menu backgrounds took me longer than the actual authoring process because I'm pretty picky when it comes to such things (has to be "just right"). You can download a full-featured 30-day trial; it's $199 to purchase but from working with it just a couple of days now I think this might be a good buy.

Just remember that you get what you pay for and a lot of the freeware or $25-$55 shareware cause more frustration in authoring than not.

Of course, any reauthoring/combining any of us plan on doing should be for our own viewing convenience and not traded as most results will be at least slightly leeser quality than the originals and could be construed as an affront to the original seeders. It is they we need to thank for all of this wonderful source material...