DVD Optimize/prep

bbrooks wrote on 8/14/2004, 5:54 AM
I have rendered a movie just shy of 1hr 40 min's. I used the DVD Architect NTSC Video Stream template in Vegas 4.0. The file is still coming up as 4.16 gigs. DVD AC. Estimated size is 112% of the 3.95 gigs available.

Will DVD AC have to compress the files again? How can I avoid this. Will it affect the quality? What is the best course of events?

Thanks.

Comments

bStro wrote on 8/14/2004, 8:28 AM
Most DVDRs sold today are 4.7 gig, not 3.95 gig. Check the packaging for your discs (or the discs themselves) to confirm this. If this is the case, in DVDA go to Options -> Preferences -> Burning, and change the "Space available on media" setting from 3.95 to 4.7.

Then prepare, burn, and be merry.

If you truly are using 3.95 gig media, go ahead prepare your DVD files and then check the VIDEO_TS folder to see if they really do add up to more than 3.95 gigs. DVD Architect's estimate is (almost?) always more than it should be.

Finally, if you actually are somehow over the size limit of the disc you're using, the best course of action would be to either a) get larger disc or b) go back and render your original Vegas timeline to a new MPEG2 file. Use the DVDA NTSC Video Stream template again, but use the customize button to lower the average bitrate.

Rob
ScottW wrote on 8/14/2004, 10:16 AM
Just a little more info to add to what Rob provided.

Windows see's a 4.7GB DVD as having 4.37GB of space available - this is because windows is doing it's counting in base 2, where as DVD labels are expressing the storage space in base 10.

You can get a good idea if your material will fit without going thru the prepare step, as long as you don't have complex menus (motion menus, animated thumbnails, etc.).

Using file explorer, just select all the MPG and AC3 files you are planning on having on the DVD, if you don't have a status line on your file view display, click view and then select "status" - at this point a line will appear on the bottom of the window telling you the total space of all the selected files.

If your totals are under 4.37, then you won't have a problem.

If you have complex menus, then it's best to at least do the Prepare step, then in the VIDEO_TS folder, select all of the files and see what the total is. 4.37 or less and you are good to go with a burn.

--Scott
bbrooks wrote on 8/14/2004, 8:02 PM
I let DVD AC render / re-render what it needed to and the video_ts folder comes up as 5.86 gigs. I'm lost.

I found the options/preferences and changed the media to 4.7 If I lower the bit rate to 6.160 mbs I am just under 100% of the 4.7 gigs. How drastic of a change in video quality will this be from the 8 mbps rate.

What can I do so that vegas renders it appropriately the 1st time and I don't have to wait 10 hours the second go round in DVD AC. In other words how can I tell before rendering how big the render will be. i.e. the X amount of gig .avi file = X Megabites of MPEG2.

Thanks for all your help.
Brandon
bStro wrote on 8/14/2004, 9:45 PM
For most things, 8Mbs is overkill, unnecessary. For that matter, a lot of DVD players will have trouble playing a disc with a bitrate that high. Unless there's a lot of fast action, there's really no need to go much over 6 or 6.5 Mbs.

You can use a bitrate calculator to help you decide on the bitrade needed to make your video(s) fit on a disc.

BTW, you're not putting an MPEG on the Vegas timeline and rendering that out to another MPEG, are you? It takes Vegas a lot longer to decode and encode an MPEG file that it does to simply encode an uncompressed AVI. If you need to edit MPEG files, I'd recommend a program designed for working with MPEG, such as one of the tools from Womble.

Rob
bbrooks wrote on 8/15/2004, 5:37 AM
Rob,

You mentioned Womble before. I did get it but have not had a real chance to use it. Most of what I am doing at this point is .avi then rendering to MPEG2.

I re-rendered but miscalculated. The data wound up being (according to DVD AC) 99% of 4.7. Well of course that was too big because it rendered at about 4.56 gig. ScottyW mentioned that it needs to be 4.37 or under.

Do I need to change the bitrate using the slider at the top of the Optimize screen or should I use the slider at the bottom? What is the difference?

Vegas question: I used the DVD Architect NTSC video stream template. Looking at the audio tab of the template, the include audio stream button is not checked. Will that render without sound? I have been rendering the sound separately anyway but I want to know the best option.

I used the bitrate calculator. For a video 1:37:38 in length, it comes up with a bitrate of 5870 kib/s. I input this into the optimize field. I totaled the estimated size column and it STILL comes out to OVER the 4.37 that ScottW recomended. Why the difference and should I just keep adjusting using the sliders?

I maunally adjusted to a bitrate of 5.52 using the slider at the top and the est size comes out to 4.2827. Is that bitrate ok?

At what bitrate does it start looking just plain old crappy?

Thank Rob and ScottW

Brandon
ScottW wrote on 8/15/2004, 7:34 AM
You need to be careful with the 4.37 and 4.7 numbers - I recall that DVDA expresses numbers in base 10, so if DVDA says the estimate is 4.56 you should be ok. It's when you are looking at file sizes with Windows File Explorer that you need to use 4.37.

Sorry about that confusion.

Don't render audio with your MPEG; render the audio as a seperate step into an AC3 file format.

It sounds like you are having DVDA re-render your video. Don't do that; it's a waste of time and you lose some quality. Specify the average bit rate (using the customize button and selecting the Video tab) when you render the MPEG from Vegas.

At what point you start having problems when lowering your bitrate depends on a lot of factors, mainly with the material being redndered - for example, fast action can have problems even at the highest bitrate. If you have Vegas 5.0, you can do a 2 pass render which can improve the quality some.

--Scott
bbrooks wrote on 8/15/2004, 7:13 PM
ScottW

Thanks for the help. A couple of questions:
"It sounds like you are having DVDA re-render your video. Don't do that; it's a waste of time and you lose some quality. Specify the average bit rate (using the customize button and selecting the Video tab) when you render the MPEG from Vegas."
I am not intentionally having DVD AC re-render. I would like very much to avoid this lengthy process. What should I do to avoid it.
I'm also not sure what you mean here. This is in Vegas I assume, but how do I know what bit rate to set for the avg bit rate?
The DVD Architect NTSC video Stream template has the following on the video tab:
Max 8,000,000
Avg 6,000,000
Min 192,000
I am new and this is goobledegook to me right now.

I have also come across a new problem. I also use Nero to make copies etc. I was under the impression that I could drag and drop the Audio and Video TS files (providing that I set it up using the DVD Video format in Nero). I had done this before (on to a regular DVD-R and to a DVD-RW) with no problems. Now for the DVD-RW I'm getting
DVD-Video reallocation failed. The resulting DVD-Video might be unplayable. Do you want to continue?

What am I doing wrong. I made sure the RW disc was erased, so I'm lost.
Brandon
bStro wrote on 8/15/2004, 7:22 PM
Now for the DVD-RW I'm getting

There was a bug in DVDA 1 that caused it to produce files that were slightly larger than they should've been (like a byte or two, I think?). Nero gives the complaint that you describe, but it will go ahead and burn the disc if you choose to continue. In my experience, every such disc I've burned worked just fine.

This was fixed in DVDA 2.

Rob
bbrooks wrote on 8/16/2004, 5:49 AM
Rob,
Thanks for the heads up. I'll try that tonight. Do I drag the Video and Audio folders?

Any help on the "keeping DVD AC from re-rendering" issue I am having. I didn't understand completely what ScottW was talking about.
Thanks again. Both of you have very helpful.

DVD AC doesn't seem to like my DVD-RW though. I didn't have a problem last time. Any thoughts.

Brandon
whr wrote on 8/17/2004, 1:57 PM
In talking with the Sony people I was told to not use the DVDA video stream rendering format in Vegas. They told me to render as an AVI and tell DVDA to fit to disc. So far this has worked well for me.
bbrooks wrote on 8/17/2004, 4:38 PM
You're talking about some SERIOUS render time there though aren't you. Going from a 1hr 40 min AVI to MPEG2 takes my computer about 10 hours. What kind of time are you looking at to go to AVI?

Brandon
whr wrote on 8/18/2004, 12:45 PM
Your right. The render time in Vegas is long. My 1.5 hour video took ten hours. However when it rendered and burned in DVDA it only took about two and a half hours and came out very clear.
bbrooks wrote on 8/18/2004, 1:21 PM
Just so I understand, did you render an AVI to MPEG2 file in DVDA? Even the AVI's I've rendered in VEGAS to MPEG2 are still taking 10 hours in DVDA 1. Why the re-render. The ultimate question is what can I do to avoid this. If I render AVI to AVI in VEGAS it'll take forever.
vinyl51 wrote on 8/18/2004, 1:29 PM
I would have to agree with whr - I always cature the video in AVI format and use this in DVDA. When the times comes to burn the DVD use the optimise slider to reduce the quality. I always use the 99% and have never had a problem fitting the project to a DVD. One thing you can do to cut down on rendering time is to kill off all other programmes (EndItAll utility is good for this - http://www.compu-docs.com/Downloads/enditall.exe). It can cut down render times by hours.
whr wrote on 8/18/2004, 1:34 PM
My original video captured to Vegas as an AVI. After editing and syncing it with a WAV from a tape I rendered the entire project as an AVI from Vegas. This took about 10 hours.

I then used DVDA2.0 to set up my DVD with a start screen (with a 30sec mpg2), main menu (with a 2min AVI background with sound), Scene selection menu and special features menu. After the setup was finished I told DVDA to fit to disc and prepare and burn DVD. DVDA had to rerender the WAV to AC3 and I assume it rerendered the movie to mpeg2. The render and burn time in DVDA totaled about 3 hours.

The reason I use this method is because I was having problems using the MPEG for DVDA rendering in Vegas . DVDA didn't like it when I imported it. I called Sony Tech support to get answers and they told me this method works the best.
bbrooks wrote on 8/19/2004, 6:31 AM
Fantastic guys! Thanks. I'll try that this weekend. I'm curious though to see how long it takes VEGAS to render what would be a 1.5 hour AVI.

Brandon
johnmeyer wrote on 8/19/2004, 10:35 AM
vinyl51:

What other programs do you have running that would make a mult-hour difference in rendering?? Unless you have another render going on, nothing else should be taking up that kind of CPU time. I only bring this up, because you may have something else going on that should be taken care of by removing a program or stopping a program or process from starting in the first place.
bbrooks wrote on 8/19/2004, 7:16 PM
I disable any virus protection/firewall software. The only other icon in my bottom right tray still active is one of my sound cards which would not be used at that point in time anyway.
The only files left running under msconfig startup are:
ccApp
ccRegVfy
ADVCHK
CTHELPER
EL
msmsgs (which you couldn't get rid of no matter how bad you want to)
MFWAKeys (MOTU file) - sound card / firewire

Any other suggestions?
Brandon