WOW thanks for a quick answer.

>"VOB files are the files that contain the MPEG2 video that goes onto your DVD. "<

Both Video and audio are VOB ?? Anyway, how can they be to big, when the original, MPEG2 rendered master is only 1.2 gig (I could add 3 more to fit it on a 4.7 gig DVD)???

>"If they're too big you need to reduce the sampling rate used in their creation. The easiest way to do this is to go to the Optimize DVD dialog and click on the Fit to disc button."<

I was trying to be breef in my (long'ish) post, but what you suggest is actually something I tryed, several times. Both "Fit to Disc" and playing with the stream slider :-( I got as far down to 2.500 bits, after several try's. Wont it turn into a Slide Show if I go far down into "ADSL" territory ?? I thought that this being such a small file to begin with (1.2 gig) I would not have to play much with the bitrate slider.
And when you say "sampling rate". The original audio is 16/48 smack middle in PCM territory. Do I need to fiddle with that??
When I select the AC3 codec, any sample rate reduction is out of my hands, right?? This "codec" just does his compression magic??

I hope any of you get my line of thought, English is not my native toungue.


Golli.

I think TOG62 meant to say "bit rate" rather than "sample rate."

That said, you are correct -- you shouldn't have to use fit-to-disc for this. A 20 minute video (and thus a 1.2GB MPEG2) should have no trouble fitting on a disc at the bit rate you're already using.

A thought I had, and it's just a theory: DVDs are made up of VOB files in 1GB pieces. For example, if a movie takes up 4GB of space, the authoring application (in this case, DVD Architect) is required by DVD specifications to split it up into four files of no more than 1GB with anything left over going into a final small file. My theory regarding your problem is that your MPEG2 is so close to that limit that DVD Architect is trying to create a single file. But the file would be more than the limit, so DVD Architect is giving itself an error.

In short, maybe the file is so close to the limit, DVDA doesn't know how to handle it. I've never seen this happen before, though, so my theory could be completely crazy and based on nothing at all. (Okay, it's definitely based on nothing at all.)

Unfortunately, I don't have access right now to my DVD burning PC to test things out. What you might want to do is try creating a DVD with a video much smaller or much bigger than 1GB -- to see if maybe my theory is right. Or at least plausible.

Rob

Thanks also for your input.

>"Unfortunately, I don't have access right now to my DVD burning PC to test things out. What you might want to do is try creating a DVD with a video much smaller or much bigger than 1GB -- to see if maybe my theory is right. Or at least plausible."<

Unfortunately I dont have access to my editing machine either (here @ work). Would you think I could "high-lite" some five to ten more minutes, after the video has ended (essentially ten minutes of nothing) and re-render with those extra minutes??

If only I were home now *#&="* :-( to test this, as it took about two hours to render this short video on my 6400+ machine.

It is an interesting theory and could be easally tested, if not for a deadline. But I would like to add to this line of thinking: that of all those who have used the Vegas 7 and DVD Architect 1.0 to 4.5 combo, could it really be that I'm the first one to hit this bizzare brickwall ??
My VOB search here, before I posted, led to no answer about what VOB is, just plenty of general talk about various issues with the word VOB thrown in here and there. And no one seemed to have the same problem that I have. However, of those threads with the VOB word, many seemed to be talking about AC3 and loss of audio in a rendered video. I dont have that problem. My audio and video show up fine in the preview, in perfect sync and all.

Again, it would be really strange if I were to be the first to experience this (4x1 gig) issue. Not saying it's impossible though ;-)


Golli.

Here's a link to an on-line bit budget calculator that will tell you what bit rate you need to use to fit a project on a DVD...It works...

BitBudget Calculator

Cheers!

If all else fails, you could try using the avi file in DVDA, which means that DVDA will do a fresh encode to MPEG2. As already stated, there should be no trouble fitting this even at the highest bitrate.

"But after some time, the process stoppes and I get a message " the VOB files are to big" ???"

Going out on a limb here, but I figure it's worth a mention since we don't know the exact error message you're seeing...

Is it possible that the error message you're seeing might be saying that you don't have enough space on the hard drive that you're rendering to (or that is being used for the prepare temp files)?

Realizing the original deadline is passed, & so just in case it helps anyone in the future...

The most basic DVD is little more than the mpg2 and audio streams muxed together with optional subs etc into the VOB files that were mentioned earlier. They're normally limited to a gig each for compatibility, with the video/audio split into as many as it takes. Obviously the error message might have been written better, since saying the VOB files are too big makes no sense.

As mentioned there might be not enough disc space available -- there needs to be enough space that DVDA can prepare the necessary files in a temp folder for example, then copy them to the target. Errors can also be caused when DVDA thinks it's supposed to (re)encode video, and it also thinks the settings are mis-matched (between preferences and optimize) or wrong (i.e. too low bit rate). When encoding in Vegas, using the DVDA template is usually pretty safe, as long as the file size doesn't exceed the space available on a DVD -- when necessary use a calculator and set the bit-rate under custom. Then when it's imported, check the File -> Optimize dialog to make sure DVDA gives it the green check, meaning it won't do more than copy the existing mpg2 file. AC3 audio works the same way. Note that DVDA will still need a lot of space to assemble everything into the files it will copy to the target.