10 years later, creating a new DVD with DVD Architect

cbrillow wrote on 10/9/2021, 7:47 PM

Hi everyone. I'm a refugee from the Sony forums, with very little activity since early 2012. Until upgrading to Vegas 19 recently, my last version was VP-12 and my last update to DVDA was 6. These, of course, go back to before the acquisition by Magix and the continuation of Vegas Pro along with the abandonment of DVDA.

As it would happen, I've been tasked with creating a followup to a DVD project that I created in late 2011. I still have a functional DVDA-6, and have been creating test burns as I refresh my memory on the techniques used last time around, particularly for the scene selection menus and a somewhat complicated playlist that threaded segments of two separate programs together as if there were a single long video that repeatedly intercut between the two. I've been successful in duplicating that for this follow-up, but there's a new feature to be included in this one: a commentary track.

I've looked at the manual, some forum posts and Youtube videos that reference alternate audio tracks and it seems easy enough to do, but I'm having a problem. I am trying to use a single video file that is to have a standard dialog track and a commentary track. I was using the same technique that was successful in my playlist example -- importing the mpeg file multiple times into the root of the project, which allows it to be referenced in different ways in the project, yet only being written to the disk one time. Very cool! But it's not working that way when I try to assign a different audio (ac3) to replace the dialog track with a commentary track.

Let me explain with some sample numbers. Let's say that I have an mpg2 that's a little under1GB in size and the dialog AC3 file is about 40MB. (keeping my test files smallish so that I can burn to a 4.7GB DVD-RW) There's a little overhead for a very basic menu, so DVDA reports a project size of approximately 1.1GB. Here's the rub: if I go to one iteration of the mpg2 file in the root and change the replace the dialog AC3 with the commentary AC3, which is also about 40MB, the project size immediately almost doubles to 2.1GB. This makes it look like it's no longer writing only one copy of the mpg2 file to disc, it looks like the AC3 is somehow 'bound' to a separate iteration of the mpg2 and is going to take up much more than just the 40MB size of the replacement AC3 file.

Isn't it possible to add a commentary track without doubling the size of the video file that it's supposed to be played with? This seems like a huge disk-space penalty to pay for wanting an alternate audio track.

I realize that there aren't many people doing DVDs, but sure hope someone is able to give me some ideas how to resolve this!

Thanks for any comments & suggestions...

Comments

Former user wrote on 10/9/2021, 7:51 PM

A single video can have multiple audio tracks. Look at the timeline and you can see where you add the tracks. It is a big PLUS with a dropdown. Add new audio track. Under MEDIA PROPERTIES on the right, select track media and navigate to the 2nd audio track.

 

cbrillow wrote on 10/9/2021, 7:57 PM

Thanks, Doug. I've already tried it that way, too.

As soon as I add the 2nd audio track and specify the file to use, the disc size projection doubles, as I've indicated in my post. It goes from 1.1GB to 2.1GB. It would seem that the size should increase by approximately the size of the new audio file, but it increases by the size of the MPG2 file. You run out of disk space very quickly with this behavior!

Former user wrote on 10/9/2021, 8:02 PM

You said you are replacing the audio, thus creating a different file. I am saying that you ADD the audio to the existing timeline so you have two audio tracks.The change in size should only be the new audio track. DVDA is notorious for reporting incorrect size. Do a test build to file and see what size it ends up being.

cbrillow wrote on 10/9/2021, 8:07 PM

I think we're running into a semantics issue here. Maybe I'll create a screen cap video tomorrow showing what's happening. That way, we can maybe see what's happening -- whether I'm doing what you've suggested, or not...

I do appreciate your responses!

Former user wrote on 10/9/2021, 8:08 PM

Yes, please. But it might be DVDA reporting incorrectly. Version 6 had some bugs so I stopped at 5.2

cbrillow wrote on 10/9/2021, 8:18 PM

I'm able to do it the way you suggested using a single iteration of the mpg2 file in a simple menu example. I'd tried to do that before in my original project, where the mpeg file was specified approximately 12 times, and adding the 2nd track to one of them resulted in the size projection error.

This is promising, but I'm not jumping up and down yet... I'll continue in the morning and see if something else gets in the way in a more complex project, where there's more than on iteration of the mpg2 file.

 

Thanks again...

Former user wrote on 10/9/2021, 8:32 PM

You only need one iteration if your needs are two audio tracks. I belive you can have up to nine audio tracks per video track.

cbrillow wrote on 10/10/2021, 9:29 AM

You said you are replacing the audio, thus creating a different file. I am saying that you ADD the audio to the existing timeline so you have two audio tracks.The change in size should only be the new audio track. DVDA is notorious for reporting incorrect size. Do a test build to file and see what size it ends up being.

As I mentioned last night, it's semantics. I was doing exactly what you suggested -- adding a second audio track to accompany the existing media. When you use the Add Audio Track function that you mentioned, it shows up as an empty track on the timeline, and the audio for the new track is listed as None in Media Properties, Track Media. There are only Replace and Remove options in the drop-down. In this case, Replace is 'replacing' none with the file that is selected for the 2nd track. That's why I used the term. The existing audio remains in the first track.

I've made significant progress this morning. Read on, if you please...

cbrillow wrote on 10/10/2021, 9:57 AM

You only need one iteration if your needs are two audio tracks. I belive you can have up to nine audio tracks per video track.

Ah, but my original post states: "I was using the same technique that was successful in my playlist example -- importing the mpeg file multiple times into the root of the project, which allows it to be referenced in different ways in the project, yet only being written to the disk one time."

In fact, the mpeg file for this portion of my project appears 7 times in the project root and once in a menu. (so far!)

I have discovered the following:

  • If a second audio track is added to an mpg2/AC3 media pair that is used a single time in a project, everything seems to behave as-expected.
  • If there are multiple instances of the mpeg2/AC3 media pair in the project, the DVDA disc size calculation is increased by approximately the size of the mpg2 file immediately upon adding a second audio track to any one of the instances - definitely unwanted behavior! (And, by the way, before you'd suggested it, I did create an iso file that confirmed that this was real. It wasn't a calculation error by DVDA...)
  • Adding the same 2nd audio track to ALL of the instances of the original media for this title in the project root, results in the disk size estimate returning to what would be expected. Hurray!

Now all I need to do is decide upon which way I want to enable the alternate 'commentary' track...

 

Thanks so much for your interest and suggestions. It's nice to be able to bounce ideas back and forth rather than having to try to figure out everything by myself...

Former user wrote on 10/10/2021, 11:52 AM

That is what I would expect. I assume you are using multiple instances in order for different types of chapter access. As long as all the sources are identical, it should only use the source once, the rest are pointers that you can use for different navigation, playlists, etc. enjoy.

cbrillow wrote on 10/10/2021, 12:58 PM

That is what I would expect. I assume you are using multiple instances in order for different types of chapter access. As long as all the sources are identical, it should only use the source once, the rest are pointers that you can use for different navigation, playlists, etc. enjoy.

I'll just tweak your comment a little, changing the word "sources" to "instances" for clarity, and then I'll tag this as the solution.

To be technical, there is a difference between the instances. I've renamed them with names like 'ATM Pt 1', Experiment Seg 2' etc. This helps me weave together chapters from two different video sources together in a playlist that makes it appear that there are 3 distinct programs - A, B & C - when in fact there are only two, A & B. C is created by the playlist.

To summarize: The instances have identical content -- a video file and two tracks of audio, but the instance names are different. DVDA is smart enough to know to use the content only once on the disc. Although it's no longer sold or supported, it's a great tool with loads of features and versatility.

Former user wrote on 10/10/2021, 1:59 PM

I bounce between Adobe Encore and DVDA, but I like the scripting options on DVDA much better. It is a good program.