Steve,
As was aluded to by Scott, all MPEGs are not created equal. You have a lot of control when creating them to balance the quality versus the size. 2 hours of MPEG CAN fit on a DVD, but your MPEG files are too high quality for them to fit.

You could bring these files into Vegas and re-render them to a lower bitrate. This would allow you to put them both on the disc. Unfortunately, you already have some quality loss in your current files, and if you re-render them to a lower bitrate, the quality loss will compound. It's best to work from high quality source to render to lower bitrates.

If I were you, I would just use 2 DVDs. But, if for some reason that doesn't work for your need, you can do the re-render. But preview it carefully and make sure you are satisfied with the quality.

-Jayson

Thx for the fast replies. Both files were capture from dv tapes, so i think quality is not so high to start with.
What is the best thing to do ?
Capture them to avi and then re-render to mpg in vegas ?
What are the best settings or are there presets ?
Thx,
Steve

It's always better to go back to your orignal source material if you can rather than re-rendering an MPEG.

In your situation, I would suggest capturing as a DV AVI and then rendering via Vegas. When you select MPEG-2 as your output, specify the DVDA NTSC (or PAL if you live in PAL land) template. Then you'll need to click the customize button; select the video tab and specify 4,800,000 for the average bit rate (this is assuming 2 hours of material). If you're using Vegas 5.0 you might want to consider also selecting the 2-Pass option since that will squeeze a little more quality out of things for this low of an average bit rate.

You'll render the audio as AC3 as a seperate step. If both files have the same name (except for extnsion of course) and live int he same directory, when you drag the MPEG file into DVDA, DVDA will automatically bring in the AC3 file with your audio.

Also keep in mind that 4,800,000 doesn't leave you with a lot of extra space for fancy menu's with animated buttons and things. Complex menus take up extra space as well. If I'm planning on a complex menu and think I might be running near the limit of 4.37, I'll usually create the menus first (using "dummy" material to simulate animated thumbnails, etc.) and then build the project (since you cannot trust DVDA's size estimates) just to see how much space I'll need for the menu. Then I can adjust the average bit rate for my video material up or down as appropriate.

--Scott

If you have DV tapes, never capture to MPEG format. ALWAYS capture to DV AVI, using the Firewire (a.k.a 1394) connection from your camcorder.

Create your project in Vegas and then render using the DVD Architect MPEG-2 template (NTSC or PAL, depending on where you live). Before you render, click on the Custom button in the "Render As" dialog and change the Average bitrate to a number that will create an MPEG-2 file that is just slightly smaller than the size of your DVD. Use theis bitrate calculator (Bitrate Calculator) to determine the bitrate needed (enter "192" for the audio bitrate). Before you quit Vegas, render the audio using the AC-3 Stereo template. Give the file the exact same name as you used for the MPEG-2 file.

I sure wish SONY would do something about the rampant confusion about this. They need to:

1. Have a single button render option in Vegas, rather than forcing the user to render MPEG-2 and AC-3 separately.

2. Have a "render to fit" option that would automatically calculate the bitrate required to fit a single DVD (could be expanded to include dual layer DVDs as well). (I tried to do this as a script, but the script API doesn't give access to several things that are needed).

3. Have a project wizard that would walk new users through each step required to get their Vegas project from Vegas into DVDA.

It is patently obvious from the large, and continuing number of questions about how to get a Vegas project into DVDA, that SONY needs to address this issue.

John,

I don't disagree with your comments, but the problem with something like item #2 is that often you are not only put just 1 Vegas project onto a DVD. In my case I've done a few vacation DVDs and they've had a couple of different movie projects and a few still photo montages, not to mention menus and possibly transitions. So, it would be hard to do a "fit to" feature unless it could somehow take into account everything. Of course, you could use DVD-A2 fit to disc feature, but then you are stuck rendering in DVD-A2.

A more ambitious goal would be tighter integration between DVD-A and Vegas, so that the two programs could share data and you could launch from one to the next and jump back between authoring and editing. Now that would be slick, but it's asking a lot.

Oh, and to the original poster: What's wrong with the quality of DV-AVI? Seems to me around here almost everyone uses it who can't afford the endless space requirements of uncompressed video. It's certainly less lossy than MPEG.

-Jayson

I dunno.

I get where you're coming from, but this all is starting to sound dangerously close to "dumbing down" Vegas. The more "wizards" a company puts in their software, the less flexible they make the it. Maybe I'm selfish, but I like that I have to put a little forthought into planning my DVD rather than using "one-click" buttons so that the program can put everything into nice, neat little packages. I'd rather do that than have Sony turn Vegas into something cookie-cutter. I know that's not what you're asking them to do, but that is generally what happens.

And honestly, I don't think there would be as severe of a "continuing number of questions" if more users checked out the manual. I seem to recall that the manaul covers the "render to MPEG-2 and AC-3 separately" aspect pretty well. (There are lots of questions asked over and over again on these forums that are covered in the manual / help section of Vegas and DVDA; that's not going to stop people from asking them. ;-)

Regarding #2, DVDA has a "Fit to Disc" option, though I think it works better with AVI. I think this would be iffy in Vegas since DVDs usually have more than one video on them, not to mention menus, thumbnails, and menu background music.

Just my opinion.
Rob

Oh, and to the original poster: What's wrong with the quality of DV-AVI? Seems to me around here almost everyone uses it who can't afford the endless space requirements of uncompressed video. It's certainly less lossy than MPEG.


There's nothing wrong with the quality of dv avi, but i used to work in a firm where they worked with digital betacam and when you have worked with that and have seen the difference ;-)
I'm happy about the quality of dv, no problem for me :-)
Thx all for the replies.
Steve