Adding large AVC to Blu-ray project seems to lock-up DVDA

RedRob-CandlelightProdctns wrote on 8/2/2023, 1:16 PM

I've authored 3 Blu-ray projects in the last two days without any issues.

Today I'm trying to author the 4th of the series, and the .AVC I'm trying to add for the main title just won't add to DVDA. I've tried dragging it in from the built-in explorer... tried using "Insert Media"... tried dragging from Windows Explorer. Each time DVDA seems to just freeze up, although task manager still shows DVDA having regular CPU activity (10%-25%). No disk activity when this happens.

The AVC file was generated using a Sony AVC Blu-ray template in Vegas 20.
MediaInfo shows it at 1920x1080 at 29.970, AVC (High@L4) (CABAC / 2 Ref Frames). Variable bitrate, Max bitrate=14 Mb/s
The file is 17.2 GB, length is about 3 hours 20 minutes (curious that MediaInfo does not show the "length" attribute for any of the AVC files I've thrown at it)

I tried dragging in the identical video which has been rendered as an MP4 (which would need recompression obviously) and DVDA added it rather quickly without crashing, but noes "render error" and won't show me any thumbnails and such -- trying a "preview" reports a memory warning.

Next thing I'll try is rendering as an MPEG instead.. not my preferred thing to do but whatever is needed to work! I might also try the AVC but split into two acts... I suspect I may have more success with smaller files.

Anyone have any insights on this?

Comments

RedRob-CandlelightProdctns wrote on 8/2/2023, 1:31 PM

NOTE: just realized Magic AVC has a Blu-ray template too -- trying that using the default MainConcept settings but changing the bitrates to fit the Blu-ray media. Will see if DVDA accepts this one.

Anyone have ideas on if quality would still be good using the NVENC encoder instead of MainConcept? I'm guessing the render would be much faster.

DMT3 wrote on 8/2/2023, 1:44 PM

How long did you let DVDA run? It takes a while to analyze Bluray files.

RedRob-CandlelightProdctns wrote on 8/2/2023, 2:06 PM

How long did you let DVDA run? It takes a while to analyze Bluray files.

30-60 minutes (don't recall precisely) -- does it load the entire thing for analysis into RAM? I have only 32GB in this box and the source AVC is 18GB. No disk activity when it appeared "hung" (but did have CPU activity)

RedRob-CandlelightProdctns wrote on 8/2/2023, 3:49 PM

Thing with the large AVC file is -- it seems to lock DVDA as soon DVDA tries to start reading the file... just clicking the file in DVDA's file explorer causes the hourglass.... clicking the file in the file explorer menu when using "Insert Media" has the same problem... dragging from Windows Explorer gets me nowhere.

RedRob-CandlelightProdctns wrote on 8/2/2023, 6:03 PM

Welp, re-rendered using Magix Blu-ray template and DVDA opened it with "loading" progress bar going all the way to 100% in about 10 minutes.. then it sat there with 21% CPU and zero disk activity for 30 minutes before I killed it again.
Going to split it into Act 1 and Act 2 now, hoping smaller AVCs will go smoother. :-/