Bitrate Problems in DVDA 3.0a

jdmarlow wrote on 11/29/2007, 1:36 PM

I'm trying to prepare and burn my DVD through DVD Architect 3.0a and I'm having some bitrate issues. I prepared and burned once no problem, but then had to go back and fix a few things. Upon doing so I also adjusted the bitrate ( I don't remember what it was originally). Now I can't get past the optimize stage in the preparation process because it says "cannot recompress because bitrate is too low" for all my video.

I have all my video set to DEFAULT BITRATE and I have that set to 9.800, which is the highest. What else can I do?? Nothing will change. Thanks for your help.

-JD

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 11/29/2007, 2:15 PM

9.800 could mean several things.

9.800Mbps (9800000) is way too high.
9.800Kbps (9800) is way too low.

You should be shooting for something between 5Mbps (5000000) and 8.5Mbps (8500000).

jdmarlow wrote on 11/29/2007, 8:10 PM

Hi Chienworks,

I meant to say 9.800 Mbps. I've changed the bitrate around to all sorts of different numbers and for some reason DVDA 3.0a seems to think it's still too low. What am I supposed to do? It seems like there isn't anything I can do other than start the project over which I really don't want to do. Any ideas? Thanks.

-JD

bStro wrote on 11/30/2007, 6:32 AM

Go to Options > Preferences and see what your MINIMUM bitrate is set at. (In DVDA3, this is at the bottom of the Burning tab. I don't have DVDA 4.x in front of me right now.)

Generally, the error message you're seeing means that a piece of media in your project needs to be re-encoded, but the bitrate you have chosen is lower than the Minimum bitrate set under preferences. The former is project-wide, the latter is program-wide.

As a general rule, the minimum bitrate should be fairly low -- the default is 2Mb/sec.

Sidenote: (As Chienworks said) For the actual bitrate, you should stick to something between 5Mb and 8Mb. 9.8Mb/sec is overkill and will be hard for a lot of DVD players to keep up with.

Rob

jdmarlow wrote on 11/30/2007, 10:15 AM

Thank you so much! That was the fix. I'll remember now the difference between bit rate for project preferences and for program preferences. Thanks bStro!

-JD