Burning Bluray discs - "Preparation" stage

Yep wrote on 1/5/2016, 11:15 PM

I'd like to understand the process DVD Architect goes through while rendering, preparing and burning Bluray discs. Mainly because I've noticed my PC becomes almost unusable during the "Preparing" part of the process. My PC gets progressively slower, and is at it's worst when it is about 90% through the preparing process. At that point it can take 20 or 30 seconds just to switch windows to my browser for instance. During the "Rendering" and "Burning" stages there's no problem at all.

I think I have a reasonably fast PC. Win 7 64bit Pro, Core i7 CPU @ 3.50GHz, 8 Gigs Ram. Normally I can run multiple instances of Vegas Pro and undertake a wide variety of other tasks at the same time.

I'm using DVD Architect Pro 6.0. All video is encoded with Vegas Pro 13, using render formats that I understand should not require re-rendering during the Bluray making process.

So I'd like to know what exactly happens during the "Preparation" stage and why is it draining my PC's resources so much. Also is there anything I can do to limit the resources DVD Architect hogs during that preparation stage?

Any help or education would be much appreciated.

TIA.

Comments

PeterDuke wrote on 1/6/2016, 3:45 AM

Are you feeding DVDA BD compliant video and audio files from Vegas? What templates did you use?

In normal usage, DVDA only has to render the menu, which should not take long unless you have a complex menu.

Chienworks wrote on 1/6/2016, 7:49 AM

If you really need to do other things on your PC while this is happening you can set DVDA's process priority down to "below normal" and that should help free up the system.

Yep wrote on 1/6/2016, 2:55 PM

PeterDuke

I think my files are DVDA BD compliant - but not sure. A typical file set would be

Video = Sony AVC/MVC, Blu-ray 1920x1080-60i, 10 Mbps video stream
Audio = Dolby Digital AC-3 Pro, Stereo DVD

Chienworks

I'd like to try that but can't seem to find how to adjust DVDA's process priority settings. I had a look at Options>Preferences, File>Properties and also the Help section without success. Can you tell me how to do this?

Thanks for the replies guys.

videoITguy wrote on 1/7/2016, 3:38 PM

to Yep - YOU will be much better off to burn Blu-ray from properly prepared elmentary streams of video and audio inside of VegasPro - then ship to authoring process of DVDAPro to prepare.

USE .mpg2 stream not AVC - much easier and will not choke your machinery and will produce the absolute best quality. AC-3 Pro audio.

Prepare is computer processing intensive - the longer your Blu-ray project - the worse it gets. Prepare segments of Blu-ray than run 20 minutes runtime or less at highest Mpg2 quality and you will NOT be sorry.

Yep wrote on 1/7/2016, 5:42 PM

Thanks for your input videoITguy.

I've been using AVC as I understood that it provides the best quality per bitrate that is available. Perhaps I'm wrong about that - can anybody clarify???

While I don't like the way DVDA hogs resources - I don't want to do anything that will reduce the final quality of the burned DVD.

videoITguy wrote on 1/7/2016, 8:50 PM

When you encode legit streams in VegasPro - your option varies between several unique branded encoders for video. The Mainconcept MPeg2 delivery is the highest quality. The other AVC encoders vary from inferior to fair. This has been discussed, cussed, and debated in this forum over 1000 times.

The tradeoff : Mpeg2 is higher bitrate, meaning more drive space volume given a runtime goal - but decodes wonderfully everywhere at highest quality - closest you will get to a Hollywood disc.

AVC, depending on the brand offers generally low to median bitrates, but decode is usually problematic, sometimes an actual stumbling block, and impossible prepare step computer intensive.

PeterDuke wrote on 1/7/2016, 8:57 PM

I have made many Blu-ray discs using AVCHD, much of it smart rendered by Vegas 9c. I have had no problems whatsoever making BDs with DVD Arch. Pro 5.2, (except for the skip chapters bug on old Panasonic players, which is another story.)

If I had converted the video to MPEG2 it would have been about twice the size with some quality loss.

The video bitrate is about 15 mbps, which is somewhat higher than you are using. I suggest that you use either AVCHD or Blu-ray templates with a somewhat higher bitrate. What is the video codec and bitrate of your source?

If you use an AVCHD template, don't forget to select the Audio tab in the render settings and disable including audio with the video. Included AC3 audio will be re-rendered in DVD Arch unless you manually replace it with AC3 Pro that you render separately.

Some people have had problems with DVD Arch Pro 6.0 but I have not, nor do I normally use it.

EricLNZ wrote on 1/8/2016, 2:23 AM

@ Yep

In the consumer version of DVDAS 5.0 Build 186 if you go to File/Optimize Disc it lists the video and audio streams contained in your project and for each indicates whether it will be recompressed or not. A useful way of knowing whether your streams are compliant or not.

Is this information not available in the Pro 6.0 version?

Yep wrote on 1/8/2016, 3:22 AM

Thanks EricLNZ - that was very helpful. I've just checked my last Bluray project and all files are compliant. So DVDA shouldn't be re-rendering them during the preparation phase.

In view of that and the fact that I am happy enough with the quality of the BDs I've been making, I don't think there's much point in continuing a discussion about render templates.

So really it's back to my original question. What exactly is DVDA doing during the "Preparation" phase that hogs resources so much, and what if anything can I do to stop it being such a resource hog?

Again thanks to all for you input.

EricLNZ wrote on 1/8/2016, 3:57 AM

I can only assume it's the copying of the files over to make the disc image. But even a full 25gb image shouldn't take too long. Personally I don't do anything else while the disc image is being prepared.

Former user wrote on 1/8/2016, 10:53 AM

It may depend upon your temp folder location. Could that drive be close to full, causing a lot of disk acitivty?

TOG62 wrote on 1/8/2016, 2:34 PM

My understanding is that the Preparation phase is quite separate from the rendering phase. Rendering will always take place for menu items and for non-compliant events.

Once rendering is complete the various elements that comprise the ISO image are created, i.e. Playlist, Stream, etc folders and various other files. On my mid-range Core i7 system this takes around an hour for a full disc.

Arthur.S wrote on 1/9/2016, 12:06 PM

I would say this is definitely a problem somewhere within your system. I regularly create BD's using both MPEG2 and AVC (if disc space is needed) The menu creation/render takes just a few mins, so I just wait until it's finished.

RedRob-CandlelightProdctns wrote on 7/6/2018, 10:54 PM

Everyone says BD authoring is quick "unless you have complex menus". Here's what I've found personally.

IF you use Motion Menus and "scene selection" with many scenes in the menu -- with BRD this *will* take a very long time. Any rendering processes done by DVDA in my experience are significantly slower than rendering done by Vegas. Imagine a scene selection menu for a dance show with 65 dances, each one having a chapter mark (scene). That's 7 submenus with 10 motion menus being rendered by DVDA.. slowww. Eliminate the motion menus and your slow authoring may become a thing of the past :-)

Former user wrote on 7/7/2018, 10:27 AM

You could create the motion menus in Vegas. Might be faster overall.