Hi Rob,
Thanks so much for your reply. I rendered the file in MPEG, not MPEG2 - I suppose I should change that for starters, but I thought I read somewhere that Vegas was not good with MPEG2 (???), so that could be why.

So if I understand what you said, I should not render my video in Vegas, but import it into DVDA and render it there, and then render it again? That's twice the rendering I was doing before my old DVD burner started to give me problems, and I never had to put the audio into a separate file, which all seems like a lot of extra steps. If the quality is better (I will do a trial run) then it will be worth it though.

thanks again for your help :-).

lili

lili

Rob is referring to a template that exists within Vegas, NOT DVDA.

If you do what Rob says, you will end up with 2 files. One Video and one audio. Simply bring the Video clip into DVDA. If they have the same file name and they are located in the same folder, DVDA will bring audio automatically.

What you probably read was that Vegas isn't good for editing MPEG2 (or MPEG1). It does a fine job rendering out to MPEG2.

So if I understand what you said, I should not render my video in Vegas, but import it into DVDA and render it there, and then render it again?

That's so not what I said. ;-)

When you choose File -> Render As in Vegas, choose MPEG-2 for the type of file. Then go down to the section labeled Template and choose one of the DVD Architect video stream templates. Which one you pick depends on your individual project -- I don't know if you're using wdescreen or standard, NTSC or PAL (though I'm guessing it's standard NTSC).

After that's done, go to File -> Render As again and choose Dolby Digital AC-3 for the type of file. No need to choose a different template.

You don't have to put the audio in a separate file if you don't want to. Instead of what I describe above, you can just use the NTSC DVD template. But the method I describe works out a lot better in general.

Rob

I thank you both VERY much for all your help and explicit instructions- everything is so much clearer now (believe it or not :-))

Cheers,
lili

Hi, It's me again!

The instructions you gave WERE very clear and I followed them and dropped my project into DVDA.
When I chose Burn DVD, beside 'Prepared Folder", it asks me to select the folder of the prepared DVD data to burn to the disk.

When I type in the name of the file folder (rendered files) that I have my video in,. I , I get a message "the path must contain Video_T5 and Audio_T5 and must not contain other files or folders.

Now I am stuck on this point because I don't know where to find this folder. Sorry to be such a pain, but I truly have tried to figure this out before consulting the forum.

Thanks ! :-)
lili

Let Windows find it for you. Click Start/Search then click on all files folders, in the top box type in Video_TS, then under 'look in' specify the drive you used. If you don't remember which drive, let windows search your whole system.

Next time, give the prepared folder a easy to remember name, like what you're calling the project.

Thanks BB, however my problem is that I don't know what they mean by "Prepared folder". I take it to mean the folder I put my video file in when I created it in Vegas. Once I render a file, I put it in my Rendered Files folder and it has the name of my project, but with a different extension (wmv or mpeg). THAT is the folder I was looking in but it doesn't seem to be the folder referred to.
Where does the prepared folder come from (at what stage does it get created) if it is not the one I already created in the Vegas program?
Once I know this, I think I'll be flying. thanks a lot for your help.
lili
(the search turned up nothing.)

OK - I did it!! almost....

It turns out that I never clicked on the "Prepare DVD" button because I thought I already prepared it when I rendered it in Vegas. Once I did that, then of course everything else followed.

The problem now is, that after I clicked "Burn DVD", all was going well until I got an error message that stopped the process:
"A hardware error occurred. Unkown additional sense: Sense 04-44-86."
?????????
I really WANT to use DVDA, but it's been an uphill battle!

Lets review the basic steps.

1. make DVD compliant files in Vegas. Drag to workspace in DVDA
2. do chapters, sub menu creation, etc., in DVDA
3. once done, click on File/Optimize and check for error messages, etc..
4. LEAVE DVDA make a new folder from Windows Explorer, give it an appropriate name
5. Return to DVDA, next, type in folder name you just created in above step
6. Click next... DVDA will start processing project and making necessary files
7. Once step # 6 in finished, click on File/Make DVD then select Burn, insert a blank DVD
8. DVDA should show the path above, if not change to it. Click next. DVD should start burn process.

If anywhere during the burn process (the actually writing to the DVD) you get any error message it can mean there is something wrong with your DVD burner (Vegas like other applications doesn't work with all burners) or you could have bad media. While it makes little sense, sometimes errors that mention hardware problems actually are media problems and it just means your blank DVD had flaws in it preventing it from being written properly or something happened during the write process. Try again with a new blank. This is why its a good idea to grab some REWRITEABLE blank discs, they can be used over and over (hundreds of times). If you keep hitting the same kind of errors, it may, underscore MAY mean DVDA doesn't support your DVD burner. If you have all the latest drivers (if required) and the latest firmware, then your only other choice is to do the creation process with DVDA and use something else like Nero for the burning or get a supported DVD burner.

Also look under support (above) at extreme top of this page, then knowledgebase for more specific help.

Example

http://www.custcenter.com/cgi-bin/sonypictures.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=929&p_created=1071944900&p_sid=MM7lw8Ah&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9NTgmcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1zZWFyY2hfbmwmcF9wcm9kX2x2bDE9MjI5JnBfcHJvZF9sdmwyPTIzMiZwX2NhdF9sdmwxPSZwX2NhdF9sdmwyPSZwX3BhZ2U9MQ**&p_li=