I am confused as to what a capture card has to do with burning a DVD from DVD Architect??

Can you please explain?

It depends on what is taking so long:

Q. Is it spending most of its time doing the preparation?
A. Then prepare the files in Vegas. Instead of giving DVD Architect an AVI file, make an MPEG2 video file and an AC3 audio file from Vegas so DVD Architect has less work to do

Q. Is the MPEG2 conversion taking too long?
A. Get a faster laptop. My P4 3.0Ghz converted DV AVI to MPEG2 very close to real-time. My AMD Athon64 X2 4600+ desktop converts faster than real-time.

Q. Is it spending most of its time burning?
A. Get a faster burner. If you have a 2x burner, a one hour long DVD will take 30 minutes to burn (2x)

I have a capture device that captures in MPEG2 format for those times when I just want to archive an analog tape direct to DVD without editing. If this is what you are asking about, I can recommend the ADS Tech Instant DVD 2.0. It works very well for this purpose and is USB so it should work fine with your laptop.

~jr

There is one item which most PC users (who run WinXP) do not know about, and it DOES affect how fast rendering and such happens...

It's called the SECTOR SIZE when talking about an NTFS HD partition (a.k.a. drive letter).

The WinXP default size is very inefficient when it comes to working with large audio and video files. Defragmentation, using XP's default sector size, does not work very well, which is a big part of how long processes take! The more a HD has to look for parts of a file, the more time a process takes.

What I have always done in my professional post-production studio is to change EVERY NTFS HD partition from the default size to a sector size of 512 bytes! It makes defragmentation easier, it allows for large files to be more contiguous, etc.

Now, I don't have just a "home studio", but a professional business which has been used to make everything from local TV commercials to full-length "indie films", indie audio recordings, etc. When I render a 2 hour .avi file to the separate MPEG-2 video and the AC-3 2.0 / 5.1 audio streams, it used to take up to 12 hours to perform the rendering using the default XP sector size; changing it over to 512 bytes/sector has decreased this rendering time by up to 30% for most projects.

It does not matter if a SATA-150, SATA-2, or PATA drive is used; by shortening the sector size, and running the defragmentation overnight before performing the rendering or the final DVD burning, the overall time savings have been tremendous.

And I'm not talking about just on the highest end AMD 64-bit CPU's, the best ASUS mobo, and the best possible add-on cards, etc... this same time savings can be seen on 3-5 year old PC's running early P4 chips!

Whether any anti-virus software is turned off (which also helps speed up any processes) or left on (which can add 5-8% time to the processing) is not that much of an issue. Turn off any AV software temporarily to gain speed; make sure that DMA is enabled for internal HD's; if your HD is a 5,400 RPM unit, but a 7,200 RPM unit (they're really inexpensive!), which will give you even more time savings.

Every little bit helps; but the BIGGEST time saver is changing the sector size of the partition(s) where the processing work is taking place.

Contrary to some "know-it-alls", a user does NOT have to remove all the files from the partition to change the sector size. Just make sure to make a COMPLETE BACKUP of all the files, just in case there is a problem when the sector size changeover takes place. This is just common sense. I've used Partition Magic to change the size (I just happen to own that software, so it's what I use).

Once the sector size has changed, reboot the PC. Then defrag the partition you just changed. Not once, but twice. The reason is that the initial defrag may not always make the maximum number of files contiguous. Performing a second defrag will yield the best results. Once the dual defrag is finished, reboot the PC again.

I mention to people what after using ANY software to do ANYTHING, it's always a good idea to reboot the PC. This is because a lot of software, when it is finished and closed, does not always release the memory it was using, as well as not giving back all of the System Resources that were used. Some people think this is a pain, but software always runs faster when all available memory is there and there is the full amount of System Resources available to the user. Don't perform a simple "Log Off and Change User"... that still doesn't release everything. A full warm reboot is what's needed.

Hopefully this will help not only the laptop user, but anyone who wants to gain speed with Vegas, DVD-A, etc.

I've been an audio engineer for over 30 years, and I've run the gamut from when we performed edits using the old brass cutting block / razor blade / Scotch tape to reassemble the RTR media to todays "do it 100 times without losing a single byte of data" methods of NDE. Yes, I'm still very partial to analog, and I still own my very first 3 track Scully deck all the way up to a 2" 24-track unit (don't ask!). But in today's fast-paced world when customers want everything 2 days ago, yes, digital is the way to go for all of my post-production and finalization work.

Good luck with getting more speed out of your laptop. And have fune!