Compression Programs

studioLord wrote on 7/31/2006, 11:51 AM

I have read in some former threads that there are compression programs available that reduce the size of the larger file sizes so someone can fit them onto a DVD. I also read where it is advised to first 'render' in VMS as an .avi ... then take it to DVDA and render via the "Fit To Disc" option.
Question:
Which one works better or produces the best quality video or both?
John

Comments

ScottW wrote on 8/7/2006, 8:02 AM

DVDshrink seems to be the program most folks use to shrink a DVD project after the project has been created.

If this were Vegas, and not VMS, then the recommendation would be to render as MPEG-2 in Vegas, unless you were creating video for a menu. As this is VMS and you don't have as much control over the encoder, then the recommendation is usually to render as DV AVI and then use the fit to disk option (if needed) in DVDAS.

Keep in mind there are trade-offs for each approach; for example, DV doesn't always handle titles very well, so if you have a lot of titles, you might get better results going from VMS directly to MPEG-2.

I'm sure other folks can share additional opinions.

--Scott