What you can do to save a little time is simply use the DVD NTSC template and MPEG-2 as file type. Drag these rendered files into DVD-A's work area, you can do whatever you need as far as setting chapter points, (if you haven't already in Vegas) etc..

Now once you have your menu setup done, thumbnails in place, background music and so on, just click on Optimize. DVD-A will list any errors and also list a bunch of warnings and/or give information like some text is overlaping others and stuff like that. You can IGNORE. These are really just NAG warnings.

Now click on the MAKE DVD button. DVD-A will recompress what it needs to, including redoing the audio streams presenrtly in MPEG-2 format converting to a format that complies with the DVD specs. This is totally transparent to you the user. If you got nothing better to do, sip your favorite beverage as DVD-A prepares the files showing the status in a series of progress bars. Its a two step process. First what needs to be recompressed is. Then the DVD images files are created one after another. Again DVD-A will show progress bars as it works through this task. Total time, depends on how much if anything needs to be recompressed, the complexity of your menu system, etc.. For me, for a fully loaded DVD (4.6GB or so) and a fairly complex menu system, a little under a hour. Now everything is ready to burn the DVD. I do this on a seperate PC, since I keep all the files on a removable drive. How long this last phase takes is wholly up to your DVD burner. Again, for me, about 35 minutes or so.

Most of the noise you see in this forum about rendering to AC-3, needing seperate templates, making multiple renders, blah, blah, blah, is mostly that. Noise! You can if you want to of course, but not necessary.

So to review. The easy way to make a DVD with DVD-A is render as MPEG-2 in Vegas, using the DVD NTSC template (US) then let DVD-A do its thing which it will all by itself making what chages are necessary if any. So while you can make seperate renders, using the DVD-A templates part of Vegas 4, you don't have to.

In the "Optimize" dialogue box should I accept the "From Project" option for all video files and audio files or should these be changes to NTSC DVD and AC-3? Then go on to burning the project? Originally in Vegas I used the NTSC DVD template. I noticed that the Philips 724AT player is a progressive scan. In the NTSC DVD template it mentions that it is lowerfield-first interlaced and not progressive scan. Can this be a problem or do I have this all wrong?

Also, is the Verbatim DVD+R "Datalife Plus 1X-4X video media ok?
Help me out with some answers. Thanks so far, though!

CRH

There is no one answer fits all. At the most basic level letting DVD-A do its thing, meaning let it change what it wants/needs to change if anything, will produce a good result. Over the last couple days I finished several DVD's using the default DVD NTSC template. NO FIDDLING with any settings. No need. They all look good great and sound really good too. Even for a born again knob twister like me... you need to know when to stop messing around. If you're new to burning DVD's, try the defaults and see if the quality meets your needs. Probably will. Then for Pete's sake some worrying what if I tweaked this or fiddled with that.

The other day I asked Dennis (SoFo) over in the Vegas group about interlacing. Just find any Dennis post, click on his name and you can easily find what he had to say on that topic.

As far as media, your mileage will vary. The guys at the VCD/DVD help form cover a pretty wide universe of users having tested just about every brand of media and DVD player there is. If there are obvious problems, its likey will show up in some thread in one of their many forums or in some posted help article on their site.

Generally any name brand media should be OK. Back a couple years ago when I was burning CD's was all the buzz, I picked up one of those "bargain" bundles where you get 100 or so dics at a cheap price. While a name brand, nearly every other one resulted in a coaster. I wrote them, they sent me replacements, but not another bundle, each in indvidual jewel cases. Those worked fine. Does that mean you shouldn't buy in bulk, no, but it soured me and I haven't since.

Billyboy,

I recently had a similar experience burning CDs. The individually wrapped Verbatims worked perfectly with my Smart and Friendly burner (zero coasters). So, I finally got around to buying a stack of 50 or whatever on a spindle. Mistake! My drive often won't see the blank media, and if it does, about half are coasters (even the burner sometimes won't recognize them, but my DVD burner does. whatever). So I stick with the individual slices. What gives? There must be some difference with the bulk spindle ones.

G