Hey man! You got a spycam rigged up here somewhere?

Seriously though, it does get extremely tedious after a while (Oh for when I can afford a proper duplicating setup).

An interesting addition to the above "Fawlty Towers" scenario is that I had previously rendered and burnt the project using Cinelerra and ManDVD in Ubuntu (and I have to say, the rendered quality was actually slightly better than from DVDA - but I've wasted enough time on this project already!). Anyway, one of the cast then goes and dies before the actual release of the DVD, so I have to add dedications etc. to the final project - that's when my troubles started! It has to said, that, although ManDVD produces excellent results, it is a bit clunkier and sparse on the GUI/menu options and Cinelerra is far from stable, so I decided to bite the bullet and try DVDA to add the dedication clips.

Trouble is, I just couldn't get a disc that would play on anything other than my PC (and even that was strenuous!), so I decided (as I was about to go HD anyway - now a proud owner of a Z5) I'd bite the bullet and and splash out on Vegas, Sound Forge (I also had issues with camera noise [because of the open-air scenario, everything was at full gain] - which I managed to pretty much eliminate) etc. and start again from scratch. First issue was that Vegas wouldn't handle the DVs produced by Cinelerra ?!? so I re-captured everything from scratch to AVI (I think that's maybe where the slight drop in final quality has come from - although the camera was really struggling with the low light levels anyway [outdoor production at night] it was definitely better picture quality via Cinelerra/ManDVD). I far prefer Ubuntu to Vista and use it for everything else.

So having re-done all the editing in Vegas, I was really miffed (never mind twigs! -It was getting close to sledge-hammer time!) when Vegas 8.1 started rendering all these blank clips - apparently at random.

Anyway, thankfully, 8.0c has saved the day (and I can start re-growing my hair - what little there was of it left anyway!) and I am nearly finished burning the 25 discs initial (hopefully) order.

There. Now. Rant/musings over.... hopefully you can have a few more larfs to bring in the new year. ;-)

Happy New Year to everyone!

You might do as I do: use DVDA to create a disk image and then burn with ImgBurn. ImgBurn produces multiple copies just as you have described.

I only burn 2 or 3 discs directly from DVDA if I need more, which I often do, I use ImageBurn.

I actually started to use ImageBurn after reading about it on this forum, and I really like it - and it's free :-)

/Ulf

I would have used Nero previously, but I haven't upgraded to a vista x64 version as I tend to do most stuff in Ubuntu these days. I've only started using Vista in earnest since my "issues" on this project and in readiness for editing footage from my nice new Z5 (which Cinelerra et al do not yet handle) using Vegas.

I might try ImagBurn (although, if I'd thought about it, I could have taken the iso into ubuntu to burn. Duh!) on the next project (a panto in France - yes, I know, the French don't do panto - but English Ex-pats do!). Actually, it's the same group that this last project was for. I just hope, as this next one will be shot on the Z5, I don't get gripes about the image quality of this one by comparison!

Might be off topic...have you tried TurboJet? I have a Debian machine dedicated to
duplication as I found the process in DVDA time consuming too..

http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=141613


Also, do you like the motion tracking in Cinnelerra?

To put it mildly a man would have to be out of his tree using DVDA to burn a DVD. It does not verify the disk and must be about the only disk burning program that doesn't.
So if you want to have winge about burning multiple copies using DVDA you might first want to do a Cleese about it not even checking if one got burnt right. I found this out the hard way, after a master made it all the way overseas to the replicator who couldn't read the thing, more of a Jackie Chan moment than Cleese.

Bob.

RCourtney,

No, I haven't tried Turbojet. To be honest, I've never seen it in the Ubuntu repositories but it's not a biggie. There are several options in Ubuntu for burning ISOs.

As far as tracking in Cinelerra, I'd say that it's much better in Vegas from my experience. You can see exactly where you are compared to Cinelerra, where it's a bit hit and miss until you've discovered the start and stop points.

In this last project, the rolling titles took a fraction of the time to set up in Vegas compared to the time it took me in Cinelerra on the previous version of the project and it was entirely due to the fact that you can see the whole thing in the Pan/Crop window.

****************************
farss

As far as the burn check is concerned, it doesn't really bother me as I'd find out whether the burn succeeded just as soon as I double-checked that it played all the through and all the menus functioned correctly, etc. I would never just rely on the fact that it burnt OK.

I've never used DVDA to burn a disk since it came out, and, god willing, never will. Use a real burning program to burn the disk image or the VIDEO_TS folder

I've burned hundreds of DVDs with DVDA and never a problem.

Get a child who used to go up and clean chimneys, they are cheap and can be left unattended.n ext thing you will be telling use you have to print them one at a time as well ;-)

Or as i do use a 3 bay DVD copier

You don't really need anything special for the actual burning. Windows will do it natively from the folders now Select the AUDIO_TS/VIDEO_TS folders, right-click and "send to" and select your burner from the options (although this doesn't seem to work with DL discs for some reason), whilst Ubuntu (and I assume most flavours of Linux) will do folders, files, ISOs (which you can also mount as a drive so you can play it with your favourite media player straight from the hard drive as though it were a DVD) natively also. You just select the folders/files/ISO you want, right-click and select "burn to disc" (or some such - can't remember exact wording 'cause I'm currently working in VISTA.

The actual burning bit is the easiest bit of the whole process really. It's the capture, editing, authoring and rendering that are the difficult (relatively) bits.

hey zcheema,

That would be the ideal solution - especially one that handles the printing onto disc as well. However, I can't justify the expense at present and I'd be struggling to find space for it amongst all the other equipment too!

"I've never used DVDA to burn a disk since it came out, and, god willing,"

Yes... I used to say the same thing. Then one day I FORCED myself into learning how to use it PROPERLY. What I found is that it's a pretty powerful program that can do things that others can't

I'll burn in DVDA for one-offs just because i'm already there after preparing. But if i'm going to burn more than a couple i'll use Nero instead. The lack of a verify pass is the real killer for me.

I'll also note as an aside that, even when using the same burning speed, Nero accomplishes the burn and the verify faster than DVDA does just the burn. Not sure why, but it seems like DVDA often slows down or even pauses part way through. Very strange.

I have burned thousands, yes thousands of DVDs using DVD Architect.
I never knew there was an issue,-----until yesterday.
At about 70, DVDA refused to burn any more.
Have no idea why. A digital hicup I assume.
I'm no techie.
Returned to normal after a reboot and I burned another 30.
Also, a reminder that there is a DVD Architect forum where this discussion should likely be taking place.
Happy New Year!

Hundreds? THOUSANDS? Whew!

I've burned dozens directly from DVDA, starting with DVDA2, and never had a problem. I can understand the wish for specifying upfront the number you want to burn, but don't normally do more than 2 or 3 at the very most. So it's not a big irritant to me.

After burning DVDs, I usually run them through DiscSpeed to check the quality, which provides a little more information than a simple after-burn verify. So I don't miss that function being omitted from DVDA, either.

Just burnt another PERFECT Blu Ray disk.............. compliments of DVDa. I really don't know what all the belly-aching is all about???!!??

Introduction media, motion menus, 3 titles all with perfect AC3 (DD5.1) sound.... had NO problems at all.

Hint. We're talking about burning, not authoring.
Nothing wrong that I've found with how DVDA burns in itself I guess but the lack of verification is a big issue for serious work where money is at stake.

I prepare in DVDA, then use PGCEdit to clean things up. Then I burn in ImgBurn.

Bob.

You want verification... try using a re-writable. That's what they're good for. I burn a re-writable EVERY time. Nothing wrong with DVDa.... from start to finish.

How does using a rewriteable provide verification?
Verification means reading the data back from the burnt disk and comparing it to what should have been written.

DVDA still produces an unreferenced audio stream which can cause problems in some players. Easy enough to fix, just open the image in PGCEdit, say Yes, please fix this, Save and you're good to go.

Bob.

How does image burn verification verify that the menu is functioning properly.... that the colors are correct... that the AC3 sound is correct... etc...etc?

I have image burn and I rarely use verification... it's a total waste of time. Not to mention the FACT that the last time I did use it (from a disk that I burned directly from image burn) it cleared a disk that DIDN'T play properly when played back.

If your attitude is "time is money" then what you want is to burn re-writable and check it from start to finish MANUALLY on a player. THEN you can start burning you real disks.

All verification does is make sure that the data on the disc matches the data on the hard drive. No one expects it to verify that the DVD looks and plays the way you want it to. That's not at all what we're talking about.

Verification is very important to us because it's quite possible to burn a dud, even when the DVD is set up perfectly. DVDA won't tell us when we've burned a dud, so we'd have to take every single stinkin' DVD over to a DVD player and pop it in to see if it plays at all. We're not checking proper menues and color and other stuff because we know that's already ok from the first burn. That's not going to change on the 50th disc or the 50,000th disc, so we never need to check that again. What we're concerned with is making sure that all the discs we burn have valid data on them before they get sent to a client. Verification does this much more reliably and much faster than playing all of each and every disc.