Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 10/21/2005, 5:44 PM
Did you ever contact Sony tech support? I know you were in a hurry for an answer, but they might be able to help you long term. My offer to look at one of your DAR files still stands.
jdas wrote on 10/21/2005, 6:30 PM
John,

Is it possible to send the DAR file as an attachment via email ? I have not done this before. If yes, please drop me a line to proglaze@pacific.net.sg Thanks.
johnmeyer wrote on 10/21/2005, 9:46 PM
I'll send it. Please go back to your post and remove your email -- otherwise the spam trollers will find it.
craftech wrote on 10/22/2005, 7:47 AM
James,
Are you sure you don't have your menu set up to accidently include TWO instances of the entire video? When you created the sub menu?
John
jdas wrote on 10/22/2005, 9:34 AM
If I had 2 instances than the file size would have doubled. This was not the case. The size in dvda was up by about 40-50%
johnmeyer wrote on 10/22/2005, 9:44 AM
OK, James sent the DAR file to me. The answer is obvious once you see the project.

It is a simple project, just the one video file dropped into the project, just like James said. However, the "sleeper" is that he took the same MPEG file and specified it as the thumbnail for the start button. Thus, the entire MPEG movie has to be re-encoded for the thumbnail. Hence the much larger size for the project.

If I had 2 instances than the file size would have doubled. This was not the case. The size in dvda was up by about 40-50%

In direct answer to this, you did, in a sense, use the entire file twice, but since the second instance was for the button, that use was re-encoded at a smaller size, and hence the project size didn't double. If you made that button the size of the entire menu, then the project would double.

The solution is to use Vegas to encode just a minute or two of the movie to be used for the button, and save that as an AVI or MPEG file (it really doesn't matter much). Use this 1-2 minute file for the animated button.

John
Grazie wrote on 10/22/2005, 1:04 PM
. . oops! . . .been there . .done that, B4 now 2! G
Coursedesign wrote on 10/22/2005, 2:43 PM
...and 4.7GB DVDs max out at 4.38GB, so no wonder it didn't fit.

Marketing GB = decimal gigabytes (because it makes a bigger number)

It would be good to have sticky FAQ at the top of this forum, this question would make the list for sure.
johnmeyer wrote on 10/22/2005, 2:59 PM
and 4.7GB DVDs max out at 4.38GB, so no wonder it didn't fit.

True enough, but the point I tried to make from the very beginning of this thread is that he was over by such a large amount that it couldn't be explained by DVDA's poor estimation algorithms, or about the usual confusion between KB, MB, and GB. The Sony engineers really confuse the issue by using both MB and GB in the same dialog (the Optimize dialog).

For those that want to know, the size of a DVD is:

4,699,979,766 bytes

Because of the difference between measuring using decimal (where K, M, and G are all 1,000 times larger than the preceding measure) and binary (where K, M and G are all 1,024 times larger), this number of bytes is equivalent to:

4,589,824 KBytes

or

4,482 MBytes

or

4.377 GBytes

jdas wrote on 10/22/2005, 7:24 PM
My appreciation to all,especially John Meyer who has taken the time to crack this mystery. Thanks guys !!

Have a great weekend !

James
johnmeyer wrote on 10/22/2005, 11:06 PM
You're welcome, James.
johnmeyer wrote on 10/23/2005, 10:02 PM
You know, I still have not got it. I started DVDA on a clean slate, then dragged the mpeg2 file(size 3.2GB) from the explorer to dvda's workspace. Immediately the size was up to 5.0 GB. with a red highlight. As you said, I did render a 1 min video for the thumbnail button. Please guide me step by step,so that I get it right this time.

James,

It looks to me like you have chosen a very high-bandwidth (PCM) codec for the audio. This is the problem.

To render from Vegas for DVDA:

1. Click on Render As.
2. Choose MPEG-2 and for the Template, choose the DVD Architect PAL template. Do NOT choose the "Default" template.
3. Click on Custom and on the Video tab, change the Average bitrate according to the size of your project. For a 2 hour 5 minute and 43 second video, you would choose a average bitrate of about 4,500,000 bps. Leave the min and max bitrates alone.
4. Click on OK to close the Custom dialog, choose a file name, and then start the render.
5. When the video render has finished, click on Render As.
6. This time select Save As Type: Dolby Digital AC-3. The Default Template is fine. Choose the exact same file name as you did for the video.

When the audio render has finished, open DVD Architect and import the video file. If you chose the same name and location for the audio, DVDA will find the audio file and join it with the video file.

If you want to continue to use PCM audio (which is really not a good idea, because it takes up so much more space, and the audio really isn't that much better), you will have to reduce the video encoding rate from 4,600,000 all the way down to 3,300,000.

Using PCM audio (which is what happens when you encode the video and audio at the same time) is what is causing your project to "balloon" up to a larger size. This is due to the fact that the size of the DVD project is the total of not only the video, but also the audio, the menus, subtitles, and any animations or videos that you associate with buttons. The video is certainly the largest part of it all, but it is not the ONLY thing. With AC-3, audio becomes a relatively minor "player," but if you encode using PCM, audio can become a major portion of the total size of the project.

You really MUST encode the audio using AC-3, and this must be done as a separate pass. There are many scripts you can download that will let you do these two seperate encodes as one operation, so you don't have to sit around and wait for one encode to finish before you start the next encode. Alternatively, you can do the audio encode first, since it usually only takes a few minutes, and then start the video encode which, as you have found, usually takes many hours.

John