DVDA File size

Stonemason wrote on 2/19/2004, 1:25 PM

Can anyone explain to me why a mpeg2 file rendered to pal DVD settings and showing a file size of 2.1gb on my hard drive should show as 2.8gb in DVDA I have been through the render as video and audio files route and it makes very little difference. DVDA seems to put about .6gb onto the file size yet if I put this same file into other DVD authoring apps they report the correct size of 2.1gb and allow me to burn two to a 4.7bg disk. If I import two such files into DVDA and create the DVD on my Hard disk I get about a 5.4gb set of files any help would be much appreciated.
thanks

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 2/19/2004, 4:28 PM

Any resembelance between DVDA's file estimates, and actual file sizes, is strictly coincidental.

Everything about DVDA's file estimation and time remaining to burn is completely broken -- not even close. I've had burns that show 60% complete that suddenly spit out the disk. Fortunately, the disk works, but having the burn finish so far ahead of the estimate doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling that everything is OK.

Similarly, most of my projects show (in the Optimze dialog) that I am at 105% of nominal project size, and yet the files created in the VIDEO_TS folder usually are well below the size that can be fit on DVD, and DVDA burns the resulting project without complaint, and it plays just fine.

I wonder how many thousands of DVDA projects have been needlessly cut in size, or encoded at a lower than needed bitrate, in order to conform to these bogus estimates?

HarrieG wrote on 3/1/2004, 1:57 PM

If you render a MPEG2 file and include video and audio DVDA will always rerender at least the audio. Then, if you make a DVD using PCM sound, the audio will take more space than you initially thought. So, it is best to render seperate files for video and audio to use in DVDA - it will find the audio itself when you save the audio in the same directory using the same filename. Render video as mpg2 (use the DVDA template in Vegas) and render audio as PCM or AC3 (depends on what you want to use on your DVD). You can recalculate the video and audio bitrades with a Excel calculater by Fotis (download it from www.sundancemediagroup.com). You'll find out the estimates are not so bogus after all.

aussiemick wrote on 3/1/2004, 4:51 PM

File sizes can be out if you do not check out the "optimize" button. Make sure all the files conform to the project settings in both video and audio. If they don't highlight the file that does not conform and make it conform by choosing from the drop down selections for audio or video at the bottom of the page.
Many strange things happen with some of the files and they need changing manually. Have had to do this on the last 3 projects, some as the result of my own fault. This mostly happened as the result of files not conforming to the dvd specs for the individual project. DVDA will rerender anything that does not conform.