DVDa Rant

blink3times wrote on 11/4/2008, 6:13 AM
I go to a lot of trouble to do bitrate and file size calculations... make sure the machines can play what I'm exporting from Vegas... yadda, yadda

Now with a mpeg2 file completely compliant for Blu Ray at 28M cbr and totaling 21gig in size, and a compliant AC3 file ALREADY housed in a m2ts wrapper, and going to Blu Ray disk, there should be NO reason in the world why dvda should feel the need to recompress. Yet it does... siting "non compliant.... bitrate higher than than 28M" which is total bull crap. Blu Ray players are FULLY capable of playing back bitrates as high as something on the order of 40M

I'm so tired of this! $500 is a lot of money to shell out for DVDit Pro HD.... but boy.... DVDa is certainly driving me straight to it!

Comments

apit34356 wrote on 11/4/2008, 10:50 AM
Blink, I think CS4 Encore maybe the best choice in this price range now.
Robert W wrote on 11/4/2008, 11:18 AM
Wooooooh there a minute blink! Really, is it fair to criticise the people at Sony like this? They are just people after all. I mean, DVD-Architect works fine for me making DVD's. Are you sure there isn't something wrong with your computer. Maybe you need more memory? Or maybe you need to reinstall windows?

I just wont hear of this insulting of the software and Sony, it is totally uncalled for.

Or maybe you've bit yourself on the bum?

Mu ha ha ha ha.
Udi wrote on 11/4/2008, 1:51 PM
I did a test.
encoded at 30Mbps CBR.
DVDa it gives a WARNING, not an error, and no need for recompress.

The warning is - the result can not be burned onto DVD MEDIA. It can be burned into BD. This is a limitation of DVD media and it's only a warning.

Udi
blink3times wrote on 11/4/2008, 2:15 PM
"Wooooooh there a minute blink! Really, is it fair to criticise the people at Sony like this? "

Who's criticizing Sony? I'm criticizing DVDa
John_Cline wrote on 11/4/2008, 2:37 PM
I've been using Encore for all my Blu-ray authoring and it works really well. I've tried DVDA a few times and it complains about files which Encore will cheerfully use.
Sebaz wrote on 11/4/2008, 8:22 PM
Have you tried importing the two separate streams into DVDA 5? Maybe it doesn't like the m2ts wrapper.
DJPadre wrote on 11/4/2008, 8:29 PM
had this problem with SD as well.. I think i posted about it...

heres the thing.. it seems anything that is smartrendered WONT be put to disc (be it DVD or BD)
I had to rerender an entire edit, which SHOULD have been an entire smartrender.
Needless to say, Im not even doing that anymore.. im just rendering to AVCHD for BD which i know is gonna work.

Im over SCS half cocked efforts and updates....
blink3times wrote on 11/4/2008, 8:34 PM
"Have you tried importing the two separate streams into DVDA 5? Maybe it doesn't like the m2ts wrapper."

Interesting you ask that. When Udi (above) said that he/she tested with 30cbr... I went back and looked at that. If I import a separate M2V/AC3 it does NOT seem to recompress. It simply muxes the audio/video over to M2TS. It just gives the rather screwy and confusing recompress warning the Udi mentions.

But if I import a M2TS (m2v and ac3 already muxed) then it WILL recompress.

There is something wrong with dvda's warning flags. Even if I do a avc file at 16M and import to dvda as m2ts the warning comes up about being "non compliant" and in excess of 28M

So the bottom line I guess is that it may not be as "recompress happy" as I originally thought... there are still problems with it and it complains about files that it really shouldn't be complaining about.
blink3times wrote on 11/4/2008, 8:41 PM
"I've been using Encore for all my Blu-ray authoring and it works really well. "

I've also heard good things about Encore but my problem John is that I'm not too interested in purchasing the entire CS4 package, and as I understand it, I can't get Encore on its own. So I'm probably looking at DVDit Pro HD as the next best bet.
PeterWright wrote on 11/4/2008, 9:39 PM
Try SCS support?
John_Cline wrote on 11/4/2008, 11:13 PM
No, Encore isn't available on its own. I tried to wrap my head around DVDit Pro HD, but just couldn't make that happen. Maybe its workflow will work for you. I'm really spoiled by Encore's flowchart, being able to easily link assets and see the navigation of the entire disc at a glance is absolutely invaluable. By contrast, authoring in any other application, including DVDA, is like flying totally blind.
Robert W wrote on 11/5/2008, 3:46 AM
Now come on Blink, stop this. Stop criticising DVD-Architect.

Is it the program.... the machine.... or the operator?

What you don't seem to understand is that most people run into a problem and instantly blame the program WITHOUT bothering to answer the above question. This is what Sony deals with all the time BTW. It's not a wonder why they tend to take complaints with a grain of salt.

If you expect perfection the first time around then I am sorry to say that YOU have the problem.

Whan Avid Liquid 7 came out it was COMPLETELY and TOTALLY broken.... no word of a lie, You just simply couldn't use it for anything more than a toy. You couldn't even produce a disk from it. It was like it went straight from the drawing board onto the disk with no betas testing what so ever. It took and entire year of patching to get this thing to the point of usability. In fact this is what brought me over to Sony. I spent $1000 on a totally broken program and I wasn't ever going to do it again with Avid.

blink3times wrote on 11/5/2008, 4:18 AM
Do you have a point, or are you just interested in picking a fight?
Robert W wrote on 11/5/2008, 5:56 AM
Well, I'm just pointing out, I was getting criticised for complaining about Sony and their software under a month ago, yet now the boot is on the other foot.
apit34356 wrote on 11/5/2008, 6:27 AM
Left or right foot? ;-) If you have two left boots - blame craftech and Apple - not sony, if you have two right boots - blame craftech.and Avid. But if you have a left boot and a right shoe, blame craftech and CNN. The important thing here is to remember to blame craftech and the US media for everything else. The exception is on US Holidays,( craftech gets these days off by union contract), so we all can blame Blink, because he's Canadian and has a PS3 doesn't get US holidays off---- just Canadian ones. ;-)
fordie wrote on 11/5/2008, 6:46 AM
Dvdit proHD will also give you a warning everytime you import media other than AC3 files.
If you import a legal VC1 file it warns you that its not Dvd compliant..you can just ignore it. lots of people had problems with this because they were not reading what was being said, (however you could argue that this is stupid programing as the project is blu ray not dvd so why warn you?)
Dvdit pro is real picky about files being compliant, are you sure that the file is 100% legal?
Ive spent months trying to sort out what encoder produces legal files and although i dont use MPEG2 for Blu ray , the best encoder seems to be mainconcept reference for AVC and.VC1(awful expensive though IMHO)
personnaly I use sorenson squeeze 5 to produce 100% Legal VC1 24p files up to 35000 no probs although again sorenson is broken ,it cant produce legal 50i VC1 files.
Ive told sorenson, sent them the broken files and they still cant fix it ,they say use the preset which is 11250 kbps!, try to increase the bit rate to something sensible , say 20000and the file becomes illegal !
Ive tried DVDA and just couldnt get my head round its interface. DVDit is just so easy to use, but it too has its bugs and the user support is pathetic compared to Sony
Personally I would try a different encoder just to see if the file is 100% legal. mainconcept reference has good trial software..try to re encode the same file and see what happens or put the file into dvdit pro hd because if it passes into that you can be sure it is 100% legal.
JJKizak wrote on 11/5/2008, 7:45 AM
This reminds me of when Reel DVD came out for $900.00 with the dongle? and all the arrows and mishmosh and having to use photoshop for text. What a nightmare. I assume Bluray will get simpler before the next new media is introduced.
I still have Reel DVD sitting in a dead space/time continuem stacis zone.
JJK
blink3times wrote on 11/18/2008, 8:57 AM
Well... I must say... after doing a bit of research on DVDit Pro HD and some heavy playing with DVDa I am fully prepared to eat my words.

Although DVDa does have its issues, it's a fairly detailed authoring system and it's quite a bit more powerful than Roxio's DVDit pro. Key frame ability as well as remote button control are extremely powerful features that roxio lacks (or at least does not measure up to)

I can't speak for Encore but DVDit is not in the same league as DVDa.