DVDA says 2.7gb file requires 6.2gb space

AnnieK wrote on 12/17/2007, 6:22 AM
So I can't write out the DVD, having only a single-layer burner. But this is just wrong anyway, isn't it? We've authored a 1/2 dozen DVD's of similar source material and file sizes in the last week, and now suddenly we are stuck.

Any ideas? I've even re-rendered the project in a couple of differnt ways. When I put in a 2.6gb video-only file, and a 500k ac3 file, it said I needed 12.3gb...

Comments

MPM wrote on 12/17/2007, 7:03 AM
IF you check the FILE menu -> OPTIMIZE dialog window you'll see if DVDA wants to re-encode the file. If it does, that could be your problem. If you've added the same title more than once, and altered one of the titles so DVDA errors & wants to include it twice (or more) that'll also bump up the space requirements, & again the Optimize dialog will tell you.

I've also seen DVDA not handle certain files, usually m2v mpg2. In at least one case problems appeared after closing & re-opening the project in DVDA. DVDA likes it's own format mpg2 that you get when rendering from Vegas -- originally that's all it would accept. It seems to go through an interpretation step when you import non-Vegas mpg2 video-only streams, writing temporary (index?) files to hdd. In the case I mentioned, it was necessary to delete those files prior to re-opening the project. I've found that muxing the video stream without supplying an audio track in TMPGEnc's MPEG Tools creates a pseudo Vegas file that DVDA likes.

If none of this helps, please post the source & type along with any details on the video file you're trying to import.
AnnieK wrote on 12/17/2007, 10:25 PM
Your comments on adding a title more than once are probably on the right track. Let me describe a bit more, and please share what you can.

The problem does relate (so far) to just a single project. The project is very simple, just avi clips rendered to DVDA NTSC Widescreen, no audio, 3.6gb. The accompanying audio was rendered to the DVDA preferred ac3 format, 137mb. File names were identical except for the extension.

But, before we got there, there were several render attempts to get the file size down, some included audio, some had separate audio stream. Kept trying to find a winning combination for DVDA, but things just got worse. At the end, DVDA would read the 3.6gb file correctly - but adding the 137mb ac3 file resulted in an anticipated 10.2gb project!

So, whatever got "stuck" or miscounted or corrupted - how do you get rid of it? I tried renaming the files, but that didn't work. Tried putting the files into a pre-existing menu of another name, that didn't work. Anyway, I'm now intalling the 4.5a upgrade, will see if that cleans anything up. As noted, I would just appreciate any instructional thoughts that anyone can share. Thank you.
ECB wrote on 12/18/2007, 6:59 AM
In DVDA go to File > Order DVD Titles and see how many titles you have on the DVD?
Ed
MPM wrote on 12/18/2007, 1:39 PM
"At the end, DVDA would read the 3.6gb file correctly - but adding the 137mb ac3 file resulted in an anticipated 10.2gb project!"

DVDA will import any files with matching names (i.e. trial.mpg & trial.ac3). Could there be a video file getting pulled in with the ac3?

If DVDA jumps that much, maybe there's something wrong with the ac3 file -- I've only seen 2 or 3 that DVDA sort of went nuts with, but those it just would not accept. You could try one of the ac3 repair utilities, there are guides posted on how manipulate &/or re-encode ac3, or just encode from your source into ac3 using Vegas. If you did it the 1st time in Vegas, re-boot, start Vegas, and render again -- I have had Vegas rarely spit out a bad or even blank ac3 file, & it seemed a memory issue as restarting got proper results.

It's also possible I think that DVDA wound up with bad/garbled info on the ac3 file, but whether that would be stored in the project or .sfk files I don't know -- could easily delete the .sfk files and see what happens. To be honest it takes so little time to render ac3 I've never bothered with troubleshooting it too much, feeling it'd take at least as long to figure it out as it did to do it over.

If you're going from an earlier version where project files have to be converted, the upgrade to 4.5 might help too. Good luck
AnnieK wrote on 12/18/2007, 2:20 PM
Thanks, we did get throught it just be "keeping at it." Deleted all mpgs and ac3s related to this particular project, re-rendered to DVDA NTSC Widescreen, including audio, to a different name, upgraded from 4.5 to 4.5a, used the new render and all was well.

I think the problem is somewhere in the fact that we were re-using the same file name for successive renders - because our first render was about 4.8gb. It took us 2 or 3 tries of going back into the veg file, editing "down", and re-rendering, before we got to an acceptable file size. But we didn't know how far we could push the upper limit of the file size, so each time we edited down, we tried to publish again in DVDA. You noted in your first reply that repetitive but unsuccessful attempts could somehow jinx the process - and that is the best fit for what happened here. So if we had a bugfix list for DVDA, I'd put on the idea that DVDA should be able to know when to "let go" of file references that are no longer needed.

Otherwise, project is great, and we've pumped out a couple more since then. Always kudos to Vegas for ease of use, but always hoping Sony can make it more "user-proof."
MPM wrote on 12/18/2007, 7:39 PM
Glad it worked!

If it helps...
I generally render the ac3 first, so I have a definite file size & it doesn't take long; if you select the file in Windows Explorer, the size given in the status bar area of the window is pretty close. A complete SL DVD folder should be 4.35 gig, so subtracting the ac3 gives a good figure for the mpg2. While Vegas is encoding, it writes the mpg file -- I hit refresh in Windows Explorer just as the Vegas progress bar hits a %, like 5 or 10, and this gives me the actual file size at that point. Plug that into Calculator & I can figure pretty darn accurately what the final file size will be, i.e. 5% = X so 100% = 20X. Of course others prefer bit rate calculators.

As I mentioned in another thread, I've been known to run a DVD on hdd that's barely over thru Shrink or Recode -- whether the quality hit from trimming B frame data is less than the hit from a lower bit rate is a matter of opinion (but that's my opinion).

I also make it a habit to save projects with a letter suffix regularly, like proja, projb, etc... Doesn't take much room, and I can go back to earlier points in time if something doesn't work rather than continually editing and saving the same named project. Old habit that has worked pretty well with Vegas & DVDA.