DVDA2 and Camtasia .avis - Help needed (^_^)

ken c wrote on 9/13/2004, 8:44 AM
Maybe one of you Vegas whizzes can help me out with this predicament I've got...

Bottom line: How can I make DVDs using techsmith camtasia avis? What's the right workflow, and compression settings, to use camtasia avis and vegas and DVDA2?

Here's the story:

-I'm creating a DVD with DVDA2 that features 2 gigs of Camtasia-produced avis ... (encoded with the techsmith codec).. they look beatiful, and are at 720x480, sharp and clear..

-The avis only add up to 2 gigs total, but when I try to put them in DVDA2, they show up as 6+ gigs, and encoding down at 3 gps (?) bitrate produces a 2-gig DVD with blurry vobs.. even though I set the bitrate to produce a 4.1 gig DVD..

Question: How can I correctly encode 2 gigs of camtasia avis so that it's lossless and makes a sharp DVD.... eg high resolution vs blurry, as the post-DVDA2 authoring makes?

Here's what I think is going on:
-DVDA2 thinks a 200 meg techsmith avi is the same as say a 900 meg vob/mpg, in it's compression estimates
-When I fit to disc, eg choose a bit rate that's supposed to produce say a 4.1 gig DVD, it actually rendered only 2 gigs of vobs ...
-I'm currently trying to 'overclock', eg making what DVDA2 will initially estimate as a 5.3 gig DVD (though the actual will end up being less)...

-Should I take the techsmith avis and render them out as either mpgs or full size avis uncompressed in Vegas, before importing into DVDA2 for authoring?

How can I best take my nice sharp 2 gigs of camtasia 720x480 avis and author them cleanly in DVDA2?

I'd sure appreciate any tips any of you have ...

thanks!

ken
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Comments

ken c wrote on 9/13/2004, 9:20 AM
quick update -

ok it actually looks fine on TV, it's just blurry on the computer...
(just tested / burned a new dvd).... sounds like an interlace issue ..
well that's ok as long as it looks sharp on TV I'm happy ..

but .. any tips on what I asked above, re the workflow/compression settings for using camtasia techsmith-codec compressed avis within DVDA2 and vegas?

especially, re authoring issues and compression settings ... thx..

ken
apit34356 wrote on 9/13/2004, 4:59 PM
techsmith camtasia has an enhance codec. you can download the codec for qt. this may help vegas and dvda to access the enhance codec thru qt. check with techsmith FAQ site.
Spot|DSE wrote on 9/13/2004, 5:16 PM
The Ensharpen codec doesn't do you any good, it can only be played via quicktime, and won't benefit the DVD delivery process at all. Nice codec, but your viewers are required to have the codec installed on their system. The decoder is free, and the encoder costs.
Ensharpen is a really sweet tool, but since you can't view it without their decoder....it's sort of a moot point for DVD delivery