I've ordered the upgrade that you're using, so I can't say for sure yet how the "Burn to Dvd" button works yet. So this advice is based on Screenblast movie studio and the DVD Architect 2.0 demo.

You may want to try "make movie" and "save to hard drive". When given the options, save as NTSC Mpeg2. This will take a while to make, so go find something to do for a while. This file should end up being less than 4.7 gigs.

Once the Mpeg2 file is complete, go into DVD architect studio. Right click the mouse and get the media file you just created. Then follow the instructions to add chapters, etc.

This should solve the problem. But like I said, until I get my hands on the product, I can't guarantee it. Good Luck!

I used the default avi. How would I render it to be compressed? The project is about 70 minutes long. I have Pent 4, 2.8 ghz 7200 prm hard drive, and 512 RAM. Thanks.

Are you saying saving as an mpeg2 will render the file smaller? thanks

Rendering to MPEG2 will be incredibly smaller than uncompressed AVI.

For instance, when I capture an hours worth of video in AVI format, it will just about use up my 60 GByte hard drive. When I render to MPEG2, it will come in at less than 4 GBytes.

I also use Movie Studio 3, the little brother of Vegas. Not sure if you will get better compression in Vegas or not, but you won't get worse.

Correct,
The MPEG2 is a compressed file.
The steps ADinelt show in his response are what I do.
I render the project to MPEG2 and then I use that file is the DVD burning program.
The MPEG2 is the format for DVD so the DVD burning program will not re-render the file.

There are several posts on this message board regarding file formats and different compression codec's. It's rather complicated but just ask questions. This board is full of helpful people !

Good luck !

OK! I saved the file to the hard drive as an mpeg2 and it was rendered to about 3.8 gb. I went to the DVD Architect and brought in the file. I clicked on prepare and burn dvd. The estimated file size is now 5.06 gb, or 106% of the media. I continued on thinking the preperation would make the file smaller, but at the end I get a message the file is to big for the media. Any help out there why the file size grows over the media size. I have been working to make my first dvd since last Sunday.

Part of the problem is that the completed DVD is more than just the rendered mpeg - you've also got chapter information, backgrounds etc. taking up space. That said, 1.3 gig seems a lot! Are you using motion menus or anything else that might be using a lot of space? Is there any music with the menus?

Ian G.

I right clicked on the project and chose insert media. I selected my renedered file. One thing I just noticed is in the bottom right corner of the screen there is a section that states "Disc Spaced Used: 1.3 MB on a fresh start before adding any media etc.. When I add the project, it goes to 5.0 GB. I am doing nothing to add menus, music or chapters. The menu that shows up is the project file that I selected.

Couple thoughts come to mind:

1) You could use Movie Studio to edit the MPEG-2 file(s) you created to take out enough of the movie to fit on a single DVD. By editing the MPEG file directly you would at least avoid re-rendering the entire movie.

2) If you absolutely must have all 70 minutes, then you might consider using a different MPEG-2 encoder. The one that comes with Movie Studio does not allow you to change the compression settings. I don't know the specifics, but you could either upgrade the one that comes with Movie Studio, or find one like TMPGEnc DVD Source Creator (http://www.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tds.html). You can download a trial of TMPGEnc, and last time I checked it cost about $35. This will allow you to choose a higher compression rate on your MPEG-2 files, which will create a lower-quality image. Unless your new child is on the 100 Meter Olympic team, you shouldn't notice too much image quality loss.

3) There is a freeware program out there called DVD-Shrink. I think it can operate on DVD disk image files that have been saved to your hard drive. I don't know, however, if Movie Studio/DVD Architect will allow you to create a DVD image file that is larger than a DVD.

You can reduce the bitrate a little to get it all to fit.

Go to File>Optimize DVD

Then slide the "Default Bitrate" slider to the left until the "Estimated Size" falls below 100%. This will reencode your video which may reduce quality slightly, depending on how low you reduce the bitrate.

Good luck, and remember this is all part of the learning curve. Next time it will be easy!

Now that is a heck of a lot easier than the things I thought of! Great to have this option in DVD Architect Studio!

Just guessing here, but maybe it would then be best (in order to oh-so-slightly improve image quality) to import .avi files into DVD Architect Studio, and have it do the encoding as part of the DVD creation process. That is, unless re-encoding between MPEG-2 bit rates would preserve image quality.

Then again, this would not be a practical option under the original scenario where there is one single .avi that was very large.

>Just guessing here, but maybe it would then be best (in order to oh-so-slightly improve image quality) to import .avi files into DVD Architect Studio, and have it do the encoding as part of the DVD creation process.

It wouldn't have any effect on the quality - the mpeg itself doesn't get changed. It would make things a lot slower though as you'd have to rerender the avi each time you made a change.

Ian G.

This worked. I clicked on recompress video, and then over ride bit rate. I reduced it to 4, and it brought down the size to 3.8 gb. I left for the weekend and returned to fnd my first DVD. Thanks for everyone's recommendations. This forum has some great experts.