Help on Mpeg-2 Encoding to DVDA

p@mast3rs wrote on 5/4/2003, 11:25 PM
I have a problem. I have spent some time over the last month trying to figure out what is going on with my encoding. Maybe Im crazy, maybe I am not. Here it goes.

I have a 100 minute video that I encode from the timeline in VV4 using VBR. When I go into DVDA, it always wants recompress the file because it is too large. I can optimize the file size in DVDA but not in VV4. Why? This seems silly.

What I have been doing is rendering to .avi and then optimizing in DVDA. Surely there has to be a better work around than this. Its taking me twice as long to finish projects. Is there a way to optimize the video so that it will fit on a dvd in DVDA through VV4? If not, how could this feature been passed over?

Comments

PDB wrote on 5/5/2003, 4:22 AM
How large is the resulting file from V4?
In DVDA, I believe the DVD capacity is set to a default 3.9 Gigs (why I do not know...) so you might try changing the size to 4.7 Gig for starters...
In terms of calculaing the resulting size of encoding, there is a formula (which I don't have at hands reach) which will tell you at what rates you should encode to get to a workable file size. I believe the formula is available at dvdhelp.com. Then you can set the rate manually in cutom settings in V4 and encode away...

Hope this helps!

Paul.
johnmeyer wrote on 5/5/2003, 4:58 PM
First, a note to Sonic Foundry: You should have an option in your MPEG-2 rendering template to compress to fit a given size media (like a blank DVD-R). You should also add the ability to simultaneously create the AC-3 and MPEG files (I do this with a script, but shouldn't have to do it that way).

Second, here's my answer on what acidsex should do:

1. Click here to run the dvdhelp.com bitrate calculator:

Bitrate Calculator

Make sure "Type" is set to DVD, and "Audio bitrate" is set to 384. Make sure "DVDs" is set to 1, and 4.37 GB (the formatted capacity). The calculator will give you the target MPEG encoding rate for your video (e.g., 6,374 kbs for a 1.5 hour DVD).

2. In Vegas, click on "Render As," select the DVD Architect MPEG template, and then click on "Custom." On the "Video" tab, set the "Average (bps)" to the encoding rate given by the bitrate calculator. You might want to encode at 5-10% less, just to make sure. This will give you a video file that is just slightly smaller than the disk can hold. You can adjust the fudge factor up or down depending on how close you find you are getting to exactly filling up the disk.