I am disappointed in this Product

kjonnnn wrote on 10/19/2009, 2:32 PM
From reading all the posts, it appears that I will not be able to put anything near 2 hours on a DVD. I've cut an event Im doing down to 1.5 hours and its still too big. I would probably just say .. "oh well" if I had not upgraded from OTHER products (ShowBiz and Media Creator), which will and have put close to two hours on a DVD with good quality. I purchased Vegas thinking I was upgrading to a beter product. I love the editing features, but if its going to be a pain to put an event on ONE DVD, I'm going back to Showbiz.

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 10/19/2009, 2:45 PM
Unfortunately, you've got your facts completely turned around. The amount of material that will fit one one DVD depends on one thing and one thing only -- Bitrate.

DVD Architect can compress (fit) your material to the disc using the "Optimize" feature. 2 hours of material will fit quite handily on one DVD5 disc at a BITRATE of 4Mbs. 1.5 hours of material will fit at a BITRATE of 6Mbs.

If what you are really talking about is the inability to customize the bitrate using Vegas Movie Studio, you should render to DV-AVI and let DVD Architect do the compression as it renders to MPEG-2.

None of this has anything to do with which program you use to author and burn your DVD, because It is all simple math.
Steve Grisetti wrote on 10/19/2009, 5:19 PM
You can also use dual-layer DVDs, like they do for Hollywood movies, and fit considerably more on.

As Musicvid says, it's really out of place to blame the product. This product can certainly compress the files as small as you ask it to -- and the results might well be better than you got with those lower-end products.
bStro wrote on 10/19/2009, 7:04 PM
From reading all the posts, it appears that I will not be able to put anything near 2 hours on a DVD.

Er, what posts have you been reading? I've been on this forum for over five years and have never seen any that imply you can't put two hours (and up) on a DVD. No posts from anyone who knows what they're talking about, anyway. ;)

How much you can put on a DVD has almost nothing to do with the product you used to author the DVD and everything to do with the bitrate at which it's encoded. The higher bitrate you use, the less (time-wise) you'll be able to put on a disc since DVD storage is based on number of bits not length of time. You want more "time" on a DVD, then encode at a lower bitrate; It's as simple as that.

If you are using Vegas Pro, hit the Custom button in the Render As dialog so you can change the bitrate. If you are using Vegas Movie Studio, then render to AVI (use a lossless or less-lossy codec like Lagarith or Huffyuv), bring that into DVD Architect Studio, and use its Fit to Disc feature.

I can assure you, the problem is not with the product but -- no offense -- with your knowledge of how to author DVDs. I've used DVD Architect to create DVDs from everything from five minutes to over three hours. (Once you get down to bitrates needed for three hours, quality gets kind of grim, but your millage may vary.)

If you still need help, gives us more details about your workflow.

Rob
TheHappyFriar wrote on 10/20/2009, 7:15 AM
the issue isn't the product the issue is you don't know exactly what you're doing with it.
Terry Esslinger wrote on 10/20/2009, 9:49 AM
Or put another way:
Its not what the product can do, its what you can do with the product!