Just don't understand DVDA

v8z wrote on 1/7/2004, 6:48 PM
I'm trying to put 4 or 5 VCD movies onto a DVD,why-because I want them in one place, with menus, chapters, etc.

Files are all compliant to VCD standard., audio is 44,100Hz. I've heard this should be 48Hz.
Resolution is 352x240 and 29.97 NTSC.

I create my project in DVDA, and when it comes time to prepare, I get error messages saying the video of this will be reencoded or resampled whatever, and the audio of that will be reencoded or resampled whatever.

It takes 42 hours or more to do this project! And disc size is like 18GB! The couple of times I've done this, I used DVDShrink to bring the disc size down to 4.7GB or less. But on this particular project, I can't.

Does DVDA only create final products with resolutions of 720x480? What is causing such a slow down to happen? Any suggestions for another program that will simply let me import VCD files, make menus, add chapters, and then let me create a project the size of a DVD-R?

Thanks!
Owen

Comments

pb wrote on 1/7/2004, 7:16 PM
Your total run time is a factor. At 18 gigs I reckon you are trying to stuff over six hours DVD-A default size MPEG on to a disc that holds about 90 minutes of DVD-A default. Your choices are: drop bit rate or use more discs. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but that's the way it is if you want to go VCD to DVD.

Peter
farss wrote on 1/7/2004, 11:16 PM
Your problems are nothing to do with DVDA!
The spec for DVD-Video requires compliance with frame size, frame rate and bit rate limits as well as encoding methods to say nothing of file structures.
What DVDA is doing is turning your low bit rate low res mpeg-1 into compliant mpeg. I'm not surprised it's taking so long. You would be much better of if you are able to start with the source material used to create the VCDs in the first place. The quality will be slighty worse than the original VCDs if you go straight to DVD. If you go from the source to DVD the quality will be MUCH better than it is on the VCDs.

If your stuck and the only source is the VCDs, I bring them into Vegas render out to AVI and then start again. Vegas may do a better job of getting the mpeg-1 back into half decent shape. Also encoding from DV to mpeg-2 is much quicker than going mpeg-1 to mpeg-2, so if you need to change bitarte of the final encode you don't have to go through all the steps again.
FrameScale wrote on 1/8/2004, 7:10 AM
Main Concept MPEG Encoder is a standalone converter you can try also. Vegas Video comes with Main Concepts encoders, but this stand alone product gives you more options specifically designed for DVD compliant video and might be faster.
v8z wrote on 1/9/2004, 7:20 PM
Yes, I saw another post with someone having long render times.

So I guess that this means, that DVDA does NOT create a DVD with a compliant MPEG-1 files, it just forces everything into MPEG2 at 720x480.
Like I said, I've done this before but it just takes too damn long. This is mainly for archival purposes so I guess I'll just have to take it disc by disc.

thanks everyone!
wobblyboy wrote on 1/9/2004, 10:06 PM
For archive just save your files on as data files.
farss wrote on 1/9/2004, 11:30 PM
A DVD-Video cannot have a mpeg-1 file. Whatever it forces things to be its because of the specs. If it didn't do it that way there's no guarantee the DVD would play.
JSWTS wrote on 1/11/2004, 5:20 AM
"A DVD-Video cannot have a mpeg-1 file. Whatever it forces things to be its because of the specs. If it didn't do it that way there's no guarantee the DVD would play. "

That's simply not true. The limitation to allowing dvd compliant mpeg1 files is on DVD-A's end, and not from the spec standards. The dvd spec certainly must have some limits to file types/sizes/bitrates/etc, or as have been eluded to earlier, there wouldn't be snow balls chance in &^*% of getting discs to play on set top players with any consistancy. With that said, the dvd spec isn't just narrowly defined for full frame, mpeg2 (full D1 PAL/NTSC). There are other frame sizes allowed, such as half D1, Broadcast D1, and even mpeg1.

I have several discs with mpeg1 (primarily a compilation of my kids favorite shows) that work great (and at VCD bitrates can fit nearly 8 hours on a single disc). You just won't be able to use DVD-A to make the discs. There are several out there that will use your VCD files without re-encoding your video. However, your audio is at the wrong sampling frequency (44.1), it will be transcoded to 48 khz, or you would need to do that before importing into some apps.

Jim
johnmeyer wrote on 1/11/2004, 9:18 AM
Check out:

dvdrhelp

Lots of guides on how to convert VCD and SVCD to DVD. You can adapt some of their techniques to Vegas/DVDA and may get better/faster results.
JSWTS wrote on 1/11/2004, 11:46 AM
There are certainly many ways to convert previously encoded files to another--it's just unfortunate you have to do it at all. Taking a highly compressed mpeg1 file (lossy compression format) and re-encoding/compressing it to mpeg 2 (another lossy compression) will certainly result in a further hit in visual quality. On top of that, the bitrates required to allow for as much material to be put on a disc would be very low. Mpeg2 compression schemes are just not as good or efficient as others when the bitrates are dropped that low.

Jim
farss wrote on 1/11/2004, 1:55 PM
I did a quick read around DVDHelp and it appears you are correct, the DVD spec does support mpeg-1 files on a DVD-Video disk. They have to conform to certain standards (both audio and video) or the player may not handle them. I'd imagine there's not a huge demand for that kind of DVD though.
pb wrote on 1/11/2004, 2:05 PM
You might want to consider joining this for-pay site:
http://www.dvd-makers.com/public/main.cfm

I am looking for help with Encore (Adobe doesn't appear to have site comparable to DVD-A's) and found a lot of good info here.

pb
johnmeyer wrote on 1/11/2004, 2:43 PM
You might want to look at the "Convert VCD to DVD" guide at this site:

LordSmurf

Search for "Convert VCD to DVD" in the left column and click on that link (because of the HTML coding used on the site, I can't provide a direct link to the resulting page).