Make Movie usability

spindle wrote on 11/12/2008, 4:00 AM
The Make Movie option in Studio is pretty user friendly, except when the generated files are too big to fit on the disk.

Firstly, when generating DVDs, there is no warning that the files are likely to be over 4.7gb. You have to wait for the rendering to finish (3hours on my steam driven Pentium 4) and then click on "Send to DVD architect".

Secondly there is no option to make the files smaller (one of my recent projects was 4.71gb!). I get the impression that the Pro version has a "Cusomize" option to reduce the bit rate but on Studio this is greyed out.

The DVD can be re-rendered in DVD arthitect using the "Fit to Disk" option, but that means recompressing twice (another 3 hours and loss of quality).

I can understand that Sony want to reserve the Customize option for higher end customers, but a warning when files are going to be too big and a "Fit to disk" option in Studio would make life a lot easier.

Comments

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 11/12/2008, 9:09 AM
My advise: keep an eye on the time. You can put about 1 hour on a single layer dvd. If you want a nice dvd menu with movie menus, that time will be reduced even more.
You should consider avoiding the wizard completely. Instead, render to the dv avi format, which is much faster than rendering to mpg, and then open DVDA and build the dvd yourself. DVDA will then render to mpg, taking into account 'fit to disk', if necessary.
I don't think the pro version will do better here, 'cause pro users stay away from wizards, I guess.
spindle wrote on 11/12/2008, 9:46 AM
Sounds like good advice. I think about 1hr 30mins of PAL seems ok for 1 disk. Agree with dv avi.

Just seems that the Make Movie wizard would be so much more useful with a couple of small tweaks.
fishbelt wrote on 11/13/2008, 8:09 AM
I have Nero 8 just for those types of video that are are the long side. Nero will analyze the movie lenght before rendering, Then let you know were you stand. In most cases, compress the file to fit the disk. I guess one shoe will not fit all is a fact of life.