Multiple MPEGs on a DVD (in DVD-A of course)

jandkw99 wrote on 6/4/2003, 11:07 PM

Guys,

This may be a silly question, but when I originally thought about chapters I thought that DVD-A would have the option of importing a single MPEG file and then using Vegas project markers OR rendering the movies in chapter segment MPEGs. Now from what I can see the second option isn't the case.... You seem to be able to add multiple MPEGs, but they won't be "contiguous" ie. won't play one following the other like chapters of the same movie normally do.... Am I doing something wrong or can't it be done??

Thanks, JW

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 6/4/2003, 11:27 PM

Nope, you're not doing anything wrong. The option simply isn't supported in this version of DVD-A (bet the farm this major oversite will be corrected in the next version) so for now when one movie stops, it returns to its originating menu.

The kludge to fix it is render all the movies you want on the DVD as a single movie in Vegas then you can set chapter points as you wish, (probably at least at the start of what was originally a seperate movie) then you have the choice of having the movie continue on or play a set range by setting start and end points in DVD-A. You'd probably want to just set chapter points all through the movie. That way the movie plays from the thumbnail clicked to the end. Assuming you set a chapter at 10 minutes then the second thumbnail would play from 10 minutes to the end, if you set a third chapter, it could play from whatever set point that is and so on.

johnmeyer wrote on 6/5/2003, 11:46 AM

In my experience, almost any project to requires you to render in multiple segments. Think of the reasons: You make a mistake and want to re-do just one segment. You don't have all the source material and want to render what you have. You unexpectedly get something at the last minute that you want to include, and don't want to re-render the entire project. I can go on, but you get the point.

Also, if you want to re-use, over and over, an existing MPEG file (like an intro), you have keep the original AVI file, and put it into the Vegas timeline so you can re-render each time so you can render the whole project all at once. Think of all the time lost over time rendering the identical footage for every new DVD.

Rendering all at once also ties up the system for a long time. Any project is done more easily if you can break it up into chunks.

My workaround is to use TMPGEnc to join MPEG files together and then bring the single joined file into DVD-A. However, this has some limitations because TMPGEnc sometimes gets the audio out of sync when the MPEG is VBR (therefore I always render using CBR). Also you can run into problems if you use different bitrates for different MPEGs.

This DVD-A feature deficiency is one of the biggest oversights in DVD-A. I hope SOFO includes a solution in an interim release, hopefully one that they don't charge for. Given the professional nature of this product, I think this should have been included from the get-go. DVD-A should also provide tools for dealing with VOB files so that we can use video that we have already put onto DVD. If you think about it, within a few years, all of our video will be on DVD, not on tape. How are we going to take a few frames of video from a DVD and use it in our next project? Right now, you have use a demux tool, and then recombine the demuxed files into an MPEG file (because DVD-A doesn't handle elementary streams). Thus, we must go through TWO unecessary steps in order to re-use the files that DVD-A helped us produce. Doesn't make much sense.

jandkw99 wrote on 6/6/2003, 2:36 AM

Thanks that is what I expected.

It certainly seems like a huge oversight!! I HATE having to render a whole project into one file!!! I've already found three stuff ups and will now have to go through the 30 hour re-render process because of it.

One thing I found out after rendering to one big file is that DVD-A doesn't seem to pick up regions (rather than markers) is this the case or have I just forgotten to select the option that includes them?

Thanks again,

JW