Scott's questions are the same I would ask. Is the client planning to give you separate audio and video tracks that he wants you to mix (multiplex) together?

The client is where the confusion started. It's a cable system and they send mpg2 files online to different head ends. We tried a dvd for them before ad they could not get it to work. They thought it was because the audio and video were seperate files. I made a disk today that i rendered using the standard dvd template. Not DVD-A. It looks to me like it's one file. I'll take this disk to them and see if they can read it. The dvd is going into a Soloist MPG2 Player.
Hope this fills in the blanks. JM

You're going to have to be more specific about "they could not get it to work" - what exactly wouldn't work? They couldn't get the DVD to play, or what? Maybe we're just dealing with one of the usual compatability issues with them not being able to play the DVD.

Using the DVD Arch template would have resulted in a set of VOB and IFO files that would get burned to the DVD. The VOB files contain the audio and video multiplexed together.

The one other time I've seen a DVD accepted as a format was UONTV.COM and they would accept the VOB files from a DVD if the file was renamed as MPG (this isn't their prefered format, but they would accept it). The thing here is that it's likely that you only want one file, and VOBs typically do not exceed 1GB in size, so if you do have multiple VOBs you may need to use something like DVD Decryptor to pull everything together into a single large file.

What other formats do they support? I deliver 30 second spots to Comcast in Denver on mini DV, but they also accept Beta SP as well as other common broadcast formats.

I'm going to make a guess and say that if you gave them a DATA DVD (not a Video DVD, which means you need something like Nero to burn the DVD) with the VOB file on it renamed to MPG that their server would probably accept it. I'd also go with PCM audio rather than AC3.

--Scott

A soloist 2? Holy crap! I used to work with those ALL The time! :)

Getting mpeg's to work in there is easy, as long as you follow the specs (i actuatly used mpg-1 most of the time: less problems getting it to run). Be sure to read these:
http://www.adtecinc.com/products/soloist2/soloist2productdetails.html

Here's the settings I used to use for soloist/duet mpeg players:

640x480 (or 720x480. Always seemed to have better luck with 640 though) x 29.97fps
5mbs (didn't really need to go higher)
44.1khz mpeg-2 audio 192khz
duel mono (I worked at a mono station. Stereo worked but one channel [right] always got dumped)

Try those. Just turn the quality slider all the way up & that should be A-OK.

Thanks everyone. I usually deliver mini dv to the cable company and let them encode the tapes. I'm doing 8 weeks worth of football games and time is an issue. It would be more efficient if I could deliver them the show already encoded. Scottw, the 1 gig thing is a good point as they have always had trouble encoding long shows. This may be the reason. TheHappyFriar, I knew someone out there would have work ed with these units. I'll take in a test dvd and see if we can get things working. JM

I still don't entirely understand the problems you are trying to solve, but it sounds like you are trying to save them time by delivering the files already encoded to MPEG-2 and AC-3 so that they can then author these to a DVD. If so, then simply use the Render As feature in Vegas to render each project twice -- once to MPEG-2 for the video and once to AC-3 for the audio -- and deliver these files. If time is a critical issue and you want even faster encoding, then purchase the MainConcept external encoder and frameserve into that using the default settings. The encoding can be amazingly fast.

From mountainman and TheHappyFriar's posts, I get the impression that an authored DVD (ie, with VOBs, IFOs, etc) doesn't come into play here at all. Sounds like the hardware being used just plays basic MPEG2 files, so I don't think a separate AC3 file is even necessary. Just one file, audio and video together.

Just my interpretation, anyhow...

Rob

the hardware is an independant piece of equipment meant to play back mpeg files for broadcast. It's a hard drive & a mpeg-1/2 decoder that supports video/audio outs (several different kinds).

It's a nice piece of equipment. Just upload and it plays. I setup one of these for a TV station in Ithica, NY that ran ~12 hours a day just from the HD. Then at nice it would kick over to a sattelite station.

Sounds like a TiVo to me... <g>

Rob

no, completly different. This doesn't record anything. It just plays back.

Plus a tivo can't be controlled by a computer program & such like this can. A tivo is simular, but it's simular like a pickup truck is simular to a semi.

Didn't know such hardware existed. Good idea.

I therefore amend my previous post. You would just do one render and select "DVD PAL" for the template. Same comments as before about the bitrate needed for longer encodes.