Yikes!
I have to render the video and audio separately!!!?

Is this how Vegas renders by default, or is there a setting I need to render V & A separately?

Sorry, but I am new at this. I figured that when I go to render the project, everything will be wrapped up into one file..... :)

Yes,
you have to render the video and audio seperately.

No,
thats not how VV renders by default by its pretty simple.

File>Render as
Save as Type = MainConcept MPEG-2
Template = DVD Architect PAL video stream

If your in NTSC land substitute NTSC in above.

That takes care of the video!

Again:

File>Render As
Save as Type = Dolby Digital AC-3
Template = Stereo DVD

Thats it, job done.

Then its off to DVDA!


You can of course just drag the AVI file of your home movie into the DVDA window and let DVDA handle everything for you, it can render it out as it needs it but the other way gives you a bit more control.

This is a major oversight in Vegas. You can use script to render both at once (something Vegas should definitely do on its own without needing a script). Here is a link to the script.

Script to Render Audio and Video in One Step

I'm confused. I rendered in Vegas using a standard DVD template. The description of the template included audio. I rendered to mpeg2 and opened in DVDA. When previewing, I hear the audio. I haven't burned a DVD yet. Why do I need to do a seperate audio render in Vegas? Thanks.

From what I understand, by rendering seperate, you will get a true AC3, or 5.1 channel if thats what you select. I always render seperately. Choose (render as) mpeg2, go into your custom settings, for video, I I use (best), the video quality slider bar I set to the highest setting and at variable bit rate. Then go to your audio tab at the bottom and (UNCHECK) the include audio stream. This will only render the video at this point. When your mpeg2 is finished rendering, go back to render as, select the AC3 setting and render the audio. Use the same file name of your project, except at the end it will say AC# file, instead of mpeg2. Once that has rendered, you can import your mpeg2 file into the DVD program. Once you do this, the AC3 file will also import automatically. Make sure again you rendered them both with the same file name.

Example. Render as my first video.mpg
Audio

From what I understand, by rendering seperate, you will get a true AC3, or 5.1 channel if thats what you select. I always render seperately. Choose (render as) mpeg2, go into your custom settings, for video, I I use (best), the video quality slider bar I set to the highest setting and at variable bit rate. Then go to your audio tab at the bottom and (UNCHECK) the include audio stream. This will only render the video at this point. When your mpeg2 is finished rendering, go back to render as, select the AC3 setting and render the audio. Use the same file name of your project, except at the end it will say AC# file, instead of mpeg2. Once that has rendered, you can import your mpeg2 file into the DVD program. Once you do this, the AC3 file will also import automatically. Make sure again you rendered them both with the same file name.

Example. Render as my first video.mpg
Audio

From what I understand, by rendering seperate, you will get a true AC3, or 5.1 channel if thats what you select. I always render seperately. Choose (render as) mpeg2, go into your custom settings, for video, I use (best), the video quality slider bar I set to the highest setting and at variable bit rate. Then go to your audio tab at the bottom, select. The audio setting page opens. (UNCHECK) the include audio stream. This will only render the video at this point. When your mpeg2 is finished rendering, go back to render as, select the AC3 setting and render the audio. Use the same file name of your project, except at the end it will say AC# file, instead of mpeg2. Once that has rendered, you can import your mpeg2 file into the DVD program. Once you do this, the AC3 file will also import automatically. Make sure again you rendered them both with the same file name.

Example. Render as my first video.mpg
Audio Render as my first video.AC3

Thanks guys! I really appreciate the help!

How long do you think it takes to render 1 hour of video using the setting outlined in this thread?
Also, how long for the AC3 audio?
I'm just trying to plan my day..... ;)

One more thing, I'm thinking about adding another half hour or so of video to my project. Does anyone know how much video/audio I can fit on a 4.7GB DVD using all of the highest settings?

Again, you've all been extremely helpful! Thanks for helping out a newby......

The how to render with DVD-A constantly comes up.

NO you don't not have to render the video and audio seperately! The NTSC specs don't allow a MPEG-2 audio steam. However DVD-A without you doing anything will covent the MPEG-2 all by itself. The warning is just that, a warning that it will do it. No big deal.

For purists, SoFo made a special DVD-A NTSC template. You can

Thanks guys.

BillyBoy, if I understand you correctly, the standard NTSC DVD template will render the audio and video together. Is the audio rendered as stereo?

Assuming it is stereo, then the only time I would render audio seperately in AC-3 would be if the audio was to be surround sound. Is that correct?

Sure would be nice if the sofo DVDA documentation would cover all these issues.

Thanks again.

Oops... I see I stopped in mid sentence. The phone rang, I must have somehow sent my last message unfinished. Oh well...

I was trying to make two points. If you render with the DV NTSC template in Vegas the audio portion of the MPEG-2 needs to be changed to a different format since NTSC specs doesn't support MPEG-2 audio for DVD's. If you wish, you can do yourself by rendering a seperate video and audio stream while still in Vegas. I guess the point I'm not making too clear is you don't have to. DVD-A will convert the audio on its own without you having to do anything. It just tells you its going to. That's all the warning is about.

In recent days this has been a popular topic. Some have said they prefer to render to AC-3 since you'll know up front how big the file will be which may allow to get a little more video on the DVD. If you let DVD-A do it, its a after the fact thing. So while you're building the menu structure in DVA-A the disk useage value is bloated since the MPEG-2 audio portion that's included is a good dealer larger than the AC-3 counterpart will end up being. To me, unless DVD-A also says it is planning on recompressing your VIDEO portion as well, its a extra step I don't have to mess with so I jet let DVD-a do its thing. AFAIK no harm is done to the stereo seperation. If you can hear stereo while playing back in Vegas, then you'll hear it in the finished project. As far as 5-1 surround I haven't burned any DVD yet with DVD-A, so maybe someone that has can comment on how it turns out. I have played with 5-1 on the computer and it sounded pretty cool.

Thanks guys....

About how long does it take to render an hour long movie, anyway?

Depends on your use of the term rendering. If you're still wondering about making a DVD the process is really three steps on top of rendering a compliant file in Vegas.

So assuming you're at the point where you have a MPEG-2 ready to process in DVD-A not counting the time you take to add chapters, make sub chapters, etc.. the first phase is DVA-A checks to see if your project will fit in the alloted space. For example if you have a project that's 5.5 GB is obviously won't fit. So the video portion in addition to the audio portion would be flagged (the warnings under optimize) and since I've never tried to go over limit I don't know what happens next if anything. I would assume DVD-A says you're 108% over or something like that and asks if you want to user a lower bitrate to make your project fit. Also in this phase any MPEG-2 audio will be converted. If that's all that happens, its a fairly fast process. For a loaded 4.7 GB project where you're using about 99% of the available space we're probably talking a few minutes rendering tops if all that needs tro be done is convert the MPEG-2 audio to a legal format.

The second phase in the longest. The creation of the image files. This simply converts the DVD-2 files to a DVD format, makes the necessary folders does some overhead stuff, etc.. Again based on what I've done going close to a 99% full DVD disc this takes me about 38 minutes using a AMD 1900+ CPU. I haven't tried on my newer system yet.

The third and final phase is the actual "burning" of the DVD. This too should go fairly fast if you have one of the second generation burners than run at 2.4X or faster. Again for me that process to burn a full DVD takes about 25-30 minutes on my HP200i.

So ...
phase one, 4 minutes
phase two, 38 minutes
phase three 25 minutes

That is on top of whatever time it takes to make a MPEG-2 compliant file in Vegas.

Timewise, my experience using default settings and moderately complex menu structure on the DVD with each menu page having a seperate SHORT musical background and a BRIEF animation of between 4-7 thumbnails on the main menu page I get about 1.5 hours on a DVD.