OK-I've edited in VF2, now I'm ready to burn

hdrodman wrote on 1/17/2003, 10:48 AM
I'm a newbie--so let's see if I'm understanding this:

1. Capture, using VFCapture (done).
2. Edit, using VF2 (done--great program!).
3. Render to .avi (holy moly this takes a long time!).
4. Import .avi into authoring program (I'm using trial of Ulead DVD MF2) (done).
5. DVD MF2 renders to mpegII. (haven't tried yet)
6. DVD MF2/HPDVD200i burns to blank DVD media. (haven't tried yet)

I'm looking to streamline the rendering/burning process. As I see it, steps 3, 5 and 6 are the bottlenecks. I'm hoping that steps 5 and 6 are actually a single step; that the mpeg rendering IS the DVD burning (please confirm).

Would things be quicker if I bought the mpeg plugin from SF (that would cut out step 4? Even if it is, I'm not sure if it's worth the price, since I have to buy an authoring program--with its own mpeg encoder--anyway. Thoughts?

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 1/19/2003, 12:52 PM
The only way to streamline the rendering time is to render once instead of twice. So you want to render an MPEG2 file from VF instead of rendering an AVI. This will save you the rendering step in DVD MF2. You’ll have to buy the MPEG2 upgrade for VF though. Then just use DVD MF2 to make menus and burn to DVD.

~jr
ralphied wrote on 1/21/2003, 9:30 PM
Rending a DV .AVI file to MPEG-2 format involves a mind-boggling amount of numerical calculations and manipulations and is the reason for the long times. Obviously, too, it depends on your hardware. A 3.0 GHz P4 with 1066 MHz RAMBUS memory will render a lot quicker than a 800 MHz PIII using regular SDRAM. I have a 1.6 GHz P4 and it is about a 3.5:1 ratio (a 1 hour DV .AVI file takes 3.5 hours to render to MPEG-2.) I just set it up to due the rendering overnight.

My suggestion is not to buy the VF MPEG-2 plug-in. Ulead's DVD Movie Factory has MPEG-2 conversion capabilities built-in. Why pay $30 for the VF MPEG-2 plug-in plus $45 for a DVD authoring program, when you can have both capabilities for $45? There will be no significant difference in the DVD creating time whether you render to MPEG-2 within VF or you render to MPEG-2 within Movie Factory -- they're both doing essentially the same thing.

In fact, the process is more integrated within Movie Factory because the MPEG-2 rendering process and the DVD burning execute with one command, as you will find out the more you work with the MF trial version. When you add DV .AVI files to your DVD project and then click the 'output' option, Movie Factory first renders the file to MPEG-2 format and then burns the DVD in an integrated process. If you go the VF route, these would be 2 separate steps.