Ok, there has to be a better way

Skuzzy wrote on 1/2/2009, 3:08 PM

There are days when the ole brain just does not want to play along, so I am going to hang my stupidity out for all to see.

One of the things I struggle with is the encoding process, when I am ready to make the final print. In Vegas, I have been lead to some handy utilities for calculating the bit rates which help in making the encoded file the right size so DVDA does not have to encode again.

I was spoiled by my previous software which automatically did all that work for me. I never had to calculate bitrates before, but I can deal with it.

Now, here is where "stupid" comes in.

I set the bitrate lower than what the utilities suggest so as to leave room for menus in DVDA. I just got through with a rather long (over 30 hours) encoding of a two hour bit of work (Neat had a lot of work to do cleaning up the video).

The resulting MPEG2 file was 4.3GB, including markers for DVDA.

Now, I load up DVDA and drag the file into it. DVDA says it the burn file is going to be 5.8GB (lower right hand corner, I assume that is the burn size). There is only 2 buttons on the main menu, and 12 subs/chapters.

Does it really take up that much space? 1.5GB seems huge for a menu. Hence, "stupid" kicking in.

Comments

farss wrote on 1/2/2009, 3:51 PM

Better to check under File>Optimise.
I'd just go ahead and Prepare the DVD and see how big the folder ends up.
I've not had this problem myself however lots here report having DVDA make a total mess of size calculation and it all comes out OK in the end.

Bob.

musicvid10 wrote on 1/2/2009, 4:02 PM

Bob is correct, ignore the file size warning and go ahead and prepare (not burn) it and see where it comes in the next time you open the DVDA project.

Chances are, since you have done your homework, it will fit just fine; DVDA is unnecessarily conservative when estimating "fit" to disc.

Tim L wrote on 1/2/2009, 4:33 PM

Are you figuring in the additional amount for the audio, which can be substantial if left in PCM mode? (Or is the audio in your rendered MPG2 file?) Encoding to AC3 can offer a significant reduction to the amount of disc space the audio requires.

Tim L

Skuzzy wrote on 1/3/2009, 3:58 AM

When I did the bitrate calculations I used 224b/s PCM audio as the selection. I used "Mark's DVD Bitrate Calculator" for the calculations.

I added 10 minutes to the overall video/audio length, which I think is enough for the menus. Also told it the motion menu runtime was 1 minute.

Ended up using 4,200,000 in the bitrate field of Vegas. I would think going any lower than that and the video quality is going to be pretty bad.

I wish I could get dual-layer working, but after making 8 out of 8 coasters with no errors, but would not play on any dual-layer DVD player I could find, I gave up on it. I even tried a different burner.

Always using Verbatim media. Dual layer would be a no brainer and I would not be stuck on stupid.

Thanks for the help guys. I'll give the prepare a go and see what happens.

Porpoise1954 wrote on 1/3/2009, 10:25 AM

That's interesting. I authored a project in Cinelerra/ManDVD on Linux burnt onto DL discs and it was great. However following the death of one of the cast (of the production), I was asked to add dedications and extra montage of the actor concerned before release.

No problem! ....I thought. I can just edit the .VOBs - how little did I know. Anyway, cutting a very long story short I took the rendered.avi file from Cinelerra/Linux and into Vegas 8.1and cut in the additions, then Author anew in DVDA (DVDA having far more flexibility/options than ManDVD). That's when all my problems started. First off, Vegas wouldn't recognise the .dv files from Cinelerra. So, back into Cinelerra and re-render as .avi, re-import into Vegas. OK, that worked. Carried on with the DVDA authoring and burning onto DVD. Agh! Plays OK on my PC (sort of - aoart from at the layer-change point) but doesn't play on anything else.

By this time, as you can imagine, the air was rather blue.

OK, let's start again from scratch in Vegas 8.1(and try to sort out the camera noise at the same time). Right - finished re-capturing and re-editing in Vegas. Now let's render. What the F!##$! What are all these blank clips? Spend another few days, hours of re-rendering etc., then hit the forums to see if anyone else has had his issue.

As it turns out, yes! A number of people have had this issue with 8.1 and have reverted to 8.0c Needless to say, that was my next move. Rendered the project with no further issues and burnt to DL discs that play on everything I've played them on - it just goes to show, sometimes people too readily blame the discs (as I did initially - until I remembered that all the ones I'd previously burned from Cnelerra/ManDVD on Linux using the same discs played fine on everything).

(SL dics weren't really an option for a 2hr 6 min project. When trying to fit that lrge amount of data onto a DVD, you're best off using variable bit-rate, so that the highest rate can be used where possible and lowest when the highest isn't necessary.

As for the discs - I used Infiniti throughout so the discs weren't the issue - it was the data/software. And, on that subject, there is a noticable difference in the image quality between the 2 systems, with the Cinelerra/ManDVD on Linux haveing a noticable edge - probably better open-source codecs.

EDIT:
Sorry about the typos - I'm full up with flu at the moment so, being a man, I'm half dead! ;-)

TGS wrote on 1/3/2009, 11:35 AM

Sometimes when you're preparing a DVD in DVD-A, you experiment with ideas.
When you try to cut some stuff out, to try something else, it doesn't always get cut from the project and still shows up in the bottom right corner as taking up space.
Try starting the DVD-A prepare, over again, from scratch.
If your video and audio add up to no more than 4.38 GBs, it will fit Your file size should be less than that if you added in an extra 10 minutes into your calculations. (hover your mouse over the actual folder those files sit in, for real amount or hover mouse over each actual file for file size of each.)

Skuzzy wrote on 1/4/2009, 4:01 AM

So bottomline is do not trust the size shown in DVDA, and prepare it, then manually check it to see if it is the right size.

I can do that. I have a lot of these long renders ahead of me. This one was actually one of the faster ones. I really do not want to have to go through multiple renders of these projects.