Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 11/9/2003, 2:26 PM
Vegas will get you as far as making a COMPLIANT MPEG-2 file suitable for converting into a DVD. That's the rub. By itself a MPEG-2 file can't be put on a DVD disc as-is. You can import a MPEG-2 file that has both a video and audio stream and DVD-A will recompress the audio portion if you're making a NTSC DVD.

If you start with a AVI, then DVD-A converts both the video and audio portion unlike above where it only needs to convert the audio portion. What confuses a lot of people at first is you also have the option of making just a video stream using a special Vegas template designed just for DVD-A, but that assumes you know you also have to render a audio track in Vegas seperately as a AC-3 file for the audio.

There's no escaping the conversion process. One way or another it got to get done. You can't put a AVI directly on a DVD. Then that's just the first part.

The second part is taking compliant files (one they are converted as explained above) and making image files of them so they can get burned to a DVD. That's something you have to do in DVD-A or something like Nero. Vegas can't handle it.

The other thing that freaks people is they see all those yellow warning flags when they click the Optimize button. They're just warnings. Nothing is wrong. Its just DVD-A saying it will recompress the audio for you to make it a legal format. Just let it and everything will be fine.

To my way of thinking it makes sense to finish the first phase in Vegas, meaning just use the regular MPEG-2 template. Once you have all your projects ready, drop the thumbnails in the DVD-A workspace, do your menu building, check Optimize for PROBLEMS which are RED flags, note the yellow warnings, then click the first choice under Make DVD which is prepare. DVD-A will ask for a folder to write the DVD files to. All by itself it will recompress what if anything it needs to. You'll get a series of status bars reflecting the process of both any recompression file by file plus the building of the image files. Once done, it will stop and say completed successfully.

Now you have a folder on your hard drive that's a "image" of whatever is going to end up on your DVD ready to burn again and again if you want to make more than one copy of the DVD. When ready, click on burn, insert a blank UNFORMATTED DVD disc and shortly after you'll after a finished DVD burned. This phase only "burns" the disc and doesn't take that long. How long depends on how fast your DVD burner is.
Skinink66 wrote on 11/9/2003, 6:09 PM
I know you must have written this same thing about one hundred times already. But, once again BillyBoy, you've shown what patience and how taking a little time to 'explain' things goes along way. On most forums, new people asking simple questions get slammed and 'yelled at' and told to do a search (in which you can never seem to get the wording right to find what you need)! Thanks for taking the time and showing what it means to really like what your doing and having the patience to deal with issues over and over. "You da Man"!!!!!!

Skinink66
BillyBoy wrote on 11/9/2003, 10:51 PM
Thanks. Its kind of funny. I sometimes start to search myself for what I wrote awhile back, then the phone rings, or the dog wants to go out or something, then I get distracted, so more times then not I just answer fresh. In the long run it doesn't really take any longer. I type fast. ;-)
BD wrote on 11/10/2003, 10:18 AM
Billy Boy,
If I may speak for all Lurkers in general: We really appreciate your advice and tutorials. You're a fine technical writer, and a damn good teacher.

Thank you,
Brandon's Dad
tfc wrote on 11/11/2003, 1:59 AM
I agree, thanks for all the info to get us newbies up to speed, BB. It is most appreciated!
eejackson wrote on 11/11/2003, 12:35 PM
Just my two cents: I could not agree more. BillyBoy has helped me quite a few times both were Vegas and DVD-A are concerned. I recently stumbled upon the DVD Architect template in the Vegas Render As menu, and I too, did not know the difference between the regular MPEG-2 template and the DVD-A template. And to be quite honest, I was actually afraid to post to ask this very same question. Thanks Billy for not making this newbie shy about asking questions and Thank You for such an indepth answere!!!!!

Lori J.