Render to MPEG2 as you go?

OldTimer wrote on 7/20/2003, 11:47 PM
If you are making a long project it seems like a good idea to finish off each segment as you go. What I wished to know is if your ultimate goal is to get your project onto a DVD does it make any differance if you render each segment to MPEG2 using the DVD settings as you go? Each segment would also be copied back to Digital tape.

It would seem that going this route might be able to free up some space on your hard drive since the MPEG2 file will be much smaller than the same AVI files. Is this a crazy idea or not?

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 7/20/2003, 11:58 PM
It would depend on WHICH DVD Authoring application you use. DVD-A, SoFo's version is only in its first release and there are some issues. For example if you have 5 vids you want to burn on one disc, they can not be set to automatically play one after the other.

Otherwise, if you use the DV template so you have high quality, you can go that method and in fact it is what I usually do myself.

So if you desire is to have multiple files on one DVD and as long as you set up a menu system where each plays seperately, and you have no need to have vid 1 jump to vid 2 once it is finished, then should be fine. If however you do have that need then do not break your project up. Instead render as one file and then set chapter points as you wish and each would play (in DVD-A) from that point to end. If you use another DVD Authoring application there may be other issues.
kameronj wrote on 7/21/2003, 8:29 AM
If I am reading into your question - another concern you have is that the project in-and-of itself is long....so waiting until it is totally done eding to render would take a long time on the back end.

If this is correct....well, then it's really six in one hand and half a dozen in the other. It is going to take as long to render the project as it is going to take. It's just breaking it up as you go will end up with x-amount of files...and on the back end only one.

But taken as a whole, the processing time will (pretty much) be the same (just split over time).

KnawhaI'msayin?