bStro's right that creating one long clip might be easiest... One way to do that might seem a bit round-a-bout, but doesn't take too long and saves the time of a re-render. Assuming you rendered the mpg2 files using the DVD template in Vegas, you'll need to demux the files [TMPGEnc's MPEG Tools works well] -> string together [Cuttermaran] -> then re-mux the result [TMPGEnc MPEG Tools]. Each operation takes as long as it takes to copy the file(s), and with no encoding, no quality loss.

That said, there's nothing magical about a scene selection menu... It is identified in the IFO files as a Scene Selection Menu so the remote button (if enabled) will open it, but it's a regular menu otherwise. Once you create a scene selection menu for one of your mpg2 files, you can add to it like any other menu, inserting buttons that point to your other 4 files, including chapters within those files. OR, if each file has several chapters, there's no reason you can't link separate scene selection menus. So at any rate, you should be able to easily get what you want without doing anything to your source media, though if you want the files to play sequentially, bStro's suggestion of joining the files would be the best bet -- you *might* experience a delay from one file to the next otherwise.

Rob,
1. Thanks for info on scene selection with music compilation.
2. I started with one file using Movie Studio Platimum #7. The file was 1 hour long with 108 video clips 65 Tiff images, 25 solid colors and 176 text. Had problems keepingt software up, many "Exceptions" and finally just locked up. I broke this down into smaller videos to help the situation. Someone said in the forum that you could have only 99 comps and I'm way over that. I'm ready to buy Vegas 8 but don't know if that will cure my large video problems?
Thanks for your help
Alan T

MPM
See my reply to Rob on one clip.
Thanks for suggestions on scene selection menu. I've just made up some small mpeg2 files to play with and will try your suggestions. sounds like a logical approach. After trying your suggestion to see how much of a "Delay" I might get. I don't think the delay is a big thing because this is a training video. I'm also going to try bStro's suggestion and see which one works best, then do it on my major project.

Your suggestion to demux the files is way over my head. I take it there is a software package called TMPGEnc to do what you suggested. Where do I get it?

Thanks - you both have been a big help.

Alan T

I suspect that your exception errors were about something other than just the length. Even VMS should be able to handle a project over an hour long.

My guess would be it was the TIFFs. Vegas makes use of Quicktime in order to use TIFFs, so a lot of them can be a problem. If you can, I'd recommend converting them to something less proprietary. Vegas seems to work really well with PNG, but you can also use BMP, JPG, or any number of other formats.

Rob

Alan, since you've got a fair amount of text, and since legibility is important with training video, I'd suggest rendering your text (using the text generator in an overlay track) if possible in Vegas. Especially if seen on a std TV, there can be a pretty big difference between what Vegas will do & DVDA. If you think it might make a difference with your project, render a couple of tests in both -- render an mpg2 clip or 2 in Vegas, then import and use in DVDA along with clips where DVDA does the mpg2 encoding, write to +RW, and compare. Text itself shows up best if the colors aren't too saturated (can distort the screen on an interlaced TV with a picture tube), & have a feathered shadow directly behind them. Selecting the checkbox for reducing interlace flicker helps too.

SCS programs do work best with png files, but if you have problems working with them on your system [for years WIndows has had a bad png DX filter], and/or you don't want to fool with converting your stills, there are one or two free-ware slideshow type programs you might check out to see if they'd work easier for you creating video clips that you could import into either Vegas or DVDA. Otherwise there are quite a few free-ware, share-ware, and very low cost image editing programs that let you batch convert images.

When it comes to combining files, If you have/had separate mpg2 clips out of Vegas to combine, then it's possible to avoid the re-encoding step.

In general if you have video files that are all in an mjpeg or DV format with the same encoder settings, and you want to rely on DVDA to encode to mpg2, you can string them together on the Vegas timeline and render one larger file in the same format without re-encoding. If your video files are in one of the mp4-type formats (real, DivX, wmv etc) it's still possible but you'll have to look up the tools to use -- they're mostly format specific -- or combine them all at the same time you re-encode to mpg2. If you want to combine mpg2 files without re-encoding, the freeware program Cuttermaran I mentioned works really well, but there's a catch that applies to DVDA...

For some reason DVDA since version 1 has preferred an odd sort of mpg2 file format -- almost everywhere else a standard mpg2 video-only stream is done one way and has an m2v extension. If you use the DVDA mpg2 template in Vegas when encoding your video, you'll get a video-only mpg file that most other software will not work with. To get DVDA-type mpg video-only streams into this other software you can de-mux it, which normally means stripping away the audio stream from the file. Conversely, if you mux (combine with an audio stream) an m2v video, *without* supplying an audio file to combine with the video, the result will be *very* close to the original DVDA template in Vegas. In order to use Cuttermaran (or most other software) with mpg2 video encoded using the DVDA template in Vegas, it has to be de-muxed. Afterwards muxing the video without audio improves DVDA performance with that file, but is not absolutely necessary in later versions.

TMPGEng is a popular share-ware encoding program that includes a sort of sub-program called MPEG Tools, which does really well muxing & de-muxing mpg2 video, and has no problem muxing files without audio. After the share-ware trial expiration the mpg2 encoding is disabled, but at least on the older versions, if I remember correctly, the MPEG Tools portion still works regardless.

You can download or find links to slide-show programs, TMPGEnc, Cuttermaran etc at videohelp.com in the Tools section. IF you think Vegas Pro 8 & DVDA 4.5 might give you an advantage, download the trial and see -- I believe they have a special sale offer if you upgrade before the 30th, so the time's right anyway. ;-)

If you think you're running into problems maxing out a single comp, comps are treated just like title videos, and you can string them together with end actions, so a 150 picture comp for example can instead be a 90 picture comp followed by a 60 picture comp.

Finally, remember that you can strip video and audio files out of a DVDA rendered DVD, preferably one on your hdd. It's not always the fastest or easiest or most efficient method, but it has almost zero learning curve. If for example you find you can get DVDA to render a DVD to hdd by say deleting half, or 1/3 etc of the content in a picture comp, after you render it to DVD as is, a program called PgcDemux will pull out the mpg2 video file DVDA created out of the comp. That might or might not do you any good, but, if nothing else seems to work, or if there seems to be too much learn on deadline, may be worth thinking about?