spot or Sony or anyone who can help me

lynj wrote on 1/6/2004, 10:19 PM
I just posted this in the thread I started last night: MPEG Rendering problems
but I need to get some help quickly, so I started a new topic, hoping to solve my problems.

I appreciate all the feedback, but alas, it's just not happening. I'm ready to pull my hair out. I imagine it's a hardware problem, but I really need help out of this one. I have to save the project. When I render to AVI, I get two files, because of the 4 gig limit on my external drive, I suppose. When I started this thing, I didn't check all that and it's FAT 32. That has not given me problems till now. Vegas prints to DV tape perfectly, using both files automatically. Now when I try to render to MPEG2, I get an error message that says: The specified I/O operation on Device Hard Disk 2/DR4was not completed before the time-out period expired. Is there a way to change this time out?

I just don't know what to do now.

I tried to go the route suggested by Sony, but I can't get both files to load onto one menu button in DVDA and it won't do to have to go to a menu button to play the last 11 minutes of a 30 minute piece. Just not pro.

I also have not figured out how to render in DVDA. Does it just do that as it burns the DVD? Does it save to an .mpg file? Is that accessible by Vegas? Is that a work around to render the files separately in DVDA then bring them back into Vegas and combine them? But I guess that wouldn't work either because I'm back to square one if I have to render them to one file. I can't do it.

Please Help me.

Lyn

Comments

Liam_Vegas wrote on 1/6/2004, 10:32 PM
Have you tried rendering your project direct to MPEG from vegas? you can fit quite a lot into a 4GB MPEG file depending on the bit-rate you choose. How long is this video?

DVDA, when given an AVI file will render that to MPEG for you as part of the "Prepare" step.
lynj wrote on 1/6/2004, 10:59 PM
Thanks for the response, but if you read the thread mentioned (it's still near the top) you will see I've tried just about everything. The whole thing started with not being able to render in Vegas!

But, without speaking too soon, I may have solved it on my own...or at least gotten myself through this project. I copied my rendered AVI files from the external drive to Drive C and am in the process of rendering there now. I believe the problem must be in my external drive, as the render is currently about 20 % finished and seems to be going well. Pray for me. Thanks

Lyn
farss wrote on 1/6/2004, 11:17 PM
Lyn,
certainly getting off a FAT32 volume will help things no end.
So you've solved your encode to mpeg-2 problems right.
If you haven't I think I know what's wrong, I've posted the answer elsewhere but just for completeness:
Are you by any chance using the Default template?
If so this will cause the encoder to abort, known bug.
You must use either of the DVDA templates as appropriate.
I'd left many posts about this for you but I never found a response, then you'd pop up somewhere else with the same plea for help.

I know how frustrating this is for you but please appreciate many of us are in different time zones, some of us have real jobs as well and none of us get anything apart from personal satisfaction out of helping others.

Also PLEASE try to get the subject heading to relate to what the issue is. I'm certain a lot of people who could help will just ignore posts that say things like this one.
lynj wrote on 1/6/2004, 11:35 PM
Farss, If you'll read my original plea, it has the same message as this one, along with my thanks. I just started this new thread to get someone's attention...I was so frustrated.

I was using the default template but changed that when I heard about the bug. I still could NOT render to MPEG. I have no problems rendering to AVI. But this render is still going strong, over a half hour into it since I changed the files to my C drive. It has to be the Fat 32 drive, doesn't it?

By the way, do you know if I can format an external USB 2 drive to NTSF or what ever it is. If I can, maybe it will get rid of the problem all together and I can get back to my dedicated drive.

So long till the next problem...and I seem to have a lot of them! I wish I were as computer & video savvy as some of you guys.

Lyn
farss wrote on 1/6/2004, 11:44 PM
Lyn,
thanks. You have no idea how frustrating it can be thinking that you have the answer that may solve someones problem and you just don't know if they've read it and fixed the problem or have just jumped out a window and the next you'll hear about is in the evening news.

Yes you should be able to change your USB drive to NTFS no problem. The details of how to do that depend on your operating system but bascially you need to use Fdisk to change the partition. Unless you use a 3rd party application all data on the drive will be lost.

By the way despite what a lot of people might say about Microsoft their web sites and in particular their Knowledgebase is a huge mine of information. Their developer forums are not far off being as good as this one as well.
craftech wrote on 1/7/2004, 2:45 AM
I THINK this is the problem:

If you are creating an Mpeg render using a Fat32 partition it will stop at 3.99GB and not complete. It will not break the render up into multiple files as it does with Avi files. I learned that the hard way myself as it is undocumented in the manual. If you are using W89SE you are stuck as you cannot create an NTFS partition for a larger file.
You have to set your bitrate to reduce the filesize to under 3.99 GB. Use a bitrate calculator. If you plan on complicated menus in DVDA reduce it even further.

John
farss wrote on 1/7/2004, 3:08 AM
craftech,
Lyn's not running Win98, her system drive is NTFS!
The problem is I suspect the USB drive she was trying to encode being FAT32., that she should be able to fix once she gets all the files off it.

Anyway I wouldn't have thought the 3.99 GB limit would be such a big issue as you probably wouldn't want the mpeg file much bigger, by the time the audio stream gets muxed in it doesn't leave much room before you hit the 4.3 GB limit of the DVD. It's not an issue when you go to prepare the DVD because there it's broken down into 1 GB chunks.

I suspect she'll get it to encode OK now and then find the whole thing is too big to fit onto a DVD anyways.
I agree about the bitrate clac, I always use a bitrate calc now, I can usually get the DVD to around 98% capacity.
craftech wrote on 1/7/2004, 5:11 AM
Farss,
I didn't realize that she had an NTFS partition. In that case your assessment may well be correct.

The 3.99GB limit is a problem if you want to fit more content on a DVD and keep the quality high. With a scene selection menu of lets say 12 or more items and a PLAY icon (all motion menu items) the content maximum before I notice a deterioration in quality (to my taste) is around 1 hr and 40 minutes. If I want to fit any more than that I have to limit the menu, but then I need an Mpeg 2 filesize of slightly greater than 3.99GB which I can't do because I haven't installed Windows XP yet. What I do at that point is to split the video up into two DVDs which solves the problem.
On a single DVD mine also typically end up at around 90-98% capacity but it would be nice if Vegas could create multiple Mpeg 2 files as it does so well with Avi files. Even if the second file were comparatively small.

John
farss wrote on 1/7/2004, 7:12 AM
craftech,
maybe I've missed something. See what I'm saying is you can render a 3.99 GB file to a FAT32 disk no problem. Then you can render its matching audio file, I'd say its got to be a few 100 MBs. You can make a motion menu as well, say another 100 MBs.

You bring all of those into DVDA, the total of all the files to go onto the DVD has got be very close if not over the 4.3 GB limit and you haven't broken the 3,99 GB limit anywhere.

Looking at it another way, 3.99 GB of mpeg-2 video PLUS it's matching audio must come damn close to being too much to fit on a DVD. If its PCM audio I think about 3.4 GB is the limit of the mpg video segment.

Does this make sense or have I really missed somthing.
Spot|DSE wrote on 1/7/2004, 7:34 AM
Whether FAT 32 or NTFS, this should render out to the 3.99 limit just fine.
Can you render the video as a DVDArchitect Video Stream and then render the audio separately as an AC3 stream? I realize you may have commented on this in another post, but I really didn't want to chase posts around.
Other thing to consider is if you are that large, it may well be that if you're not using AC3 audio, PCM or MPEG2 audio could well go past the size of the DVD itself.
You can format an external drive to be anything you'd like to have it be. NTFS or FAT32. There is little reason for FAT32 these days. NTFS is marginally slower because of admin stuff, but not enough to make it worth stepping back go FAT32, IMO.
Liam_Vegas wrote on 1/7/2004, 3:28 PM
A little late for my response...

Yep.. I did not get to read the original thread mentioned (I was busy when I got on and could not find the <extra> time that would have taken.. and in doing so I realize that I have further wasted my time and yours by posting a reply that was not relevant). It would have been far better if you just kept your request in the original one as I would have seen the request in context.

You <do not> need to create a new thread in order to get your request for help to be seen again. Simply add an additional reply to your original plea for help and you will then see that it gets moved back to the top of the list again.

I also will echo the comments here that it will always help if you can make the subject of your request more meaningful to the issue you have.

I hope you get it fixed... from the other responses here it does seem like you are now making progress.
jbrawn wrote on 1/7/2004, 3:40 PM
You can convert your drive to NTFS without loosing the data or using FDisk.

1) Make a backup. (This is not optional)

2) Close ALL applications.

3) Start / Run... / cmd

4) c:> CONVERT G: /FS:NTFS (where "G:" is the drive letter of the disk drive you want to convert)

5) Go for a long walk.


Have Fun,

John.