Studio to DVD Architect - 0.75 hrs DV on DVD?

Mike B wrote on 9/11/2005, 9:02 PM
I have captured 1.5 hours of DV tape (PAL) into studio for my first DVD. Exported from Studio 6 using 'Make DVD' Rendered it overnight and got a 5.7GB result (4.6G mpg and 1.1GB wav)

Then took it into Architect and trying making a DVD. While being dissapointed it was so big, I thought I would just cut it down. Within architect, despite have an end point 1/2 way through at 45mins, it said the DVD would be 6.1GB in size and wouldnt burn the DVD. (weirdly, the size was independant of where the end marker was)

Questions:
1) How many hours of DV tape should I expect to fit on a DVD? (This isnt very much the way I am doing it!)
2) Experimenting with exporting from Vegas Studio, if I say export to disk, then with mpeg2 (and PAL DV template) I get a total file size for video and audio(predicted) of 4.7GB? - which sounds more appropriate for 1.5hrs?

How should I export - via this method?

Could someone explain how I should do this transition from Movie Studio to Architect that would be much appreciated!

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 9/12/2005, 3:55 AM
When you trim in DVD Architect all you are doing is telling the DVD player when to stop playing. The entire file is still going to be burned to the disc (if it will fit). So setting an end point there doesn't affect the size of the burn at all.

You should easily be able to fit about 75 to 90 minutes on a DVD. With the full version of Vegas you can adjust the bit rate lower to get over 2 hours on a disc. I don't know if the newest version of Movie Studio allows this or not. I know older versions don't.

You could render your video to DV .avi and then let DVD Architect encode to MPEG for you. This will allow it to choose a bitrate that will fit. It takes quite a bit longer though.
Tim L wrote on 9/12/2005, 5:08 AM
With Vegas Movie Studio 6, DVDA Studio now has a "fit to disc" option. I can't remember where exactly you find it in DVDA, but I think you might have to click on an "Optimize" button when you are setting up your render options.

This probably takes more time, but from VMS just render your project to DV AVI. Then in DVDA select your project file(s), find that "fit to disc" option, and have DVDA do the DV to MPEG2 render.

I think, though I haven't tried it yet myself, that DVDA will look at how big your DV AVI video and audio files are, and then select an MPEG2 bit rate that will let everything (plus your menues, if any) fit onto a DVD.

Tim L
Mike B wrote on 9/12/2005, 7:50 AM
Thanks for the responses. While Studio is reasonably documented, the transition is not.

I had found the optimize button, but it wouldn't let me optimize (and I couldn't figure out why).

Later exploration - one has to click optimize, then individually select Video and Audio, and set recompress to 'Yes'. With doing that, the project now takes up only 3.7GB instead of 6.

Given this method of exporting brings the chapter info with it (I don't think saving to disk does ? ), this seems to be a good method. However, it is a 2 part process - first transcode from DV to .mpg, then recompress.

Thanks everyone. I will go and redo the project now and see what it looks like.
Mike B wrote on 9/12/2005, 8:15 AM
OK, I have just stated to re render. When I came to actually get it to re render, I had to adjust the bit rate down to 4 mbps (optimize didnt seem to want to autofit). Is this an acceptable bitrate (content is family home movie stuff).

I note audio doesnt seem to compress much - the predicted size was still 1GB - is this normal for PCM stereo?
ScottW wrote on 9/12/2005, 8:56 AM
Unless you have an AC3 encoder (and set your project properties to AC3 audio), the audio isn't going to change.

You really should try to avoid re-compressing MPEG; you can end up taking a pretty big quality hit. If you're going to use the fit to disk features of DVDAS, then start with DV AVI as what you give DVDAS.

As to whether 4 mbps is too low or not depends on the source material. Generally I try to avoid going much below 5mbps and if I have to go that low, I'll usually do a 2-pass encoding (which I don't think is an option for VMS, only for the big brother Vegas).

--Scott
stevec5375 wrote on 9/12/2005, 5:19 PM
If you have a copy of Nero, check out Nero Recode. It has amazing compression algorithms that may help you out here.
Mike B wrote on 9/13/2005, 10:25 PM
Thanks to all the suggestions. I have been successful!

1. Export to AVI, with the DV PAL template (keeps the chapters as well)
2. DVD Architecture - Fit to Disc (4.1mbps default) - prepare but not burn
3. Burn in Nero

Video quality was fine!

I feel like the transition between Vegas and Architect is very poorly documented - needs some documentation or "show me how'


Trying to burn in DVD Architect gave me lead out timeout errors - so eventually gave up and Nero does it fine. I searched the forum and found this type of problem is not uncommon.
Tim L wrote on 9/14/2005, 4:59 AM
It seems to me like you should be able to fit 0.75 hrs of video (& audio) on a dvd with a much higher bitrate. I think this should easily fit with 8 mbps.

I checked my most recent poject at home last night (I'm a newbie -- I've only done two projects so far). It was a 50-minute video plus a 5-minute slideshow video, plus one menu. My default bitrate is set at 8.0 MBPS. When I did "fit to disc" (about a week ago), it came back and told me that everything would fit at the default bitrate of 8 mbps. (I did burn several discs, everything was fine.)

A rough calculation would seem to back this up:
55 minutes * 60 = 3300 seconds.
3300 seconds * 8.0 megabits per second = 26400 megabits.
26400 megabits / 8 bits per byte = 3300 megabytes = 3.3 GB.
(or, just multiply 3300 seconds by 1 megabyte per second...)

As long as your audio is 1.2 GB or so, it seems like it should fit.

(But let me repeat that I'm a newbie, guys. Straighten me out if I've got something wrong...)

Tim L
Chienworks wrote on 9/14/2005, 5:09 AM
Tim, Mike was trying to fit 1.5 hours on the DVD. His original post was wondering why if he cut the file in half (0.75 hours) it still didn't fit.
Tim L wrote on 9/14/2005, 5:21 AM
Ahhhhh. Yes, I see that now.

Sorry. I was just glancing at the title of the thread and saw the "0.75 hours".

Thanks for the correction.

Tim L