Transfer to DVD

RichMitt wrote on 2/9/2005, 12:17 PM
I am in the process of trying to complete a project I made a year ago using Movie Studio 3.0. I got bogged down trying to put it into DVD format using DVD Lab and then had to set it aside until now. I have several questions:

I. Can I write directly to DVD without going through the authoring process? And if so, will it be possible to play the resulting DVD on a standard DVD player?

2. Do I understand correctly that a DVD can take no more than one hour of video in MPEG-2 format?

3. Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Basic came with my computer, and I have used it successfully to back up data onto DVDs. Is it also suitable for burning video DVDs, or do I need a more sophisticated program, and if so, what program would be a good choice?

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 2/9/2005, 1:10 PM
The authoring process creates menus and chapters and results in VOB files in a VIDEO_TS folder. You won't get any of these directly from Vegas Movie Studio; you'll only get them from an authoring program like DVD Architect Studio or DVD Lab. You can render to MPEG-2 and write this file to a data DVD. Many DVD players will show a list of file names on the disc and let you pick one to play. Many won't. Even if it does play you won't have menus or chapters. The only way to guarantee DVD player compatability is to author the video properly.

It depends on the bitrate you use. Higher bitrates result in higher quality, but larger files so less time will fit on the disc. Depending on your source material and how much of a quality hit you're willing to take you can probably fit 2 or even 3 hours on a single disc.

For a whopping $30 you can upgrade Movie Studio 3.0 to Vegas Studio 4.0 and it includes DVD Architect Studio! Go for it.
gogiants wrote on 2/9/2005, 1:53 PM
Chienworks nailed it.

Chances are if your computer came with a DVD burner built in then it came with some sort of DVD creation software. If you don't care too much about how your DVD looks and how the menus interact, then you should be able to create a simple DVD that will work in standalone DVD players.

Easy CD Creator won't do it, but there typically are other programs bundled with a DVD burner.

But, if you don't have free software and/or you care at least a bit about how the DVD looks, DVD Architect Studio is quite easy to use and is well worth $30.
RichMitt wrote on 2/9/2005, 2:33 PM
Thanks Chienworks and gogiants. It sounds like it would good to do the ugrade and get DVD Architect Studio. Do I understand correctly that it does both authoring and DVD burning?

I seem to recall folks were having trouble installing Version 4 over Version 3. I'm a bit of a novice on things like this. Does this mean I have to go to the Control Panel and uninstall Version 3 before downloading Version 4? And will this mess up projects I have underway in Version 3? I assume DVD Architect Studio will read MPEG-2 files generated in Version 3.
gogiants wrote on 2/9/2005, 4:55 PM
Yes, it does do both DVD authoring and burning. Some people have had issues using the burning feature with their particular DVD drives. But, you can always prepare the files in DVD Arch Studio and then use another burning program.

It shouldn't be a problem installing version 4; you can uninstall version 3 first but it is not required. In fact, you can install version 4 to a new directory and you can have both version 3 & 4 run happily on the same machine.

It shouldn't mess up projects you have underway in version 3, but just make sure you make a backup of your .vf file(s) before you edit them using version 4. That way you can always go back to using version 3 on your backed-up files if there is an issue.

DVD Arch Studio should not have a problem using the MPEG-2 files you have built in version 3. (It might need to do some re-encoding depending on the MPEG-2 template you used to create the files, but if you have no way of re-generating the MPEG-2 files then it will just take a while to re-encode and shouldn't make a huge difference in quality of the resultant file.)