A number of people are having trouble making DVDs on this forum, so I'd like to provide a few tips that may help you.
1) [edit1 /31/03] Make sure you have the current versions of Vegas and DVDA. If you have not downloaded and installed the latest updates from our site, please do so. [end edit]
2) The authoring process will go faster is you pre-encode your movies in Vegas. You can load a long .avi file in DVDA and have DVDA encode it, but it takes awhile and if you have to make a change (say to a menu title) your long movie has to get re-encoded. If you pre-encode your media assets in Vegas (video to MPEG-2 using the stock DVDA templates in the dropdown, audio as PCM or AC-3), the prepare stage in DVDA will be much faster.
3) Please use the stock MPEG-2 and AC-3 render templates in Vegas whenever possible when preparing content for DVDA -especially when you are first getting started. There's a ton of settings that can result in either an invalid file for DVDA or a file that DVDA will needlessly recompress. Once you can successfully make a DVD all the way through you can tweak settings as needed. Don't adjust the custom settings without budgeting in some research and troubleshooting time.
4) Alien files: Some of you use other encoders to prepare content for DVDA. Make sure you use the exact render settings found in the DVDA help file, see recompression topics. We do not test with MPEG-2 or PCM or AC-3 source files generated outside of our product line, so unless you have a special reason for using 3rd party encoders, use the native encoders in our apps.
5) [sorry, I have to write this] Ripping material from a pre-authored DVD: We offer no support for this. Assume, both legally and technically, that this is impossible with DVDA. Some of you have hacked your way through the process with various levels of success, but as far as support goes, you are on your own. Your machine could (in theory) explode into a 1000 foot fireball if you rip.
6) Markers- if you have timeline markers in Vegas or you add markers to a rendered file in the Vegas trimmer and save them there, they should be auto-loaded as chapter markers in DVDA when you add the file to DVDA. If you don't see the markers when you navigate into the video asset within DVDA, you can choose to reload the markers only or, in a pinch you can add new chapter markers in DVDA (you shouldn't have to do this last, importing markers with the file works fine for me).
7) Recompression: go to the optimize dialog. If there's a green checkmark next to a media asset, that source file will NOT be recompressed by DVDA. If there's not a green check mark, the file will be recompressed by DVDA. If you think something is being recompressed when it shouldn't be, check the optimize window's format and bitrate settings and make sure these match the source files.
8) Make sure you have plenty of spare prepare space- everything gets written to the drive first, and is burned after that.
9) If you are encountering a failure during the burn/prepare process, try to narrow it down. Is it a prepare (render) failure? Is it a burn failure? This is easily determined if you do it in two steps- do a prepare only. If that works, do a burn only. If you do a prepare+burn and wind up with an error message it MIGHT be a burn failure but look like a prepare error, especially if it is happening at the very end of the prepare process.
10) Some 3rd party burning software can cause burn failure within DVDA. Veritas is a common culprit. If you cannot burn, try removing other burning apps one at a time, starting with the Veritas stuff. Try a quick project prepare/burn after each uninstall to find the culprit. We continue to investigate this, but it should be noted that we don't break them, they break us.
11) Make sure you are burning to the right type of media for your drive- this happens all the time and is an easy mistake to make. Also, sometimes a given DVD blank is just bad- this happened to me- the DVD-RW media that came bundled with the drive was bad. I chased it for days...swapped out the media, all has been well ever since.
Anyway, if you follow all of the above steps, you should be able to make a great looking/sounding DVD without a bunch of headaches. While I wrote this I prepared/burned a 4.2 Gb DVD-r, no problems, plays great in my Sony DVD player. If after following all of this exactly you still can't finish a DVD, please post back and we'll see if we can help further.
1) [edit1 /31/03] Make sure you have the current versions of Vegas and DVDA. If you have not downloaded and installed the latest updates from our site, please do so. [end edit]
2) The authoring process will go faster is you pre-encode your movies in Vegas. You can load a long .avi file in DVDA and have DVDA encode it, but it takes awhile and if you have to make a change (say to a menu title) your long movie has to get re-encoded. If you pre-encode your media assets in Vegas (video to MPEG-2 using the stock DVDA templates in the dropdown, audio as PCM or AC-3), the prepare stage in DVDA will be much faster.
3) Please use the stock MPEG-2 and AC-3 render templates in Vegas whenever possible when preparing content for DVDA -especially when you are first getting started. There's a ton of settings that can result in either an invalid file for DVDA or a file that DVDA will needlessly recompress. Once you can successfully make a DVD all the way through you can tweak settings as needed. Don't adjust the custom settings without budgeting in some research and troubleshooting time.
4) Alien files: Some of you use other encoders to prepare content for DVDA. Make sure you use the exact render settings found in the DVDA help file, see recompression topics. We do not test with MPEG-2 or PCM or AC-3 source files generated outside of our product line, so unless you have a special reason for using 3rd party encoders, use the native encoders in our apps.
5) [sorry, I have to write this] Ripping material from a pre-authored DVD: We offer no support for this. Assume, both legally and technically, that this is impossible with DVDA. Some of you have hacked your way through the process with various levels of success, but as far as support goes, you are on your own. Your machine could (in theory) explode into a 1000 foot fireball if you rip.
6) Markers- if you have timeline markers in Vegas or you add markers to a rendered file in the Vegas trimmer and save them there, they should be auto-loaded as chapter markers in DVDA when you add the file to DVDA. If you don't see the markers when you navigate into the video asset within DVDA, you can choose to reload the markers only or, in a pinch you can add new chapter markers in DVDA (you shouldn't have to do this last, importing markers with the file works fine for me).
7) Recompression: go to the optimize dialog. If there's a green checkmark next to a media asset, that source file will NOT be recompressed by DVDA. If there's not a green check mark, the file will be recompressed by DVDA. If you think something is being recompressed when it shouldn't be, check the optimize window's format and bitrate settings and make sure these match the source files.
8) Make sure you have plenty of spare prepare space- everything gets written to the drive first, and is burned after that.
9) If you are encountering a failure during the burn/prepare process, try to narrow it down. Is it a prepare (render) failure? Is it a burn failure? This is easily determined if you do it in two steps- do a prepare only. If that works, do a burn only. If you do a prepare+burn and wind up with an error message it MIGHT be a burn failure but look like a prepare error, especially if it is happening at the very end of the prepare process.
10) Some 3rd party burning software can cause burn failure within DVDA. Veritas is a common culprit. If you cannot burn, try removing other burning apps one at a time, starting with the Veritas stuff. Try a quick project prepare/burn after each uninstall to find the culprit. We continue to investigate this, but it should be noted that we don't break them, they break us.
11) Make sure you are burning to the right type of media for your drive- this happens all the time and is an easy mistake to make. Also, sometimes a given DVD blank is just bad- this happened to me- the DVD-RW media that came bundled with the drive was bad. I chased it for days...swapped out the media, all has been well ever since.
Anyway, if you follow all of the above steps, you should be able to make a great looking/sounding DVD without a bunch of headaches. While I wrote this I prepared/burned a 4.2 Gb DVD-r, no problems, plays great in my Sony DVD player. If after following all of this exactly you still can't finish a DVD, please post back and we'll see if we can help further.