sorry, i re read your post, Im not sure there is NTFS support in win 98 ?

No, Win98 won't work with NTFS. An upgrade to Win2k or WinXP is needed. Or lower your MPEG2 bitrate to keep the final under 4GB. You'll lose a third of a GB of space (and some quality), but...

Are you saying that Vegas won't break up Mpeg 2 into multiple 4GB files as it does with Avi files under W98SE?

John

It's not a Vegas thing, it's an MPEG standard. The file uses frames differently and therefore can't break up the file to under 4 gig like it can with an avi. And no, Vegas doesn't do that. Going to NTFS is your only solution, unless you are willing to sacrifice quality. I'm sure that a workaround could have been developed for DVDA/Vegas, by examining a drive type and warning you of size issues, but it makes zero sense for Sony to develop software to support a discontinued and unsupported OS. Regardless of your feelings about XP, or Win2K for that matter, both are exceptionally smooth running OS's. And unless you are a really esoteric piece of hardware that you are married to, you'll find it a much faster OS as well.

Thanks Doug,
I guess I never realized that about W98SE and Mpeg.

John

You could split the file up yourself by selecting the first part to be under 4GB, rendering that as an MPEG file with "Render loop region only" checked, then render the rest as another MPEG file. DVD Architect will be able to burn both these files to the same disc. You'll probably want to split the file at a natural break in the video, preferably at a blackout or a chapter point.

I already have two Mpeg files from before. Didn't know they could be authored as one disc. Any pointers at doing this?

John

If you can live with two thumbnails one for scene one and the other scene two all you need to do is drag and drop them both into the DVD-A workspace, size the thumbnails as you wish and you're done. Just let DVD-A burn the DVD. If you faded to black between the scenes you can bump the 2nd video along on the DVD-A timeline a little so it starts a few seconds later..

At the top right of my web site I have a little DVD-A tutorial for basic menu structure. What's kind of nice I think is add a side show if you have enough room left. Just drop a handful or lots of JPG's in Vegas, add transitions if you like then render and drop that thumnail in DVD-A.

What may be nice too if you want to play around with it is do a mini vid where you introduce each of the main characters, producer, etc..

The only downside to using multiple MPEG files is that DVDA will create a DVD that returns to the main menu after each MPEG file finishes playing. If this isn't what you want, you either have to join the two MPEG files (using TMPGEnc or Womble's MPEG VCR) prior to importing to DVDA, or you have to use the kludge I developed (posted over in the DVDA forum) to edit some of the DVD files prior to burning. Niether is very pretty.

I am quite certain that Sony will fix this oversight in the next release but, of course, I don't know when that will be.

Currently this project is on a two separate DVDs. One for Act 1 and One for Act 2. I was afraid to go much over an hour for fear of quality loss. Since the project is finished and I am delivering it to clients in the form of two DVDs I figured I would experiment so I don't want to put anything extraneous in there to take up more space because the menu alone will have around 18-20 motion thumbnails which will take up space. And yes, there is a fade to black at the end of Act 1 and a fade from black at the beginning of Act 2.

If I am understanding correctly:

1. I cannot create a single Mpeg 2 project of both acts in Vegas using W98SE because the software won't create multiple 4GB files as it does with Avi files.

2. I can combine two Mpeg 2 files in DVDA to get what I want, but I cannot create a Play Movie button which will play the video all the way through both acts because the video will stop at the end of Act 1 and go back to the menu where one would have to then click on an Act 2 button to finish the movie.

3. I can create a scene selection menu but there MUST BE a separate scene selection button on the main menu for each Act. In other words the scene selection menu MUST HAVE 4 buttons for this to work. One for Act 1, One for Act 2, One for Act 1 Scene Selections, and One for Act 2 Scene Selections.

4. Or I install Windows XP if I don't like it like that.

Please verify. Thanks for the help.

John

You got it.
Finally, you could use a different DVD authoring software to burn the disk that has an end-action that says "when Act 1 is done, play Act 2 instead of returning to the Main Menu."

You could always reduce the bitrate so the entire render takes less than 4Gig. If you only have an hour or hour and a half, this would be easy to do and still maintain quality. If you have two hours, you would have to see if there is an acceptable quality loss at the reduced bitrate.

"You could always reduce the bitrate so the entire render takes less than 4Gig."
=============================
I assume you mean in DVDA because as far as I understand it, bitrate adjustments are done during encoding.
Reducing the bitrate is what I had planned to do in DVDA after I created a large Mpeg 2 file from both acts using Vegas again.

I just didn't realize, as I said above, that Vegas won't create multiple Mpeg 2 files as it does with Avi files under W98SE. So now I have each act rendered separately again and am combining them on a menu under which I will have to click on Act 2 in order to play it after Act 1 finishes, but it will be on ONE DVD with a reduced bitrate so I may assess any quality loss.

John

craftech, you wouldn't want to reduce the bitrate in DVDA if you've already rendered to MPEG in Vegas. That would involve rerendering MPEG from MPEG which is going to be a noticeable quality loss at any bitrate. What you should do is render from Vegas at a lower bitrate in an attempt to get the entire file under 4GB to begin with. If, on the other hand, you want to let DVDA handle the encoding then you should render to DV AVI from Vegas and use these DV files in DVDA.

I looked for an option in Vegas to change the bitrate for the video only DVDA NTSC video stream and didn't find one.

Where is the option?

Also, I guess once I find it I would have to figure it out for both Act 1 and Act 2 files and also allow for the motion menu and other tidbits in the final DVD before hand so that it all comes out to under 4GB in the end.

Is that correct?


Hardly sounds like any of this is worth the effort. I can't find most of what I am hearing in this thread in the documentation. I have even printed the entire manual for both Vegas and DVDA. Every time I render there is another "and by the way" to deal with. That is why I guess I am one of the few who do not find Vegas to be iintuitive. Too many "and by the ways".
But I do love the people on the forum and their willingness to help and I try to do the same whenever I can about things I feel I know well.

Thanks Chienworks and everyone else,

John

I assume you mean in DVDA because as far as I understand it, bitrate adjustments are done during encoding.

NO. I meant in VEGAS. Do a File - Render As, choose the MPEG2 type and click on Custom. Reduce the bitrate here to get the complete project under the 4Gig limit.

I'll look again. I guess I just didn't see the option.
Thanks Ed

John

OK. I see it now. The other tabs were at the bottom hidden from view until I resized the window. I'll try it all with a bitrate calculator.

Thanks. John

I found in some old threads a recommendation about setting the DC coefficient to 10. What is the purpose of that? Anyone know?

John

None of the bitrate calculators give a clue as to what to set the maximum and minimum to, only the average. Also, when trying different bitrate calculators the numbers don't all come out the same when entering custom sizes (In my case that would be 3.99GB) and 103 minutes in length. Some don't allow you to calculate without audio (most do). None seem to be geared to my particular situation.

As far as rendering to Mpeg using DVDA when starting with Avi files as suggested above, there doesn't appear to be a way to add split Avi files to the Main Menu of DVDA as One file. In other words it doesn't appear as though DVDA under W98SE can convert multiple 4GB Avi files into Mpeg 2.

This is getting really confusing. I loaded the 4 part menu scenario as recommended above into DVDA and tried to optimize it and I couldn't get it to under 4.7GB anyway even if (as Chenworks pointed out) I wanted to put up with the self defeating poor quality of Mpeg converted to Mpeg. So that suggestion didn't work.

I am now trying to figure out how I can either:

A. Calculate what will be the best settings to create an Mpeg 2 DVDA NTSC video only stream without much quality loss which will come out close to or exactly 3.99 GB from a project of the whole show which is 103 minutes. Remember, it will stop rendering at 3.99GB. I can then add the audio in DVDA as AC3. I figured that the audio + the menu items will take up much of the rest of the space.

OR:

B. Calculate what will be the best settings for creating two separate Mpeg 2 DVDA NTSC video only streams of approximately 52 minutes each which when combined in DVDA along with the 4 required Main Menu icons (two for each act) in which you have to click on Act 2 when Act 1 finishes will result in (when combined with the Audio and motion menu items) a DVD which will take up most of the 4.7GB with good quality and no errors in its creation.

To the above end how does one reduce the number of days and hours of waiting for yet more experimental renders to finish which only result in endless hours of posting to find out that the software was obviously not designed to be used with W98SE despite the advertising?

If anyone can take the time to walk me through this frustrating experiment within the above constraints I would really appreciate it.

Thanks,

John