video skips & freezes please help

skintback wrote on 5/15/2008, 8:13 AM
Hello Guys
I have Pro 8 and i have rendered a little over 2 hour wizard of oz play to AVI. I have never had this problem before but when i play in dvd player, movie skips, hangs up, or just freezes. Before rendered, I realized movie was to long for standard dvd so I used the optmize dvd and fit to disc function. This was a 2 camera project so there was a ton of media on this project. My feelings are that i have way to much information compressed into the wrong format. ?
Do I need to render to something other than AVI? Any help would be appreciated as I have parents (yikes) wanting the finished product.

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 5/15/2008, 8:23 AM
Increasing the compression should not make it hang. This behavior is usually caused by either really bad media (98% of the time) or a failing DVD burner (2% of the time). Obviously, my strong suspicion is that the problem is your media. What is the exact brand (e.g., Verbatim) and type (DVD-R or DVD+R) are you using?

Also, the preferred workflow for creating DVDs is to render from Vegas directly to an MPEG-2 file for the video and then, as a separate operation, render the audio to AC-3. Use the same file name for both the MPEG-2 and AC-3 file, with the only difference being the filename extension (which Vegas will assign). Put the MPEG-2 file into DVD Architect and if you used the same file name, DVDA will automatically find the matching audio file.

In both cases, use one of the included "DVD Architect" templates. Do NOT use the "default" template. For the MPEG-2 video, change the average bitrate (click on the Custom button in the Render As dialog) to match the length of your video, but do not exceed 8,000,000 bps. Here's a link to a bitrate calculator:

Bitrate Calculator

skintback wrote on 5/15/2008, 8:40 AM
John
I'm not where I can look at media, (will check for sure tonight) but I know they are memorex and pretty sure dvd- R
I usually use sony brand media mainly because i have sony vx 2100, and sony software. I don't know that this has helped me, but as I said, never had problems until now. So do you think it could be the memorex dvd's. This was a low budget project, and i was trying to help out the drama club, hence the cheap dvd.s
Also, I did render to mpeg-2 first from vegas, I then opened dvd architect and imported the mpeg-2 file,.....but there was no audio (sound) from the file. Thats when I rendered to avi and my audio was there.
John_Cline wrote on 5/15/2008, 8:48 AM
First of all, Memorex DVDs are generally junk.

Secondly, you must render your audio separately from Vegas. The MPEG2 file that Vegas generates is video only.
rs170a wrote on 5/15/2008, 9:07 AM
Stick to Taiyo Yuden or Verabtim for blank media.

Check out Vol. 1 Issue #7 of jetdv's newsletters.
This one is on DVD authoring and he covers everything you need to know.

Mike
johnmeyer wrote on 5/15/2008, 9:13 AM
Memorex is a well-known name, but when it comes to DVDs, they are generally recognized as the worst vendor (other than private store brands) of DVD media.

Sony media is generally good. If you really want to get into it, Taiyo-Yuden TY02 DVD-R is generally considered the best. You can purchase these at Meritline or Supermediastore. When purchasing retail, Verbatim generally makes good stuff, although if there is a "discount" vs. a "premium" brand, you definitely want to go with the premium.

You can test the quality of your burns using Nero's free CDSpeed utility. Ideally you should test on a different drive than the one that did the burn. Lite-On drives are used by people who really get into "perfecting" the burn process. You can read all about how to get great burns here:

CD Freaks

skintback wrote on 5/15/2008, 9:28 AM
Thanks for all the help guys

Will take all these suggestions and work it out tonight. (I hope)

PS Will trash the memorex dvd's. When I paused to consider buying these.......I should have known right then!!

John_Cline wrote on 5/15/2008, 3:57 PM
Costco has dropped TDK and is now selling Sony DVD and CD media. This is perfectly OK with me as the TDK wasn't great. It wasn't "really" TDK, it was some lower-tier media with the TDK name on it. The supplier of this media had changed several times over the last few years. Sam's Club sells Verbatim and it seems to be "real" Verbatim media.

However, along with thousands of others, I agree with John Meyer about Taiyo-Yuden TY02 being the best.
johnmeyer wrote on 5/15/2008, 4:21 PM
This is the exact item that I purchase:

Taiyo Yuden 8x DVD-R Inkjet Hub Printable at Meritline


TGS wrote on 5/15/2008, 5:17 PM
Although minor, I ordered 100 of those discs and 200 plain white envelopes from Meritline, a couple of months ago. Each of these items appears to be re-packaged by Meritline. Wouldn't you know it..... each set of 100 only had 99 in it. I fired off a nasty letter to them about the odds of 3 - 100 piece packaged by Meritline items, somehow all only having 99 pieces, was impossible. I only counted the stuff by accident as I was trying to put the discs in some old cake boxes, When that count came up to only 99, I counted the envelopes too, and each 100 stack only had 99. I wondered about every order I made to them before this.
They wrote back that they'd give me a $4. credit next time, but I never responded.
So.... let's see if they've trained the employees to only count to 99.
Only the stuff Meritline repackages from their monster bulk orders.
Hmmm... ahhh, you guy's won't bother counting. But that did happen to my last order.
johnmeyer wrote on 5/15/2008, 7:10 PM
I've had a few minor problems with Meritline, but they've come through for me every time I complained. Sounds to me as though they came through for you as well (they did offer to make good). I don't know if I'll count all my cakeboxes, but I'll certainly weigh them the next time to see if I can detect a shortage.

While I certainly recommend Meritline, if you don't like them, try Supermediastore. They are basically a mirror image of Meritline in terms of their products and business model, and some people seem to prefer them. I've ordered from them a few times, just for the heck of it, and they were fine.

If you don't mind paying a lot more, and if you also need tape, then you should definitely use Taperesources. They are far cheaper than Meritline or Supermediastore for tape, and they carry discs as well. They are one of the few places that carry the MAM-A archival DVDs, so if you have any need to create archival discs, you can get the blanks there.

I just checked and they are now carrying the Taiyo Yuden 8x Inkjet Hub printable (which they didn't used to do). Not too bad a price either.

I really like this place but haven't ordered for awhile because their disc prices were completely out to lunch. Hmmm ... I might just place my next order there. Highly recommended.

TGS wrote on 5/15/2008, 7:57 PM
Actually, that was the first time I ever counted their packaged shipments. I've never complained about them up until this last order, when I started wondering if every 100 count was short 1.
I bought a corner glass computer desk that they made, but I picked it up at Fry's. Fry's sold it for $109. Meritline was charging $139. Except for the ugly frosted, lettuce green glass, it was a fantastic buy. If Meritline hadn't been out of stock when I was interested, I probably would've ordered it from them. Fry's had a quadrillion of 'em.
I've also ordered from Supermedia store in the past. No complaints. I'll probably just stick with Meritline. They cover most of my needs. But I'll be counting from now on.
Most of my discs cost from 23 cents to 35 cents, so I ain't going to complain about a quarter or two on each shipment over the years. It just bugged me that all the 100 piece items were 1 short in the same box.