Where is diagnostic info for DVDA crashes?

Birk Binnard wrote on 10/7/2014, 5:06 PM

My DVDA5 crashes when preparing a BluRay ISO file. There are no error messages or partial ISO file left behind. I've looked in the Windows Event Log - nothing there. I also cannot find any log files or other error-type files from DVDA5.

I submitted an error report to Sony but there is no diagnostic info to indicate what the problem might be. Is there any to be found? And if so, where is it?

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Steve Mann wrote on 10/9/2014, 9:49 PM

If DVDA has to rerender anything, then the file is not DVDA compliant from Vegas. If it's the audio, then I don't bother fixing it, but the video file should never rerender / recompress in DVDA.

videoITguy wrote on 10/9/2014, 10:22 PM

For a menu structure background in DVDAPro - there are two compliant video only streams that can be rendered out of VegasPro that will work.
1) For Blu-ray choose to render to a compliant Blu-ray video only stream just like you would do for a media asset for the compilation OR
2) You can use Sony MXF video only stream for a creating a background

Birk Binnard wrote on 10/9/2014, 11:41 PM

Steve - yes, it makes sense that DVDA should not have to re-render input from Vegas. However, several times when I've specified Make Movie/Burn to DVD or BluRay disk/BlueRay Disk with Menus my Vegas has crashed during the render. So when that happens I've switched to the Sony AVCHD AVC/MVC template for rendering. THis one has never failed for me.

Note that I have Vegas Movie Studio Platinum (not Pro) and DVDA Studio 5, which is apparently different from DVDA Pro.

I've noticed that the M2V files created by rendering to BluRay format are noticeably larger than the M2TS files created by the AVC/MVC template. This suggests that AVC/MVC does more internal compression, which DVDA must then un-do to get back to BluRay format.

The DVDA job just crashed again so apparently replacing the menu video with a single still image did not help.

videoITguy - I'll try re-rendering the slomo clip as either an M2V file or MXF. For the menu background I really don't need sound.

TOG62 wrote on 10/10/2014, 1:50 AM

This suggests that AVC/MVC does more internal compression, which DVDA must then un-do to get back to BluRay format.

I don't think that is true if you choose AVC as the video format in DVDAS.

Birk Binnard wrote on 10/10/2014, 2:34 AM

SUCCESS!!!!

Well, sort of.

What I did was replace all the menu video backgrounds with still images. After that the ISO file rendered in 53:50. The ISO file is 13.53 GB and works A-OK when mounted in a virtual disk drive.

I'll check it out in more detail before burning my actual disks.

It is a bit disappointing to not be able to use videos for menu backgrounds. But I guess that's just a limitation of the BD format.

During this whole procedure I did take a look at PowerDirector which seems to be the top-rated consumer-oriented video editor and disk producer. I tried to duplicate the same menu structure I had in DVDA, but I couldn't figure out how to do that. I'm not sure it's possible. So I reckon I'll be sticking with Vegas/DVDA for a while longer.

Thanks to everyone who helped me with this situation. As usual in situations like this I sure learned a lot.

PeterDuke wrote on 10/10/2014, 7:49 PM

"It is a bit disappointing to not be able to use videos for menu backgrounds. But I guess that's just a limitation of the BD format."

No. You should be able to have a movie menu background for BDs. It works for me.

videoITguy wrote on 10/10/2014, 8:46 PM

NOTICE to Birk Binnard - I think everyone including myself has been answering your thread from the perspective of use of professional tools VegasPro and DVDAPro.

As you may now so wisely interpret - not all things fly in the limited feature set of Movie Studio and DVD Studio.

You can most certainly use video backgrounds to DVD and Blu-ray menus - it is in the spec and it is allowed by professional authoring tools. In fact I have created Blu-ray packages with menus far more complex than your current project and used multiple video sourced backgrounds.

Birk Binnard wrote on 10/11/2014, 12:09 AM

Yes, I can surely imagine the differences between the consumer and pro versions of Vegas and DVDA. And of course it would be nice to have the improved functionality of the pro versions. But I am strictly an amateur and have no real justification for the increased cost. Perhaps some day I will make the jump, but for now I'll deal with the limitations I have.