Why have a silent mpeg file. What if you need that file for the web or something?

Then you go back to your project and render the appropriate file format. A 720x480 MPEG2 isn't exactly appropriate for the web, anyhow, so I'd say that what kind of file(s) you render for DVDA would be moot in that regard.

Rob

Thanks. I'm curious how much actual time does it save you? Do you mean Vegas rendering time or just when loading the project in DVDA. I know DVDA builds peaks when loading the project.

Also how much difference in quality is there in the audio from what Vegas renders in the mpeg and the ac3 audio stream?

And can you burn 2 separate audio and video streams in other DVD authoring software beside DVDA if you need to?

"And can you burn 2 separate audio and video streams in other DVD authoring software beside DVDA if you need to?"

Each Title can only have one video track, but can have multiple audio & sub tracks. Whether your other software will handle multiple audio &/or subs, or if it'll even handle subs, is a different matter - cheaper authoring programs often don't.

"Also how much difference in quality is there in the audio from what Vegas renders in the mpeg and the ac3 audio stream?"

Depends on your ears, the quality of the original, what sort of audio it is (music or dialog etc.), how much compression you use for the mpg audio etc... Mpeg audio is lossy, meaning some data will be tossed out to make the file smaller. The idea is why toss out anything before you encode to AC3? Maybe you'll hear it, maybe you won't, but why take the gamble, even if it took a few minutes longer?

"I'm curious how much actual time does it save you?"

Rendering (encoding) first to mpeg audio takes some time, splitting the audio & video streams takes time, & writing intermediate temporary files prior to encoding AC3 takes some time. How much exactly is dependent on the rig you're using. The only way you can tell what your times will be is to time yourself both ways.

For example, preparing a DVD to hdd in DVDA, with source & destination on the same drive, no menu - just copying files & writing structure so there's next to no CPU usage, render time drops to roughly half using AHCI disc access. Bouncing to another drive cuts time further, while a faster CPU & motherboard, RAM etc. cut the time needed to render anything like menus. OTOH, those other factors don't make nearly as much difference as AHCI. SATA vs IDE should make a difference, but using a cheap IDE -> SATA convertor on 1 storage drive, it doesn't really matter.

Great response. Thanks!