wierdness: how can this be?

tbobpage wrote on 5/28/2005, 10:35 PM
Hi all,

I have a project in DVDA, rendered from VV5 with DVDA NTSC template, audio included. I go to delete the audio portion of the movie and the project size (noted in lower left corner) doubles from 3.4 to 6.9 gigs. I think "hm, that's strange", so I go delete the video and it jumps another 3.4 or so gigs bigger yet.

How can the project get bigger if I'm cutting stuff? There's got to be something I'm missing here.......

todd

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 5/28/2005, 11:47 PM
Do you have more than one "instance" of the same media included in the project? If you use the same media more than once, it will not be duplicated on the disk. However, if you do something to one instance of the media, such as add subtitles, or change color or intensity (DVDA 3.0 only), then the media will duplicated rather than re-used.
bStro wrote on 5/29/2005, 12:12 AM
have a project in DVDA, rendered from VV5 with DVDA NTSC template

I suspect you mean the DVD NTSC template. The DVDA NTSC template doesn't include audio. Best to use the DVDA NTSC template for video and do the audio separately.

How can the project get bigger if I'm cutting stuff?

One possibility: DVDA is estimating how much "filler" it's going to put in place of what you deleted. Every piece of media has a video stream and an audio stream. If you delete one or the other without deleting the actual media item itself, and then you go to prepare your project, DVDA is going to create a new (blank / silent) stream in its place at the default bitrate. What you're seeing is DVDA estimating how much space that filler stream is going to take.

In addition, DVDA isn't very good at estimating project sizes. (At least it wasn't in 1.0 or 2.0. I haven't noticed yet if there's an improvement in 3.0.) Save and close your project and re-open it -- the estimate should be closer, though probably not right on, the truth.

Rob
tbobpage wrote on 5/29/2005, 9:55 PM
I really appreciate you both helping me out --

Actually, I did use the DVDA NTSC template but then customized it to include the audio. Ended up going back and doing them separately anyhow, though because I developed sync issues...... I think from it having to decompress then recompress the audio to go from MPG2 to AC3,

Anyhow, I do think it must have something to do with estimation problems, but then again, when I went back in and inspected the tracks, I found a section devoid of audio and when I added the audio track in that spot, the project shrunk from 9.8 gb back to the normal 4.7 I was originally seeing. Just plain weirdness. I will have to do some more reading in the manual about setting up the menus and see if I'm not doing something stupid there...

I did try closing and reopening but the file size didn't change -- I'll have to see if it figures it out in DVDA3 -- just ordered today (nothing like waiting until the last minute....)

Thanks again for the help!

todd