Hi

I'm hoping someone can advise me on the best way of tackling my problem.

The way I know how to do this will be very time consuming, so open to lots of suggestions from the experienced out there who can advise on better ways to achieve what I want even if they are not specifically Vegas related.

I've just captured about 20 DV tapes to HDD.

The footage from each tape lives in its own folder.

Folder sizes vary but on average around 13Gb each. So a lot of data

I need to put all this footage (every piece) to DVD (how many DVDs I'm going to burn I don't know )

So here goes ....

The only way I can think of achieving this is to painfully render sizeable chunks of footage from within Vegas and then drop these sizeable chunks into DVD Achitect (staying under approx 4Gb to allow for the menus etc) and then burn to DVD.

Repeat this task until each folder is done.

What do you think?

Working on the fact that any rendering done in Vegas will be very basic, just footage on the timeline ... no overlays, transitions, or soundtracks etc just basic footage on its own.

What would be a good filesize to aim for? And what is the optimum filesize (combined) of footage to import into DVD Artchitect so I don't start running into file space issues.

Hopefully (I would think) there's a much better solution than the above and thats what I'm hoping for .... so please fire away


Thanks all

First off, you must be speaking miniDV tapes - yes?

Some Math with easily doing 2 hours (120 minutes) to a DVD:

1 x 1miniDV tape = 1 hour ( yeah?)

20 miniDV tapes = 20 Hours

2hours = 1 DVD

20 Hours = 10 DVDs

So, that's the Math on the DVD side of things.

OK, why not TRY a straight: miniDV FOLDER >> DVDA ?

I also have/had a copy of DVDShrink. Theoretically, once you have Prepared a DVD from 2 miniDV tape Folders, within DVDA, and IF you got into trouble with size, passing this DVD structure through DVD Shrink would smash it further down.

Now IF you had had a DVD recorder!!!!

Grazie

Grazie,

Thanks for the reply

I already have DVDShrink installed so thought I'd give it a bash.

Well I didnt actually get that far.

I thought I'd try and drop a whole folder (13Gb) into DVDA and see what happens. Basically hoping I'd end up with some VOB files that I could DVDShrink.

I kicked the prepare off and it said estimate 4 hours ... so I left it and returned 4 hours to find it saying that it was doing number 3 of 61 .... (there were 61 clips in the folder) so I thought there must be a quicker way.

Any suggestions? should I make one large clip in Vegas first then drop it into DVDA ...... then DVDShrinking it?


Big thanks

.. thought I'd add that it didnt take 4 hours to do the first 2 clips.

I can't remember what it said it was doing initially, but it did move on and do some audio, then onto the clips .... so I presume it must have done some re-encoding of the whole folder first hence the 4 hours.

Either way it was taking a long time ......

I'm using a P4 CPU 2.93Ghz with 1Gb or RAM.

DVD-A is a lot slower in the render mode, use Vegas to render, put two hours on the time line, then add any chapters, then render as MPG2 and AC3 this helps keep the file size down. Use a avg rate of 4M p/s for the conversion, or do 10 Min's of render see what size you get then multiply it and see if it fits in to a DVD, you should aim for about 4.3Gb for the DVD as DVD-A seems to thinks the files are bigger for some reason

DVD Shrink is used to strip menus & bonus features and the likes you end with the original footage is of no practical use here, even if use for re-render as it will degrade the quality.

I have managed to get 2hours .40mins on a recent project using 2 pass, its OK but not brilliant.

If no fancy menus are required, may be easier to copy into a DVD -Recorder and saving the hassle of encoding and burning.

Well you TRIED. And that was my invitation to you.

Now go down the Vegas Timeline route and make up batches of 2 hours at a time ( as per Cheema). As you won't have any fxs or trannies or whatever, Vegas SHOULD rip through these. Use the DVDA Video only stream only template and the AC3 encoding. You may also wanna try creating an interim AVI and render from your timeline - this is what I do. Once you DO have the BIG single AVI, Vegas will rip through this in greater than real time.

And as I suggested, IF you had a DVD Recorder it would remove all this faffing about.

I have used DVDShrink and have it found it removes anything from the authoring?

So, go via Vegas instead.

Grazie

Cheers for the replies gents, much appreciated.

I have the whole weekend alone so going to hopefully try and get this sorted without any interruptions

I haven't got a DVD Recorder and if I bought a cheap one for this task I'd have no use for it again .... but if all else fails or turns out to be time consuming, then I may decide to go this route and could always stick it on eBay.

As suggested above I'll render via Vegas and drop into DVDA (using the settings suggested) - I'll make a few interim clips and check the file sizes and quality etc.

I'll start this, this evening and let you guys know how I get on.

Thanks again.

SF

Make sure you set the properties in DVD to AC3 sound, other wise it will have to re-render

When the clips are dropped in DVD-A NO re-render or anything should be required (apart from making the required files for a DVD), so do a test bit first and make sure it is right

FYI, Vegas will render faster on 2 & 4 cores (not for DVD-A) my 4 core does it at 4 times real speed if no effects

Also if you do re-render an MPEG out and need to adjust a bit, you put it on the time line and re-edit and as long as you render out in exactly the same format no re-rendering will happen, only any effects will be rendered.

Tape one comes in at just over 1hr 3mins and took 1hr 9mins to render within Vegas. So I'm pleased with that.

I clicked 'Render As' and selected 'MainConcept MPEG-2' so I hope this was what you both meant.

I looked throught the various options and could not find anything relating to AC3 other than the 'Render As' Save as Type dropdown (but I choose MPEG-2 as above)

Is there an AC3 option somewhere else?

The reason I am asking is that, although I'm happy with the 1hr 9mins ... DVDA seems sluggish again.

I dropped the MPEG (1.85GB) into DVDA and click prepare and burn (the AC3 option here was already selected) and its now on 2% done and with approx 2hrs 36 mins left - BUT it says its rendering?

Should it be rendering a MPEG-2 again? if so then I suppose 2hrs 36mins isn't to bad (if thats all it will be)

I just hope that after 2hrs 36mins it doesn't decide to do something else which takes another couple of hours (i.e. my experiences from my first attempt)

Hope the above makes sense.

Thanks.

That's why I suggested to try just a small section, to save time in the final render...

The reason for the re-render is because you have dona an MPEG with PCM sound and DVD is now trying to convert it to AC3 and so on.....

There is no AC3 option in the MPEG options, it has its own template.

You need to make your own render template using one all ready there, make sure the audio is not selected in there then render when that is done then render the same file using the AC3 template, so two renders here one for video one for audio, this is where the SCRIPTS come in handy as they will do them automatically for you

There is no point in doing a render in Vegas and then getting DVD-A to do it all again.

Normally a 2 hour video with AC3 takes DVD-A about 12 mins to make the Vob files and its ready to burn, that takes about 12mins again depending on the write speed,