DVDA 5.0 estimated size & bitrate oddity
by Bob Ridge
on
Oct 17, 2008 at 4:40:09 pm
For previous versions of DVD Architect, I could bring a 2-hour AVI video into the project, and in Optimize Disc the default video bitrate would be well over 4.000 once I set the estimated size to 95% of a 4.7GB DVD. This time with DVDA 5.0, the M2V video I created is only 1hr 45min, yet bringing the estimated size down to 95% reduces the bitrate to 3.570! Why is that? It seems like the final MPEG-2 bitrate should be whatever it is relative to the length, regardless of the format of the source video. I'm using M2V (Vegas Blu-ray template) so I can use DVDA 5.0 to create both Blu-ray and DVD from the same project, and I'd prefer not to have to render an AVI as well just for the DVD, unless you believe it looks better and can compress at a higher bitrate. Thoughts?
Re: DVDA 5.0 estimated size & bitrate oddity by Bob Ridge on Oct 17, 2008 at 6:22:43 pm
OK, I've figured out the problem, I just need a solution. Here are more pertinent details. My full wedding video is 2hr 30min, so I'm splitting it up into two discs. The first disc is 45min, and the second is 1hr 45min. When I insert the full video into the project and set in/out points for the portion of the clip I want for that project, DVDA does something funny. If I drag the out point back and forth, the "disc space used" counter changes accordingly. But when I drag the in point back and forth, the counter doesn't budge. Why is DVDA acting like it wants to render everything prior to the in point? I'll try a small test render of the last minute of the master clip to see if it really wants to render the whole thing. If it only renders the last minute, I'll be good to go. I'll just have to guesstimate the bitrate for the portion I need when I go to Optimize Disc. Any other ideas?
Re: DVDA 5.0 estimated size & bitrate oddity by Bob Ridge on Oct 18, 2008 at 6:54:03 pm
I just attempted to do all of the above for a Blu-ray version of the same project, and result is even worse. Even though it supposedly lets you set the in and out point of a clip, it wants to render the entire clip, regardless of whether the in point is at the beginning of the clip. Has no one else come across this issue? Seems like a pretty significant bug.
Re: DVDA 5.0 estimated size & bitrate oddity by David Shirey on Oct 20, 2008 at 7:13:18 pm
I don't know, it definitely sounds like an odd issue. When I do blurays and dvd's of a project, I just render out a separate mpeg2 for the dvd version, keeping the same ac3 for audio. Also if it's split into two discs I'd render one file for the first disc and one for the second. It should be easy enough to use a bitrate calculator to choose the appropriate settings straight out of vegas and render an mpeg2, rather than rendering out a whole avi then having DVDA rerender it as an mpeg2.
Although now that you mention it I'm surprised Vegas hasn't incorporated a "make-it-fit" wizard into the NTSC DVD Architect MPEG2 template options. Seems like it'd come in handy for anyone who has to fit more than an hour onto a single layer dvd-r.
I know the bluray file is high resolution, but you're still having it recompress a video from an already compressed video. Why not just do the mpeg2 straight out of Vegas?
Re: DVDA 5.0 estimated size & bitrate oddity by Bob Ridge on Oct 21, 2008 at 1:55:27 pm
That's what I finally did. I know that's the ideal workflow anyway, and come to think of it, it shouldn't add that much rendering time overall. I was just trying to take advantage of DVDA 5.0's capabilities, and it frustrated me to see one of its basic features not working. (I'm really surprised that no one else on this board is concerned about the "trim" feature not working - what's the point of even having it??? Maybe no one uses it.) Anyway, thanks...
Re: DVDA 5.0 estimated size & bitrate oddity by David Shirey on Oct 21, 2008 at 4:29:07 pm
While DVDA 5 is good software, I think most of us here prefer doing just about everything in Vegas where we feel we have more control, and then just letting DVDA handle the menus to access the files we've already rendered. However if the trim feature is broken Sony should certainly fix it.
