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render size
I am using Sony vegas Pro 9.0. I compile all of my home video taken throughout the year and make 2 or 3 DVD’s out of them. My question is; Is there a way to know what the rendered file size will be before I actually take the time to render it? I would like to put all of my videos together until I get to 4 Gig and then send it over to DVDA for finalization. The problem is I never know how long of a movie to make and if I just make individual scenes, DVDA screws up the buttons for the chapters.
Thanks in advance,
Dan -
5 Replies
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When you render your video, you have to select a template (avi NTSC DV, or WMV 3MBPS, etc…) The sizing of the video is usually displayed in the description under the template name when you’re saving the rendered file. Click on “Custom” to view more options for rendering.
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You control the output size by controlling the bitrate. The DVD Architect MPEG-2 templates default to something pretty close to the maximum DVD rate, around 9Mb/s. 9Mb/s is over 4GB per hour, so you get just over an hour’s worth on a DVD5, depending on the audio format.
If you just want to know the size, that’s easy enough. Go to the template you’re using (eg, “MPEG-2 DVD Architect NTSC Widescreen” or whatever), and find the bitrate listed, on the Video tab. You should be rendering with variable bitrate for best results… use the average here.
Ok… now get your calculator. (bitrate) Mb/s * (length of video) s * 1 byte/ 8 bits = (size of video). If your video time is in minutes, multiply by 60 sec / minute.
You can do a little more advanced programming in DVDA, too. For example, the “generate chapters” function just creates buttons for each marked chapter… there’s nothing terribly magical about these. If you have a bunch of independent clips, and want to create a continuous video with them as-is, you can drop these all onto a submenu in DVD… call that one “Chapters” or “Selections” or whatever menuy buzzword you like.
Take the first video, copy it to your top-level menu, and make that the “PLAY” button. Next, for each of these assets, make the “End Action” a link to the next one in sequence. When you’re done, you’ll have something pretty similar to having rendered a whole video with chapters. DVD Architect isn’t necessarily brilliant about managing links, though, so add the assets in the order you intend to link them. That seems to ensure they always show up in order on the disc… you don’t want needless seeking between chapters.
You can actually use this same technique to create transitions between sections in DVDA. Rather than link the video assets directly, make the “contents” page a set of submenus. On each submenu, drop your asset, but make it invisible. Then, put the transition in as the menu content, and set the end action of the menu to start the video asset. You can’t always make this as silky smooth as a fully rendered single MPEG, but it can be pretty decent.
You can vary the bitrate, for smaller video. That CAN affect output quality, but not always, it depends on the subject matter. Most people want to control time and size, but bitrate is your means of control — the one degree of freedom you have, other than length of video (which, as an artistic decision, should not be used for making technology tweaks). You can find an online bitrate calculator here: https://www.videohelp.com/calc.htm.
-Dave
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Thanks for the quick response! I am a little confused on the calculatinos though. For example, Using MainConcept MPEG2 with DVDA NTSC Widescreen template it says that the average bitrate is 6MBS. The movie length is 17 min. So I would take 6x1020x.125=765 Mb?
I used Pinnacle Studio before and it said right on the screen before the render how much it would be. I am still trying to get used to Vegas.
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Watch your “B”s… B = byte, b = bit. You successfully inverted this, twice, in two small paragraphs. Yeah, that’s 765MB (may show as 747MiB on your hard drive.. and it may claim that’s actually MB, but do not fall for that.. a DVD5 contains room for exactly 4,700,000,000 bytes).
Vegas proper is a professional tool, Pinnacle is a consumer tool. Not that Vegas couldn’t do a little more hand holding without much complaint, but Pinnacle has to, to be a successful consumer tool. Also, with variable bitrate encoding, you don’t know exactly how large the final product will be, only “about”. With constant bitrate encoding, you know precisely, but for DVD, you shouldn’t be doing that.
-Dave
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Thanks so much. One last question though, I hope. Does the imported file size or format matter?
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