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DVD 911
Ok, heres the situation. I’m trying to prepare a DVD for my feature length documentary 100 min. We edited it using Premiere Pro, and I’ve split it up into 9 seperate clips that act as natural chapter points for the DVD.
I had been using Sonic MyDVD, and tried out Ulead DVD Workshop 2.0, but have been unable to get what I want out of those programs. Sonic MyDVD is very much a consumer product, so I didn’t expect much, although it’s been great in the past for short films.
Ulead DVD Workshop has been a total pain in the butt to use. First, all imported clips are “titles” when I need them to be chapters. Also, I can only burn a 60 Minute DVD at high quality? I can’t do med quality (90 min), as the project runs 100 min. So if I try it as “standard quality” (120 Min) the video quality is terrible. Don’t DVDs hold 120 minutes anyways?
What would you guys suggest as a better, all inclusive DVD authoring software? Lets say my budget is $400 bucks, whats the best? Also, if there is another software maybe around the $100 range that would get me by for a few weeks just so I can get copies of my rough cut on DVD to show my producers, and friends for feedback.
Any help would be great, thank you!
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2 Replies
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[Jedi Shaun] “I can only burn a 60 Minute DVD at high quality?”
You are not limited to the default encoding templates that come with DVD Workshop. You can modify them to be whatever bitrate works best for length of your show. If you need help try posting on the Ulead DVD Workshop COW.
You will need to study up on and figure out the appropriate bit budget for the project so that you can encode to mpeg2 at the best possible bitrate. Google for “DVD Bit budget” to get more learning opportunities than you’ll know what to do with.
My bitbudget calculations for a 100 min show suggest a VBR encode with max @ 9.6Mb/s, Average @ 5.8Mb/s, and minimum @ 3.5Mb/s as the bitrate parameters. These numbers assume Dolby stereo audio encoded at 192 Kb/s. This does not include the space needed for motion menus or other assets that might be part of the project. So don’t use my numbers without accounting for everything that will be on the disc.
I might suggest that you export the mpeg2 right from the PPro timeline as opposed to exporting an avi and then having DVD Workshop do the encode. If you do this (and use DVD WS) you can tell DVD WS to NOT conform the files to the encoding template. The mpeg2 encoder PPro uses is, IMO, better than the one that DVD WS uses. The mpeg files exported from PPro will import into DVD WS just fine.
[Jedi Shaun] “all imported clips are “titles” when I need them to be chapters”
You can make it behave exactly as you want. Again, the Ulead DVD WS Cow is the place to go for “how-to” answers.
Hope this helps.
Dave
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Jedi Shaun said: <
> that sounds like it could be one of your problems. If you have 9 clips, they are 9 timelines. When played back, there will be quite a pause between timelines. You probably don’t want a long gap between those 9 clips. It sounds like you should (instead) have one clip 100 min. long and add chapter points. You can use Premiere Pro to do the MPEG2 conversion for you as mentioned by the last guy. (File/Edit/Adobe Media Encoder.) I personally wouldn’t use such a high number for the max bitrate, but otherwise I agree with his numbers. I use Adobe Encore, but I admit it’s complicated.
Davideo
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