authoring DVD in AVID DVD by Sonic

[Michael Kammes]

How big are your video media files? (all combined)

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Michael Kammes]

How big are your video media files? (all combined)

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
.: senior applications editor . post workflow consultant
.: audio specialist . act fcp . acsr
.: michaelkammes.com
.: twitter: @michaelkammes
.: facebook: /mkammes

Hear me pontificate: Speaking Schedule .

[Lori Porter]

Michael – they are only 2.05 GB TOTAL. The two menu pages don’t seem to be taking up much space at all.

I almost think I have a setting wrong… because when I drag the movie into the project – I think it’s thinking it’s an HD not a SD movie. But I don’t know how to change that. Do you know of a setting like that? No matter what size video I put into the project – it says I’m over by the same ammount -630+ MB!!

[Paul Allen]

Lori,
When I’ve had this problem in the past I’ve gone into ‘File’ =>’Project Settings’=> then clicked the tab which says ‘SD Transcoding’. In here you can specify the data rate for the video so that it will fit on a DVD. Under ‘encode style’ you have the choice of CBR or VBR – for the purposes of simplicity I’d choose CBR and then change the ‘Target Bit Rate’ – just keep lowering it till it tells you it will fit. To check, click ‘Apply’, and then take a look in the bottom left corner of the screen where it tells you how much space you have remaining on your disc. As long as you’ve got a positive number you’ll be fine (i.e. it’s not red),

Paul

Avid Media Composer. PC with Intel DP35DP s775 iP35 ATX motherboard. Core 2 Extreme CPU QX6800 2.93GHz (4 CPUSs). 2030MB RAM. 256MB Nvidia Quadro/FX1500 PCIe

[Lori Porter]

Paul,

Thank you for your response. I’m actually compressing in Sorenson. My movie is only 2.05 GB. When I put it into the project it becomes WAY over!! THAT should not be happening. Also – no matter what size compressed video (an hour – 90min., two hours) I’m getting the same error (in red) on the bottom. Something is wrong. It’s almost like it wants to make the project HD not SD.

Have you heard of a dud? I’ve been doing this for a while – and never had an issue like this. I’m sort of “new” to using Avid DVD by Sonic… so I don’t really know all the ins and outs – but my movie should fit fine. I’m really at a loss. So any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Lori

[Paul Allen]

Lori,
My feeling is that I don’t think you’re conceptualising the DVD burning process right. Even if you compress in Sorenson, Avid DVD still needs to specify a bit rate for burning the DVD. If this is too high, even a 10 minute film which is 50MB could theoretically go over the DVD size limit. Size on disk = length of video x bit rate. I’ve had exactly the situation you describe before and couldn’t work out why the video wouldn’t fit when it was way below the 4.7GB limit… and then realised that burning a DVD for video playback isn’t the same as just burning files to a data disk. Try setting the bit rate really low and you’ll hopefully it will work ok.
Paul

Avid Media Composer. PC with Intel DP35DP s775 iP35 ATX motherboard. Core 2 Extreme CPU QX6800 2.93GHz (4 CPUSs). 2030MB RAM. 256MB Nvidia Quadro/FX1500 PCIe

[Lori Porter]

Yes – Paul, I’m with you on everything you said. I actually spoke with someone from Avid this afternoon… and they said that sorenson and Avid DVD don’t “play nice togehter.” So – now I’m just taking my QT movie – and puting that directly into my project… and compressing within Avid DVD… all worked perfectly. My video looked different before the burn… but it worked out.

Thank you for all your help! I really appreciated it! Sorry if I seemed like a spaz, but I had been using a different authoring software. After switching to Avid DVD for a while now – never encountered this issue… that’s why I couldn’t understand what was up. Fun!

Hope you’re having a good week!
-Lori

[Paul Allen]

No probs Lori, glad you got it sorted in the end. I know the pain of DVD authoring from first hand experience!

Paul

Avid Media Composer. PC with Intel DP35DP s775 iP35 ATX motherboard. Core 2 Extreme CPU QX6800 2.93GHz (4 CPUSs). 2030MB RAM. 256MB Nvidia Quadro/FX1500 PCIe

[Bob Mixter]

Actually, Avid DVD & Sorenson Squeeze work fine together… I use them weekly to create a show DVD.
What you need to do is use Sorenson Squeeze to create an MPG2 video file instead of a QT.
If you import a QT or other file format into AVID DVD, it must transcode it into a MPG2 file before DVD creation.
Using Sorenson to create your video files prior to authoring will give you more control of the quality of your videos. For instance, if you have a main video & numerous extras, you can use the highest MPEG2 bitrate for the main & squeeze down the bitrate on the extras.
And if you import MPG2 video files into your DVD project, the simulation function in Avid DVD will run much better & the actual building of the disc will go much faster.

I know this post is quite late, but hopefully it will help someone else with the same issue.

Bob

“sorenson and Avid DVD don’t “play nice togehter.” So – now I’m just taking my QT movie – and puting that directly into my project… and compressing within Avid DVD… all worked perfectly. My video looked different before the burn… but it worked out.”