DVD Architect File Size Limit

[Bob Peterson]

Why do you want to render in DVD Architect where you have no control? Architect’s job is to put things together for the target media, and add control menus. Rendering should be completed in Vegas where you can tweak the render for the best possible results.

[James Magda]

I didn’t say anything about rendering in DVD Architect – I didn’t even know you could.

I’m talking about a movie I am working on in Vegas Pro 10, rendering it (in Vegas Pro 10) and authoring it in DVD Architect Pro 5.

[Brett Underberg-davis]

First question, I’m assuming you are generating DVDs rather than BluRay?

Actually, either format have a fairly narrowly defined file format it accepts natively. I confess I haven’t tried to use Architect to convert a massive AVI or other unsupported format directly using Architect, mainly because I tend to assume that it would most likely lead to a bad disc.

You face, in any case, the storage limits of the format. In the case of DVD, it’s 4.7GB for the entire disc (twice that on a double layer disc). That’s the main limit to consider, and if you’re assembling a DVD with menus and other added content, you should be getting a status report as you develop and structure your disc that keeps you aware of how much of that space you are using.

To be playable on a standard DVD player, it is best to render specifically in the formats that the DVD format requires. But maybe I’m missing some variation here?

Sorry if I’m off base… I realize in re-reading that you are planning to generate a BluRay, but my sense is that BluRay requires a similarly limited set of choices in most cases as well, albeit some, especially in the audio, can be uncompressed. But as far as I know, BluRay more or less requires the equivalent of an MPEG-4 Transport Stream which tends to be more or less similar to the MP4 format in most respects, reliant on H.264 video encoding. Are there other variants I’m unaware of? (I haven’t had the budget or the demand so far to dig into BluRay except on an theoretical level).

[Stephen Mann]

[James Magda] ” even if I render out this huge file, will DVD Architect accept it as an input file?”

Yes, but it will re-encode it to the format it wants. Compromising quality and unnecessarily taking more time.

You encode your video in Vegas using the Main Concept codec and the DVD Architect template. You encode the audio using the Dolby Digital AC3 template, using the same root file name. When you bring the video file into the DVDA Project Overview window, the audio should follow. (The audio doesn’t show up in the Project Overview window, it does show as a waveform in the Timeline window.)

The default parameters in the video template are good for a 70-minute DVD. If your video is longer than 70-minutes, you will have to reduce the bitrate (Google for a bitrate calculator) to make it fit without DVDA wanting to re-encode the video.

My rule of thumb – put the audio, video and any extras files into an empty folder. If they total 4.3GB or less in Windows Explorer, then they will fit in a standard DVD.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Brett Underberg-davis]

Great advice, but he is doing BluRay, not DVD. Still, I imagine similar principles apply there as well. Avoiding comment, since I can’t speak from any depth of experience, given my budget doesn’t include making coasters out of BluRay discs.

[Stephen Mann]

You are correct, Brett – I missed the BluRay reference in the OP.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com