DVD Architect multi angles preparation error

[Gael Doyen]

For those encountering the same problem, I had found a workaround…! I had imported all the avi files into Vegas 7 and re-rendered them as DV-AVI files, without any recompression needed. It seemed to fix a problem introduced by later versions of Vegas. Then, using those files in DVD Architect 4 worked perfectly and mu multi-angle project was prepared without any problem.

But…

I am currently working on a new multi-angle project, which this time needs to be recompressed because it is too large for a double layer DVD. I worked with Vegas 10 / DVD Architect 5.2, thinking the bugs had been fixed in those new versions. They were obviously not…! I have followed the same procedure as above but I het the same error messages as before, namely “An error occurred while writing a file. The reason could not be determined”. The preparation stops at approximately 57%, always at the same moment. The incomplete vob file is corrupt when I open it in Vegas: the audio and video “skip”, like a scratched record, at the end of the file.

Any idea of what could be happening here?

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Gael Doyen]

Anyone?

[Gael Doyen]

Update on my problem…

I had a look at the temporary files corresponding to all the compressed videos used to compile the multi-angles DVD. I noticed that all of them are shorter and incomplete: it seems that DVD Architect reduces the size of all video segments to fit into the final DVD by reducing the length of the file instead of the bitrate. It is seriously odd but it explains why the partially rendered DVD is such a mess and unusable!

If I remove alternate angle videos to stay below the maximum DVD size, therefore without recompression needed, the project will prepare without problems. So it is the recompression of the avi files that is buggy. Is there any workaround?

Could someone please give me a hand with that problem, it is driving me crazy for good!

[Daniel Prantl]

hello,

maybe this answer is a little late but hopefully it can resolve this problem I’ve been working with a long time now.
I’ve had the same error message (error writing file. the reason could not be determined) in many different settings, but all with very big file sizes involved. Researching in many different forums brought up that the “error writing file”-message only seems to show up under these circumstances (multi-angle projects, blueray, etc.., is to say “big” projects with reencoding). Now I realized that the error comes up in the process of disc preparation at the specific moment a VTS_01_10.vob should be created (as the other .vobs are bigger than 1 GB). A Number greater than 9 seems to be unallowed in the DVD specifications (file name length limit). Of course, this normally is not necessary as the maximun dvd size is about 8,5 GB. But even when DVD Architect states that the file size could be OK, this is just an estimation because the multiangle content is reencoded by DVDA (unfortunately this has to be).

The problem could thus be resolved (up to this moment, I hope this was the big fault), by setting the recompresion bitrate a bit lower, so that the estimation of DVD architect is about 1 GB below the DVD-size limit (about 7,5 GB).

I would be very interested if any other users observed the same behaviour in likewise situations and if reducing the resulting file size solves this issue.

Thanks in advance,

Daniel

[Gael Doyen]

Hi,

Actually I found out what was wrong and caused the error. It took me over one month scratching my head to find out what was going on: I was so desperate that I was about to give up and delete my entire project. So… I would always get the error at the very same moment of the project preparation, so I decided to remove all chapter markers and then it worked! Reimporting the markers one by one revealed that one of the chapters markers, despite being “valid” according to the application, was causing the error. Moving it to the next valid position (without the exclamation mark of course) fixed the problem temporarily as the project preparation would still fail but at a later position. So in the end around 4 or 5 markers were seemingly invalid and had to be moved. Enventually the project prepared completely. Very strange bug! I hope it will help other people facing the same problem!