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DVD ‘live’ workflow
I am looking for suggestions on a ‘live’ authoring workflow.
Basically, I use a Canon XL2 to caputure approximately 4 minutes of video. The Canon writes and AVI file directly to a hard drive in AVI format using Canon’s capture program.
I then pull that video across a Gb netowkr to an authoring machine which can have either Sony or Adobe video and DV editing tools on it. I use Sony Pro offerings more of the time.
Here is where the advice comes in.
I’ve attempted using a live burn using a DVD recorder. The video is caputered fine, but it takes 10 minutes to finalize that DVD before I can pull it our and replicate on site.
In using the direct to disk workflow outlined above, I am still at about the same time limit, maybe a little faster.
Is there an authoring program that would be quicker than Sony DVDa? Should I encode an MPG2 file in Vegas Pro then author the single scene DVD in DVDa?
The goal is to capture the 4 minutes and get a single DVD authored in 4 minutes. I use AMD quad core machines with 16Gb ram and SATA I drives. I can also add a SATA I SSD if that will speed things up.
I can set up multiple machines so that one can be rendering/burning while the next is being set up.
Does memory or CPU effect DVD authoring more? If I take the AVI file into DVDa, it has to rerender the file, so speeding that up is important… or re-encoding before DVDa if that works faster.
Thanks for any insight you might have.
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10 Replies
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Authoring isn’t the issue, it’s the encoding. What I would do it hook you camera to set top recorder. Record and when your done, either use that or demux the mpeg stream with mpeg stream clip and drag this onto you authoring station
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Eric,
Am I to understand you correctly? A set top box recorder? As in hard drive recorder? Or a direct to DVD recorder?
The Canon has a DV output, as well as component outputs, but the Canon program records and writes AVI only, it doesn’t encode on the fly.
I can’t have a device at the camera that isn’t hooked to the network, it has to travel across a wire to an authoring station.
Perhaps a CF recorder with Firewire inputs? Swap the card, pull the video off the card and then author?
The final product has to be a duplication ready DVD.
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A direct to DVD recorder.
Once its done recording you’d pop out the DVD and take it over to your authoring system. Use MPEG StreamClip to demux the MPEG 2 stream and audio you just recorded and import that into your authoring tool.
Now this is the fastest and fastest is not always best. But 4 mins? Thats wishfull thinking 🙂
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Eric,
As noted in the original post –
–I’ve attempted using a live burn using a DVD recorder. The video is caputered fine, but it takes 10 minutes to finalize that DVD before I can pull it our and replicate on site.–
So, I’ve already tried that method, and 10 minutes to finalize the DVD is too long. If this method worked faster, I could dupicate this DVD directly, but it doesn’t, so I am looking for the best possible solution.
The content is a 4 minute video. I need to capture, encode and burn a DVD faster than 10 minutes.
So, maybe the question should be:
What effects encoding speed more, CPU or Memory?
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You said it writes AVI not mpeg 2. Going to a set top encodes in RT. All you need to do is demux the encoded streams an author.
Doesn’t matter what process you use, 4 min is never going to happen
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The software provided by Canon which is on a laptop writes AVI.
The format the DVD recorder writes to before it finalizes is unknown.
The finalization on the4 DVD recorder is the gating factor right now. It takes 10 minutes to finalize, it produces a ready to duplicate DVD, but the timing is not acceptable.
I am going to test combinations of software/memory to see what I can come up with.
I refuse to believe that a 4 minute video MUST take 10 minutes to get on a DVD.
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The reason why it’s the gating factor is because it needs to be encoded to mpeg 2 then built and formatted. All DVDs are mpeg 1/2. 10 min sounds about right
Your dealing with the one issue all DVD authors have been dealing with for the last 20 years….. Speeding up the encoding and build processes. 🙂
Good luck
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Well, the problem is more or less solved. With quite a bit of trial and error, I managed to get the process from 10+ minutes down to 4.5 minutes.
The steps:
Acquire direct from the Canon XL2 in AVI format.
Use a 3rd party program to ‘convert’ the AVI to MPEG2 (1 minute)
Create a Single Movie DVD in DVD Architect.
‘Author’ and burn the DVD in DVD Architect at 16x (3.5 minutes)This yields a duplication ready DVD, in hand, in 4.5 minutes. More importantly, it has a work flow and timing that I can live with and work with at a live event where I am trying to deliver onsite DVDs.
The box the work is done on:
ASUS M4A78LT-M AM3 AMD 760G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
ASUS EAH5450 Radeon HD 5450 512MB 64-bit DDR2 PCI Express 2.1 x16 AMD Athlon II X3 435 Rana 2.9GHz (4th core enabled)
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 16GB DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
4 Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1Tb drives
ASUS 24X DVD Burner SATA Model DRW-24B3LT
LG Black 10X Blu-ray Burner WH10LS30 -
Amazing! Ive been doing nothing but DVD work since the late 90s and there’s no way I’d be able to encode, mux and burn a 4min piece in 4.5 mins. Good work!
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Eric,
I’m pretty suprised that I got it to that time, but the AVI conversion program (IMToo) creates an MPG file that DVD Architect likes. It doesn’t rerender the video, although it does recompress the audio.
There was discussion in the Sony forum as to the ‘lead out’ write time and a suggestion that DVD+r would write the lead out faster than DVD-r, but my tests showed no difference.
Still doing some tests to see if there is some step I’ve missed that effects the quality, but I’m happy with the workflow and having duplication ready DVDs in around 4 minutes.
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