Encore DVD file too large

[Daniel Ludwig]

Curtins,
you should not import uncompressed movies to encore (MOV or AVI). if you´ll create a propper authoring you transcode your assets prior authoring.

therefor you need to do a bitbudgeting, a calculation of your video/audio-bitrate to not overfill the disc.

encoding could be done with adobe media encoder, that comes with CS5. I would advice to encode to MPEG2 and Dolby AC3.

please google for tools – there are planty available.

cheers

danny

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Curtis,

I agree with Danny, don’t leave encoding up to Encore. From Premiere, use Adobe Media Encoder to create your assets. Choose an “MPEG-2 for DVD” format, and an appropriate preset, like “NTSC Widescreen” or whatever suits your needs.

There are many “bitrate calculators” available online, but I found a very simple formula on the Adobe site: 560/minutes=bitrate

For instance, 560/120=4.66, and I round down a bit to allow for menus and other overhead and leave some safety margin, so 4.5 is a good setting. For short videos, I recommend not going over 6 or 7, as too high of a bitrate can choke some players. I generally stick with CBR encoding for most jobs.

In the case you discuss at 1 hour 49 minutes, use 560/109=5.13, so just encode at 5.0 and you should be golden. AME will put out two files, .m2v video and .wav audio. Create a New DVD Project in Encore – don’t mess with default encode settings – and use File > Import > As Timeline and select the two clips and bring them in. That’s it, then create menus and such. Note that chapter markers from Premiere are preserved using this method.

The video should NOT require any transcoding, will be left alone, and the .wav file will be transcoded to Dolby AC-3 automatically when building the job.

You’ll be amazed how quickly you can build a disc or image when you don’t have to encode the video. I’m talking a few minutes on a fast machine! For me, this is the best workflow because it eliminates long renders that upset the creative process when proofing discs and such.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Heidi Alina]

This is very helpful. But is there any way to fix this in Encore? Unfortunately, I did not know this before I exported my movie from Premiere, creating a Quicktime .mov file, which I then imported into Encore to create my DVD. My DVD is an hour and 25min long, but I have created 25 chapters and spent probably more than 10 hours putting it all together due to program crashes and other problems, and I really don’t want to have to go back to Premiere and recreate all those chapters and encode the movie again (which took my system more than 8 hours the first time).

If I DO have to resort to that, is a P2 Movie the same as MPEG-2 for DVD? I don’t see the MPEG-2 for DVD option in Premier CS6, but there is a P2 Movie option.

Thanks for the help.

[Heidi Alina]

Strange that I don’t have the MPEG-2 for DVD preset – why would that be? I’ve searched and searched and definitely don’t have it. I’m at a loss as to what I can do to actually create a DVD movie now! Seems like this should be such a simple thing to be able to fit an hour-and-a-half long movie onto a DVD-R that is supposed to be able to handle up to 2 hours…
Please Help!!

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Heidi,

I’ve seen a few recent postings from people missing the MPEG-2 encoding presets. You will probably need to uninstall/reinstall Adobe programs to resolve, as something went bad with the initial install. Assuming you are running fully licensed version – certain codecs are missing from trial versions due to licensing/royalty issues.

DVDs use ONE format, and that is MPEG-2 encoded a certain way, so if you import anything else into Encore, it will need to Transcode, meaning the video will be encoded yet again inside Encore before burning.

Try this – in Encore, go to File > Edit Quality Presets

There you will find the Export Settings panel. Choose “MPEG-2 DVD” for Format, and for Preset, choose “NTSC DV High Quality 8mb CBR 1 Pass”. Then go to the VIDEO tab and adjust the following parameters:

Frame Rate
Aspect Ratio
Bitrate

Frame rate is usually 29.97, and aspect will be 4:3 or 16:9, choose the latter for widescreen source. For bitrate, with 1 hour 25 minutes of video, set that at 6.5

Under AUDIO tab, make sure it is “Dolby Digital”.

“Check Project” again and see if you get the too large error. If so, lower bitrate to 6.4 and try again.

I hope this works for you

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Heidi Alina]

Thank you so much – I will try it and let you know!!

[Heidi Alina]

Well, no luck. I even created a new quicktime movie with lower settings that was half the size of the original; created a new Encore project using that, but still the file is too large to burn to disc.

I checked my CS5.5, and I do have the MPEG-2 DVD preset in that program, so looks like I will have to start all over and use CS5.5. Thanks for the advice.

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Heidi,

To be clear, the size of the .mov file you Import to Encore has nothing to do with the “too large” error, since Encore needs to TRANSCODE that to another format (MPEG-2) anyway.

The best practice is to create the correct assets using AME right from Premiere, then Import into Encore and no further transcoding needed for the video content, is ready for Encore to use.

Search the web for “bitrate calculator” and use one to determine best bitrate for your content so that it will fit the disc in Encore. I just use 560/minutes=rate and round down a touch, but that’s just me 😉

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Heidi Alina]

OK, now I am trying to export from Premiere Pro CS5.5 using the MPEG-2 DVD preset and the other info you gave above, but for some reason the file that’s being created only contains the first 4 seconds of the movie! I have been trying to create this DVD for days now and am getting really frustrated!! I can’t understand why the program is not exporting my entire timeline…

[Heidi Alina]

Well, I finally got a DVD burned using the Dynamic Link, and using the CS5.5 version of Premiere and Encore. Still having some problems – the DVD plays fine on my computer, but the sound is just hissing when I try it on a regular DVD player. I’m going to try another player, and also try burning using higher bitrate setting for the audio – for some reason it’s defaulting to 192, but telling me that 228 or higher provides good quality for stereo.

Also, I have edited the Quality Presets in Encore, but every time I go to check them, they’ve changed back to their original settings (which is MPEG2 Blu-ray for some reason). Maybe this is because I’m using the Dynamic Link?

I also figured out why Premiere was not exporting my entire timeline – the Source Range was not set to Entire Sequence for some reason (that’s usually the default I think). I’m exporting using the MPEG-2 DVD preset now and maybe that will allow me to create a more reliable DVD with Encore.

I have spent WAY too much time on this project – but I guess mostly this was because my CS6 programs are not working properly. I have fully licensed programs, but do not have the original disks, so I’m worried that if I run the uninstall, I won’t be able to re-install. Do you know how that works? If I run the uninstall program, does it leave me a .dmg program that I can then run to re-install?

And I still have the problem that when CS6 was installed it wiped out the Library and resources from CS5, so even though my CS5 programs are working better than CS6, I’m missing those resources and not sure I can get them back.

Sorry I’ve posted such a wide range of questions here! One last simple one – when I am previewing my DVD in Encore and I press the Stop button, I would expect it to return to the Main Menu, but it just stops where it is, leaving the scene on the screen. No errors are showing when I check the project. I’ve tried setting an End Action for each chapter, linking to the Main Menu, but that results in an error when I run Check Project (“End action will not execute because of end action on the final chapter point”). Pressing the stop button does seem to cause a problem when I’m playing the DVD too – the DVD just goes to a blank screen instead of back to the Main Menu. If you press Play again, it continues playing from the scene where you pressed Stop. How do I make the DVD go to the Main Menu when the Stop button is pressed?