Vegas Pro 9 to DVD Archatect Pro 5 Best Practice?

[Stephen Mann]

Since you say DVD, I’ll assume that you don’t mean a Blu-Ray HD Disk.
I use the Sony Z1 and make SD DVD’s all the time.

1) Encode to MPEG2 (in the “Render As” menu, even though you don’t render MPEG, you encode it). Use the “DVD Archhitect MPEG-2” profile and the “DVD Archetect NTSC Widescreen videostream” template.

If your final project is longer than 60-80 minutes, then you will likely have to reduce the bitrate to make the encoded file smaller.

2) Encode your audio as an AC3 file using the “Dolby Digital AC-3 Pro” profile.

3) Bring the MPG file into DVDA and the AC3 file should follow.

If DVDA says the file is too large, but it appears to be close, then ignore the warning. DVDA is overly conservative in its finished size estimates.

If DVDA wants to re-encode the media then you did something wrong in Vegas.

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

[Ben Edwards]

By re-encoding do you mean what DVDA calls rendering? I did find the MPEG-2 DVDA stream template and it still had to render. I will double check audio settings tonight. Any ideas?

[Stephen Mann]

Yes, if DVDA needs to re-render (encode, actually) either the audio or video, then your encoding parameters in Vegas are wrong. You could take the easy way and let DVDA do the lifting and thinking for you, but you compromise quality because it is re-encoding a compressed MPEG file from Vegas. You can even let DVDA do everything for you by giving DVDA the AVI file from Vegas. DVDA will then optimize the compression settings for you and most of the time provide good results. The problem with this approach is that you have NO control over the bitrate and other encoding parameters.

Most often, DVDA complains about the size of the MPG file or that the audio is not AC3.

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

[Ben Edwards]

Steve,

Thank for your advice. The video is 1 hour 50 minutes long. Any advice on calculating a bitrate so this will fit would be much appreciated.

Also am I correct in thinking when Rendering As MPEG-2 is one of the fastest to create so even if I want DVDA to render it is a good one to use for DVD. I read somewhere that it was possible to get DVDA to automatically calculate and re-encode but cant find the option. bitrate, how do I do this?

Regards,
Ben

[John Gordon]

you say you shot PAL, make sure you use the correct template for your dvd. (i.e. don’t use NTSC if you are trying to render PAL) As long as you have rendered the correct mpg file, dvda should not have to render anything other than menus.

[Stephen Mann]

Just Google “Bit Rate Calculator” and find one that you like.

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

[Peter Bailey]

I have full hd footage from a panasonic tm300. the project settings are HD 1080-50i (1920×1080, 25.000 fps) which vegas detected automatically.

If i view with the preview window in vegas everything is fine BUT vegas is playing at preview half but i assume if it looks good there it should be fine.

Can confirm rendering to avchd works fine.

I have previously rendered to avchd different files and they were fine when played on my ps3. this is the first time I have rendered to dvd quality.

I am finding on rendering that when people move their sides look corrugated. At the moment I did as this thread save as main concept mpeg2 dvdarchitect dvd pal and then did the audio after.

removing the color corrector plug in makes no difference. not sure what to do now.

all the software is legal and uptodate.

[Peter Bailey]

Read a later post on rendering issue with plat studio and made the same correction, now it renders fine. thx anyway in case you read the post and my problem was work in progress