[Brian Sinks]

I’ve found part of the difference is that before rendering the menus are usually using JPEG stills for the background that will originally make your project bigger than it will be. When preparing your DVD, DVDA will convert the JPEGs to smaller MPEG2 files. I have found dependent on how many pages of menus you have DVDA will estimate as much as 500mb over your MPEG2/ac3 media.

You mentioned rendering out of Vegas as MPEG2 Audio/Video. As Gary said I would render the video as MPEG2 and the audio as ac3 with the same file name. I think DVDA will prepare the MPEG2 audio as ac3 anyway. Also, I believe the rendered file size of ac3 is smaller than a MPEG2 audio file.

[Brian Sinks]

I even cleaned out my D drive…

A “D” hard-drive usually means (on a VAIO – I have 4) that you have a single hard-drive that is partitioned “C” and “D”. For instance a 80GB hard-drive could be divided (partitioned) into a 20GB “C” drive and 60GB “D” drive.

How are you saving your digitized media (avi’s)?

If it’s to the “D” drive and it is a partitioned part of the original “C” drive that is your problem with the speed of rendering. Vegas is rendering within the same physical hard-drive and you need to buy a second internal hard-drive. I bought a 250GB internal Western Digital hard-drive (don’t need a SATA) for under $100 at Circuit City that is easily installed in most VAIO desktops. Just open the lid and the cables are there waiting for it to be installed next to the original hard-drive. After installing, the new drive became the “I” drive (the next available letter). E-H were already assigned to the various card readers (memory stick, SD, etc.), DVD-ROM and DVD burner that came with the VAIO.

If you already have a second physical drive you can ignore what I just said.

[Brian Sinks]

Have used 3 VAIOs of various models and working on a third with a Pentium D. They all work without any problems even with Vegas 4/5/6/7.

[Brian Sinks]

As I’ve worked over the years full time (my bread and butter) for a TV production company I’ve slowly (as I could afford it) picked up equipment and an editing computer to have my own side business. I started with buying a Hi8 camera that I got for half off ($900) at a going out of business sale and started videoing my friend’s weddings. As I’ve been able to do more (as equipment became more affordable) I’ve joined local community and business groups to connect with those around me. It’s not easy to establish yourself and I’ve had good and bad experiences (like anyone).

One of the first things I’ve learned that has made me effective is to “serve” a clients needs. Several years ago I wanted to do more than weddings so one day I decided to start asking people and businesses what they needed and try to use my equipment to accomplish it affordably. For instance: I found I also have an ability in design and I had a video camera that could take stills. A local church approached me. They had a small group of 30 families (100 people) and could not afford to pay thousands of dollars to a photography studio to create their photo directories. I came up with a customized approach to give them a photo directory for a fraction of the cost.

You might be asking what this has to do with video production. Nothing directly but this experience caused me to stretch myself and find out my capabilities and I also met church members that gave me business beyond the church directory.

If you want to get beyond wedding videography and expand your business you need to be open to taking opportunities to “serve” others that might seem to have nothing to do with video production but everything to do with Doug production. You are more than your equipment and what makes you unique with your strenghts and weaknesses is what will set you apart from being just another videographer.

Brian Sinks
IN1ACCORD Productions
Tulsa, Oklahoma

[Brian Sinks]

You gave no info on what you are using for your check disc (the media, the burner brand/model, the authoring program) but from my experience each link in the authoring chain is important.

If you’re using a good authoring program and burner but your media is from the local computer store you might have problems. Try going to one of the websites like Supermediastore.com and buy some Ritek or Prodisc (I’ve had 98% success with Ritek and previously I would have whole boxes of media from Maxell and Memorex that were bad that at the time I payed $3-5 a piece for). [Steve spoke of “cheap” which I’ll assume doesn’t mean store bought since you can usually buy Ritek for 30-40 cents a piece.] With Ritek and Prodisc your also buying from the maker and not like some brands that farm out their disc making to different places and then put their name on it.

If you’re using Sony DVDA 3 program to author it burns a DVD-ROM type disc which should be playable in most DVD players (I even could play them on my first generation DVD player). If DVDA 3 is having problems using your burner (especially when trying to burn a dual layer) you could always prepare with DVDA 3 and burn the disc with the prepared files using the included burning program that came with your burner – such as Nero (Nero also includes the ability to verify your disc for errors so you don’t have to watch the entire disc yourself to make sure.)

Also, you might want to take some “test” discs to try out on your client’s DVD player to verify it’s compatibility. Their’s might be one of the earlier DVD players that wasn’t designed to play DVD+or-R’s added to that the fact you’re giving them a dual layer DVD+or-R.

Brian Sinks
IN1ACCORD Productions
Tulsa, Oklahoma