[Mike Kujbida]

These FX don’t show up in the usual place (i.e. the Video FX tab).
You have to click on an FX icon (either event, track or master) and look in the box that opens up. When I installed it, it showed up in the Filter Packages folder.
Click the one you want, click OK and it will now show up as an FX on your event/track/project.

BTW, you mentioned Preset Manager 1.0. I just installed it from the Sony site and it came up as version 2.0 so you may want to check to make sure you’re using the latest version.

Be advised that each preset is comprised of multiple FX stacked together so don’t mess with them unless you really want to.
Here’s what the Uncertain Memories preset chain looks like.

[Mike Kujbida]

You’re welcome. Good luck with the project.

[Mike Kujbida]

There are two issues with going higher than 8,500,000.
#1 is that most DVD players these days are so cheaply made that they can’t handle a high bitrate and quite often choke on it.
My first DVD player several years ago was a top of the line Pioneer and it was $400. I can buy a blu-ray player today for less than $50. Build quality and reliability suffer (a lot) when that happens.
#2 is that a lot of consumers buy the cheapest blank DVDs they can get and they can’t reliably handle such a high bitrate either. They often don’t last very long either. I’ve had friends who bought cheap DVDs only to have them fall apart in less than 6 months.

[Mike Kujbida]

And therein lies the difference between Studio & Pro. I have Pro and have those options but Sony, in their infinite “wisdom”, decided that Studio users didn’t need it so ignore that custom tweak.

[Mike Kujbida]

Rick, what I neglected to mention is that if the program is 70 min. or less, I use a custom CBR of 8,000,000. Some folks have gone as high as 8,500,00 but I prefer to stay on the conservative side hence the lower number. Anything longer and it’s a 2-pass VBR using the numbers from the calculator.
This assumes the AC-3 default setting of 192 Kb/s.
Use good name brand media and you’ll never have a problem.
My preferred media is Taiyo-Yuden Watershield (great if you want to print on it!!). If I can’t get that brand, then I will use Verbatim. These are the only two brands that I trust.

I should mention that DVDA sometimes get confused and says that the file is too big and needs to be recompressed. If you’ve checked your files and you know that you’re under the 4.3 GB. limit (as you will be), ignore the warning and everything will proceed as normal.

Lastly, you may want to make and always use the following custom AC-3 preset to ensure that your program is as loud as you expected it to be.

Encode set to AC3;
Click on Custom tab;
On the first tab, set Dialog Norm at -31 (this sets it at unity gain);
On the last tab marked Preprocessing, set the Line Mode Profile and RF Mode Profile mode to “none”;
DC High Pass Filter On (this operates at <=3Hz and takes DC bias out of the mix);
Bandwidth Low Pass Filter On (this takes aliasing noise at >20kHz out of the encode).
Save this as a preset.

[Mike Kujbida]

You’re welcome. Glad I could help. Feel free to ask anything that you need help with as we’re a friendly bunch here 🙂

[Mike Kujbida]

Look into using Google Earth or Google Earth Pro.
https://www.google.com/earth/
With it you can easily do something like this. There are numerous tutorials about recording a “tour” in this software for playback purposes. Good luck.

[Mike Kujbida]

I’ve been using this one for a very long time and it works great.

I make a few changes to the default settings by clicking the Settings button (lower left) on the main screen.
Click 1 Kilobit = 1000 bits.
Set the Default Audio Encoding to 192 Kb/s (this is the default for AC-3 audio encodes).
Change the Safety Margin from 1% to 5% (I like to give myself a bit of extra room).

My rule of thumb is to go no larger than a CBR of 8,000,000 for less than a 70 min. DVD.
Anything larger and I use a bitrate calculator to determine optimum settings.
Some folks say that you can go as high as 8,500,000 but I stick to my rule.
I’ve burned thousands of DVDs over the years and have have never had any returned to me.

[Mike Kujbida]

There might be but I prefer to get as much quality as I can so that’s why I do custom renders from Vegas rather than letting DVDA do it’s own guesswork as that usually means lower quality.

[Mike Kujbida]

You never want to use a bitrate of 9.8 as that’s the limit for a DVD and that includes audio.
I just did a play last month that ran 2 hr. 15 min. and put it onto a single layer DVD.
You need to use a bitrate calculator to determine optimum 2-pass settings for the mpeg-2 encode from Vegas.
Here’s one thread where I talk about the one I use.
How do you render the video and audio and equal less than 4gig, to fit a DVD?