[Robin Hamilton]

I always render everything I do for DVD at 720×480.

If I am using encore I use the real-time DVD recorder to capture at 10 mbps to minimise loss when Encore transcodes the video. In this case, since DVD Lab doesn’t transcode the video I used a lower bitrate setting on the recorder. DVD Lab reports the files as being 8 mbps. Although I will get a bitrate analyzer to check for sure.

704×480 is exactly the same as 720×480 except for 8 pixels cropped on either side, is it not?

[Robin Hamilton]

Regarding the workflow…We use a panasonic real-time DVD recorder. On play back the video looks just as good as it did playing right from the edit system. The recorder can record at 10 mbps. PGC Demux is used to extract an m2v video file and an ac3 audio file.

Where lies the problem in this workflow?

Also DVD-Lab pro does recognize 704×480 video. But I can’t seem to render files from After Effects as 704×480.

[Robin Hamilton]

I am using DVD Lab Pro because I was recommended it by someone on here. I normally use Adobe Encore to author DVD’s. This particular job, however, required an interactive, random multiple choice quiz. When the user answers 8 in a row correctly, they are taken to a secret menu with a code that they can then enter in a website to win prizes.

The only options I saw at the time were DVDLab Pro, and DVD Studio Pro. I needed a PC based software, and it wasn’t in the budget to by a mac just for the project. We are a small production company and the budget on the job isn’t super huge. The client just wants a disc that they then can take and get replicated.

Can you tell me what it is that makes the software not so great? I have used it for a few projects and have had absolutely no problems with it (other than you can’t preview a disc).

[Robin Hamilton]

Thanks Dan, that works great as well.

[Robin Hamilton]

That works perfectly. I was waaaaay off on the wrong path. I would never have figured that out.

Thanks a lot.

[Robin Hamilton]

Actually the final quicktime I am rendering (the 2 quicktime movies with an iris wipe) are rendering at around 7:00 mins on my 3.0 ghz pentium 4 with 2 gigs of RAM.

The 2 hour render I was referring to was the massive composite I did. Instead of trying to transition 2 compositions together and have massive render times each time, I just rendered out to individual quicktime movies to make things faster on the back end.

Sorry for the misinterperetation.

[Robin Hamilton]

After rerendering my original comp, then replacing the “possibly corrupted quicktime” with it, I got the exact same result. I have no idea whatsoever.

I do know, however, that there is a reason I didn’t uninstall AE 6.5. I even brought the “possibly corrupted” quicktime in to try it out…worked like a charm. I am wondering why I ever switched to AE 7. Back to AE 6.5 for me….bye bye “unspecified draw error” and frequent project corruption.

I’m not holding my breath for CS 3.

Thanks for all your posts.

[Robin Hamilton]

No, that is the funny thing. It is basically just two quicktime movies (rendered with the animation codec) and a simple iris wipe transition (and audio added). That’s all…this is why it has me stumped. I went back to re-render the original quicktimes…(10 mins left out of 2 hours) just to see if it is some kind of corruption in the original footage. It is weird though, because everything plays fine in quicktime and after effects…until I render.

[Robin Hamilton]

Just this comp. This is the longest comp I have done so far in AE 7. I have tried the sorenson codec, as well as H263, and even Cinipak at 320 x 240. Same results.

New development – When I first launch AE, everything plays fine in a RAM preview or scrubbing the timeline. However, after I render, the Quicktime movie I make has the problem, as well as if I RAM preview or scrub the AE timeline after I render. At around 1 minute 40 seconds, the video is just frozen on a frame for about 3 or 4 seconds.

The orginal quicktimes play just fine though.

Any thoughts?

[Robin Hamilton]

I have a very fast computer that can handle even the Animation codec at full res. And yeah, even if i render it with lossy codecs i get the exact same result. It isn’t quicktime that is hanging, it is the actual video. If I step frame by frame through the video, there is about 3 seconds of the same frame, then it jumps to where it should have been in the video.