Home Free Library Store
Free Catalog



Save with a Two Year Membership

To post in the forums see the Forum Guidelines.
Join or Renew Today.
New Benefits for all VU Members
Forum Guidelines and FAQ
Main Index Search Posts
Who's Online Log In



Home: Video University Forums: Wedding & Event Videography:
Help - Question about mpeg2 and AC3 in Vegas and DVDA

 
 


AlanB
Veteran


Oct 7, 2004, 10:27 PM

Post #1 of 10 (832 views)
Shortcut
Help - Question about mpeg2 and AC3 in Vegas and DVDA Can't Post
There are two separate but related problems here so bear with me.

1. I rendered my first wedding in vegas as an avi and then took it into DVDA to let it encode to mpeg2 and ac3. It was a little too big so I let it determine the bit rate in the optimize menu and clicked on the fit to disc function. I think it reduced it to around 95% of the space available. So, I did the Prepare only function first as I decided to do the burn later. I wanted to see each process separately. After the prepare I went to burn it and it said it was too big to fit. uuugggghhhh. So what is going on? I don't have a clue what to do about it.

2. I said, okay, lets try encoding it in Vegas and see what happens. So... I encoded the video and audio to mpeg2 and ac3 in Vegas and then went into DVDA and added in the new files and then rebuilt my DVD menus and scene selections. This is now turning into a rather long and frustrating day. Although, actually, DVDA is very easy to use once you find your way around, so that part doesn't take very long. HOWEVER, when I went to prepare the DVD, it said that the audio files needed to be compressed. WHAT! I thought they were already compressed and in the correct format. The overall file size of all the video and audio is only 70% of the the file space. So now I am really confused. Just for reference, I did save the mpeg2 and ac3 files in Vegas using the same core file names. I know it brought in all of the correct files because the DVD functions perfectly in the preview mode.

Can anyone tell me why, in both cases, it did what it did? Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks - Alan


Beep
User

Oct 8, 2004, 1:13 AM

Post #2 of 10 (823 views)
Shortcut
Re: [AlanB] Help - Question about mpeg2 and AC3 in Vegas and DVDA [In reply to] Can't Post
Go to the Creative Cow Forum for Sony Vegas and ask there. I am sure you will get a quick answer. Like you,I would have thought that the AC3 file generated by Vegas would be OK and not require any more "work".

Recompression is generally only required if the data is too large for the disc. Maybe Vegas calculated that re-rendering the audio a bit would be a quicker option than re-rendering the Video. (only valid if your project was a tad too big)









Vegas 6
Sony


RustyB
Veteran


Oct 8, 2004, 8:05 AM

Post #3 of 10 (815 views)
Shortcut
Re: [AlanB] Help - Question about mpeg2 and AC3 in Vegas and DVDA [In reply to] Can't Post
In Reply To
There are two separate but related problems here so bear with me.

1. I rendered my first wedding in vegas as an avi and then took it into DVDA to let it encode to mpeg2 and ac3. It was a little too big so I let it determine the bit rate in the optimize menu and clicked on the fit to disc function. I think it reduced it to around 95% of the space available. So, I did the Prepare only function first as I decided to do the burn later. I wanted to see each process separately. After the prepare I went to burn it and it said it was too big to fit. uuugggghhhh. So what is going on? I don't have a clue what to do about it. The default MPG2 DVDA template in Vegas is too high, in my opinion. I change the variable bitrate to 6 max/5 average, two-pass, and save it as a custome template. If I have a LOT of video to put on the disk, then I have another template for 5 max/4 average, two pass. Both look great/quality wise, and anything higher you start risking hosing up a customer's DVD player.

2. HOWEVER, when I went to prepare the DVD, it said that the audio files needed to be compressed. WHAT! I thought they were already compressed and in the correct format. Are you sure it's not talking about any background images, music, or button animations you added to the menu in DVDA? There's always something there that needs to be compressed. It doesn't take long, and it should all still fit on your disk. Burn it! Good luck!


Faith Poison Wedding Films Blog
Intergalactic Award-Winning Epic-Cinematic Wedding New-Doc Style Indie Fusion Bridal Movies on Hi-Definition Blu-Ray Disc


AlanB
Veteran


Oct 8, 2004, 9:27 AM

Post #4 of 10 (812 views)
Shortcut
Re: [RustyB] Help - Question about mpeg2 and AC3 in Vegas and DVDA [In reply to] Can't Post
I had three video and associated audio files loaded in DVDA that had all been encoded in Vegas as mpeg2 and ac3. DVDA referenced all three of the audio files as needing to be compressed. I am using vegas 5 by the way. The total of all the files was well under the file size limit. I did burn it just to see how it would turn out, and the audio seems ok, but I don't know if it could be better or not. I am still curious why DVDA, on the first half of my problem, using AVI's, didn't size the files correctly to allow burning. It adjusted the bitrate to create a file smaller than the file size limit. I would expect the software to calculate it correctly and allow you to burn it when done.

Thanks for your inputs - Alan


Edward
Veteran


Oct 8, 2004, 9:44 AM

Post #5 of 10 (810 views)
Shortcut
Re: [AlanB] Help - Question about mpeg2 and AC3 in Vegas and DVDA [In reply to] Can't Post
#1) Dropping the AVI onto DVDA should have worked and it should have picked a bitrate of the proper value if you chose the "Fit to Disk" option. It *can* get confused at times depending on a few factors.

#2) You didn't tell us how long your original video was. The default settings will only work up to about 80 minutes. Beyond that, you MUST click on "Custom" and lower the bitrate to be appropriate for your length. Then just render the video to MPEG2 at the proper bitrate and the audio to AC-3 (default settings are fine).

#2b) If DVDA is wanting to compress the audio, odds are didn't use one of the DVDA presets in Vegas and have audio in the MPEG2 file as well. This is fine but you then MUST manually make sure DVDA is set to use the AC3 file for audio. Sounds like you were listening to the MPEG2 audio during preview. NOTE: The MPEG2 file and AC3 file must have the same base filename!
Edward Troxel
JETDV Scripts & Newsletters @ www.jetdv.com


Todd L
Veteran


Oct 8, 2004, 2:34 PM

Post #6 of 10 (797 views)
Shortcut
Re: [AlanB] Help - Question about mpeg2 and AC3 in Vegas and DVDA [In reply to] Can't Post
I had the same thing happen to me. Basically DVDA will lie to you about the percentage of disc being used. I’ll bet you have the 4.7GB disc selected, and it says 95% of disc used. The problem is that the DVD can actually hold only 4.37GB of info, they call them a 4.7GB by using 1000 Bytes as a MB instead of 1024 which is how the computer calculates it (binary). This is the same reason my new 200GB drives only show up as 184GB in Windows.

Set your bit rate so that the project is less than 4.37GB and it will work great. I burnt nearly a dozen coasters before I found the answer to this one.

Todd


Doughnuts.......Is there nothing they can't do?


AlanB
Veteran


Oct 8, 2004, 4:56 PM

Post #7 of 10 (791 views)
Shortcut
Re: [Edward] Help - Question about mpeg2 and AC3 in Vegas and DVDA [In reply to] Can't Post
Edward, you nailed it. When I decided to create the the mpeg-2 in Vegas, I inadvertantly used the default template which includes audio, instead of the DVD-A NTSC Video Stream template, which is video only. Aren't these programs suppose to know what I want to do versus what I actually do. Boy, I need smarter software with a neural interface, although it may discover that there is just air between the ears ;)

As to the length of the total video, it is 97 minutes, so it sounds like I would have needed to lower the bitrate manually. Is that 80 minute limit referenced anywhere?

Anyway, thanks to everyone for the help.

Alan


Edward
Veteran


Oct 8, 2004, 5:45 PM

Post #8 of 10 (787 views)
Shortcut
Re: [AlanB] Help - Question about mpeg2 and AC3 in Vegas and DVDA [In reply to] Can't Post
The "80 minute limit" is not explicitly stated - you just have to figure that out from the default bitrate specified in the preset. So it is up to you to figure out the proper bitrate and enter tha manually unless you give DVDA an AVI file.
Edward Troxel
JETDV Scripts & Newsletters @ www.jetdv.com


VickyDenmark
User


Oct 12, 2004, 1:35 PM

Post #9 of 10 (754 views)
Shortcut
Re: [Edward] Help - Question about mpeg2 and AC3 in Vegas and DVDA [In reply to] Can't Post
render.m2v

can this be a valid mpeg2 file extention? i have never heard of this before, but when i chose all the options i needed when rendering in PPro, it came up with this. i just never heard of that b4. tia looking at a 12 hr render for 2hrs, 8 mins of video rendering time in ppro.



btw, i thought i would just skip rendering to avi. in ppro first because i thought it would take up more gig space and i only have 12 gigs free to work with.

the reason im rendering in ppro is because i have alot of different avi. files and need one big file to work with. if people have any comments please advise. tia

FrownVic






http://www.addgo.dk
AdobePPro, DVDA, AMD IBM PC, WinXP, 480gb, 1.8ghz, 512ram,pinnacle DV500, HDs Western Digital, Maxtor, Maxtor


(This post was edited by VickyDenmark on Oct 12, 2004, 1:49 PM)


Edward
Veteran


Oct 12, 2004, 2:20 PM

Post #10 of 10 (743 views)
Shortcut
Re: [VickyDenmark] Help - Question about mpeg2 and AC3 in Vegas and DVDA [In reply to] Can't Post
Yes, m2v is valid. It's an Mpeg2 file that is video only - hence m2v. There will be NO audio at all in that file. It's otherwise known as an elementary stream.
Edward Troxel
JETDV Scripts & Newsletters @ www.jetdv.com