Is it possible from the timeline?
 

Hello, does anybody know if it is possible to send footage from the vegas timeline DIRECTLY to a hardware DVD recorder and if so how would one go about hooking a DVD recorder up to your computer? I ask this question as i will be doing a few jobs for clients which means il be delivering video on DVD and as far as i can tell i from other posts on this site, it seems a hardware solution will give me noticable better encoding quality to DVD rather than doing it in vegas (to mpeg 2>dvda).

Any help would be much appreciated.

If the DVD recorder has firewire input, you may be able to go straight. If not, run it through a convertor and hook the DVD recorder to the convertor.

Computer -> firewire -> convertor -> analog -> DVD recorder

Then, in Vegas, simply do a Tools - Print Video to DV Tape.

Thanks for the reply, what do you mean by converter, as in maybe my sony vtr deck?

Convertor = a video camera with pass-thru ability, a deck, or an actual convertor like the ADS Pyro or Canopus ADVC units

Oh right i can see how that could work actually, but i guess the big problem is if im burning something to DVD which contains chapters, menus etc

Then I'd use DVD Architect to actually author the DVD instead.

DVDA to the rescue
 

I wouldn't trust direct playback from the timeline an way. What happens if your system gets the slightest little process hangup and freezes for just a few frames? Then our video, which is being burned in real time, has a few frozen frames.

Better to just render out to DVDA and then layout everthign there. Besides, you can do a 2 pass VBR in Vegas and get some great quality video.

that makes alot of sence actually. I've been editing a delivering video for years on tape but now mving over to DVD its like a whole new world, terms like 2 pass vbr is all new to me right now, i think its time i did a bit of research. Thanks for the advice

Have a look at Edward Troxel's excellent (and free!!) newsletters (PDF format).
I know he has a few that deal with DVD Architect.