How can DVDA shrink the video?

[Plamen Petrov]

Hi everybody,
I rendered out a wedding movie 5.55 GB and now I want to try to prepare it in DVD Architect so that to fit a single DVDisc 4.7GB. So, my question is: can Sony DVD Architect make a self calculation/preparing of a project, so that to let any bigger size fit a 4.7GB DVDisc? And how?
In the properties in advance I choosed 4.7GB size for disc, but although that the DVD Architect created a dvd project with the same size as the source video, not the project size.
I have heard about software programs which can shrink a video so that to be able to burn it in a disc, no matter if the sourse video is bigger than the disc size, but I really want to know if it is possible with DVD Architect.

[Don Bloom]

in DVDA there is a Fit to Disc button that will compress the file to fit. It is in the Make DVD menu

Don

[Edward Troxel]

Plamen, as Don said, DVD Architect *can* shrink the video to fit. However, you're much better off rendering the file small enough from Vegas to begin with. You can use any of the bit-rate calculators out there or the bitrate chart in Vol 1 #7 of my newsletters to determine the proper rate for the length of your video. Then go to Custom and and change the bitrate when rendering.

Also note: "4.7 Gig" is in base 10. As far as computers are concerned (base 2), a DVD really holds a little over 4.3 Gig and you need to allow a little extra space for menus and other overhead.

[Paul Kellett]

I've never had any luck with the "fit to disc" button.

Paul.

[Stephen Kettyles]

If you have this problem, my workaround is as follows. Change the target media size in project properties to the larger size 8.5 gb. Prepare the DVD to a folder on the hard drive. (One which you can easily access as the default temp folder is hard to find.)

I usually point the prepare folder to a newly created folder on the desk top. Once this has finished preparing you will have a fully function DVD structure in these folders.

I then open up NERO recode and ask it to recode an entire dvd. It changes the bit rate to fit it on to the 4.7gb disc. It hasn't failed me yet and I cant really notice any loss of quality from the original. I use this regularly and have had no problems.

There is other software out there like Clone DVD and DVD shrink but I have not had any success with them and DVD architect output files. Nero recode is the way to go. It takes a bit of time but after doing all the work in DVDA it is a work around to get your project done.

[Jeff Harper]

Edward is right, IMO. Re-render the video, lower the bit rate settings, and you'll be fine. Quality difference is minimal at most. I have done it once and it worked beatifully. Try 6mbps max and that should do it, if not go down to 5. and be sure to use AC3 for your audio, not pcm. If you shrink it outside of Vegas you will be re-encoding an already rendered video, not your best solution.

[Mike Kujbida]

I'm with Edward on this issue.
Use a bitrate calculator to determine optimum settings and then create a custom render setting in Vegas for this program.
The final quality WILL be better than letting DVDA or some other program do it for you.

[Edward Troxel]

Unfortunately, this is a case where there's LOTS of ways to do it, they'll all work, but most of them will reduce the quality of the final output. If you really want to take your highly compressed video, decompress it, and then recompress it again smaller - feel free to use any method that does that. If you want to compress it ONCE and get it right the first time, use the proper bitrate the first time. But the choice is always yours - pick the method you like best.