Vegas 5 Render to DVDA2
 

I've searched the boards and found some information on this, but not exactlly what I'm looking for - apologies if this is a repeat.

I'm rendering from Vegas 5 to DVDA2 and want to avoid the duplicate render times if possible.

My constraints are:

Some of my projects will exceed 4.7G without compression, so I've gotta squish 'em at some point

It seems to me that if I use the NTSC-DV template in Vegas I retain the ability to dial the size up and down in DVDA, at the expense of the time of re-rendering.

If I use the MPEG-2/PCM route in Vegas then I don't have to re-render in DVDA as long as I stay under the size limit - BUT at the expense of two renders in Vegas.

Further, I am unclear how the two renders (sound & audio) I do in Vegas will get synched up in DVDA - can anyone point me in the right direction?

Many thanks!
jc

To get an estimate of what bitrate to use in the Mpeg2 custom settings in Vegas 5, use a bitrate calculator or just pop the avi into DVDA and use the fit-to-disc section of the optimize utility.

Then, render in Vegas as DVDA Video stream, then render again using the ac3 template. As long as the Mpeg and AC3 files have the same root name, DVDA will put them together for you (you can use any audio file with your video BTW).

Gary

about the sound
 

When you render video for DVDArchirtect, the resulting mpeg file does not contain sound.

You need to re-render your footage again, this time, Rendering as Dolby Digital AC-3 (*.ac3) file. I usually select the "Stereo DVD Template" as I don't make surround audio mixes.

You should end up with 2 files:

1. project_name.mpg
2. project_name.ac3

in the same folder.

When you import project_name.mpg in DVD Architect, the software will automagically find and import project_name.ac3 and sync their beginnings.

It is important that if you render a marked region in Vegas, you render the exact same region for both video and sound files so that they sync at their starting point.

Regards
-- Andre

Great answers both of you - thanks for the quick replies. I'll put it to work tonight!

jc

As Andre pointed out, if you pick the template to Render to DVD-A the MPEG will have no sound. So you need to render the exact same region for the audio.

DVD-A 2 is so much nicer now vs the first version where you couldn't add the audio and you needed to have the video and audio in the MPEG file (if I recall correctly). Now with DVD-A 2 it's got multi audio which you can drag and drop all the AC3 or whatever audio you have to master your DVD.

What I typically do is if my render using a standard MPEG-2 DVD NTSC template yields a file size that's too large, I would manually tweek the Bitrate (reduce) for the Max - Ave - Low to get the right size. Generally, I would adjust the Average bitrate to a few hundred Kbits or even 1 Mbit or 2 lower. When you use the normal MPEG-2 template, the output MPEG file should include audio and video.

<<<-- Originally posted by George Sam : DVD-A 2 is so much nicer now vs the first version where you couldn't add the audio and you needed to have the video and audio in the MPEG file (if I recall correctly). -->>>

You do NOT recall correctly. You could easily pick the desired audio file in DVDA1. The new feature in DVDA 2 is the ability to have MULTIPLE audio tracks (i.e. the "real" audio track and a "commentary" audio track for example - or possibly multiple languages)

I usualy reder an avi DV file that I import it in DVDA...
But once I got to litle space on HDDs and could not render the avi. So I frameserved from Vegas to DVDA... (it worked but I'm under the impresion that it took too much time...)

For frameserving I used (free): http://www.debugmode.com/frameserver/

It is easy: instal frameserver (on instaling you choose to instal as plugin for vegas, if I remember ok). Then, when you need to render your project in vegas, just choose the frameserver (it will apear on the list, with avi, mpeg, amd all other formats). You'll be saving an *.avi. Is just that the avi doesn't really get renderd.. It will just be a small file on your HDD (like a few kb). Then you import that *avi in DVDA. That's it! Vegas will supply the stream to DVDA as DVDA need it...
I remember it tooked a lot of time and I think I couldn't use the markers (made in Vegas) to make chapters in DVDA. Not sure, though...

Give it a try! It is a free little utility! :)

<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : <<<-- Originally posted by George Sam : DVD-A 2 is so much nicer now vs the first version where you couldn't add the audio and you needed to have the video and audio in the MPEG file (if I recall correctly). -->>>

You do NOT recall correctly. You could easily pick the desired audio file in DVDA1. The new feature in DVDA 2 is the ability to have MULTIPLE audio tracks (i.e. the "real" audio track and a "commentary" audio track for example - or possibly multiple languages) -->>>

@Edward
Ah.. thanks for the reminder. Yeah.. the multi audio track is the nice new feature of the first version.

Another process that I follow, is actually render as AVI, then I use Canopus ProCoder to render to the final version. However, Procoder is pricey for just an encoder.

Since most of the grunt work was done already in Vegas to AVI format, Procoder just does the straight MPEG-2 encoding. Otherwise, Vegas can take forever rendering to MPEG-2 since it has to render all the fx and multi tracks and whatever else in your project in addition to the MPEG-2 encoding.

Unless you just add the rendered AVI file to a new project and then render it to MPEG2 just like you are with ProCoder. Then it's just a straight conversion.

<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : Unless you just add the rendered AVI file to a new project and then render it to MPEG2 just like you are with ProCoder. Then it's just a straight conversion. -->>>

I use Procoder only because it seems to have a minor edge in quality and speed over the MainConcept Encoder. I think that's more noticeable when you encode anything with motion of water such as the ocean or the pool or beach. That fluid motion just seems to be challenging for most encoders to yield good quality without a lot of noise and pixelation.

Wasn't trying to say one encoder was better than the other. Just that the process can be the same either way.

<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : Wasn't trying to say one encoder was better than the other. Just that the process can be the same either way. -->>>

Gotcha...