Is the Dvd Architect 3.0 worth the extra money. I am thinking of buying Vegas seperately or buying the Vegas Dvd architect 3.0 product. Is the architext worth an extra $200?

Thanks, Vincenzo

yes..
that in itself (as mentioned in a previous post) is worth th eupgrade alone..

its the only app on its level which offers multiple video tracks, and i assume you already understand its streamlined workflow... well Sony have streamlined it even more :)

I agree with Peter. It is absolutely worth the price difference.

I agree with Peter. It is absolutely worth the price difference.


Ever since 4 to 5, and now 5 to 6- I've been very elated with the changes made to DVDA. I suppose there is LESS to change in Vegas, it's already feature packed- each new incarnation of DVDA has been considerably better than the last. DVDA3 being no exception.

heres hoping next years effort will be supportive of WMV9 formatted HD DVDRom...

so many players now support it (albeit not native hd res) but the fact its there (wmv9 hd) shows that were making headway to a cheap and workable (consumer wise) delivery option for HD

What kind of support are you exactly looking for Peter? You can already
encode WMVHD with Microsoft's encoder, and together with DVDA3 you
can also put this file beside the normal DVD movie (on the ROM "track").

Or you can burn a plain DVD ROM in something like Nero with this file. Any
player supporting such files should be able to play it then, no?

To the best of my knowledge there isn't a working WMVHD like DVD structure
with navigation and the likes yet? (should be coming with HD-DVD/blu-ray).

Or am I missing something Peter?

no mate, ur not missing anything, but i was hoping for a menu based wmvhd system, but as yet they dont exist..

Ah, ohkay. Wait a year and at least there should be some form of a standard.
Hopefully some software will exist as well then! I remember reading somewhere
that they where going with XML for things that are now IFO files on DVD's,
that should be interesting (and a lot easier to work with without software).

OK folks, I really need to find out what's going on here.

Maybe the problem is in Vegas 6.0 but here goes:

I cleaned up a sound track for a video that I've done. Brought all my levels up using SAWSTUDIO, my favorite editor.

I then layed the track back to Vegas, and rendered it using the Dolby Digital (ac3) format. I went in and in the custom settings I set the Dialogue Normalization to -31 as Spot has recommended.

Then I took that track and put it in to Dvd Architect 3.0. Now when it showed up in Dvd Architect 3.0, it looked on my little display to be much lower in volume than the previous track I had done - even though I know for sure that it left SAW at a much higher level.

My question is - am I screwing it up in VEGAS 6.0 or is there a way to change the setting in Dvd Architect 3.0 that I'm unfamiliar with?

I really need some help here. I'm going to INPUT 2005 in San Francisco tomorrow, and want to take a bunch of copies to pass out.

I appreciate any information you might have.

Thanks!
Milt Lee
605.341.4232

OK - so I got a letter from Edward and his advice solved the problem:

Beyond changing the dialog normalization to -31, you should also nn
the PreProcessing tab, change both the Line mode profile and RF mode
profile to NONE.

That's what made the difference. I never knew it!!

Thanks again, - this is still the best forum out there for intelligent information!
Milt

my biggest gripe with DVD Architect 2 is that i can't force it to use Dolby 1.0 mono tracks like they do for hollywood re-releases of classic movies on DVD. or unconvential compression numbers like 96k. you can only do 192khz Dolby 2.0 or 448khz Dolby 5.1 and THAT'S IT!

does DVD Architect 3 allow for Dolby 1.0 or nonconvential compression rates for multichannels without recompressing it to what i mentioned up above?

furthermore i would like to play around with dts-es (6.1) encoding but no plugins exist? how does dts tech expect to get market share if they're not infiltrating the prosumer market like dolby?

i know in vegas 5 you can encode Dolby Digital 6.1 EX into 5.1 (cause the 6th channel is matrixed from the surround left and right) but does it really work? anyone tried it?

There are some dts encoder software's on the market. However, I doubt
that DVDA will accept a dts track. You will probably need a "serieus" DVD
authoring tool (like Scenarist) to be able to use it.

There is a program called "surcode" that can encode dts I believe.

Personally I'm not too interested in all that stuff. Yes, I love dts on the DVD's
I purchase and I have a DD/dts receiver here at home. However, I doubt
anyone is really doing any audio work for their DVD's/movies that really would
utilize the extra bandwidth dts gives.

Are you doing that serieus audio encoding? Or is it just a nice "gimmick" to
have? (see my disc, it has dts!?). I'd day that if you want to get benefits
from dts you will probably have to get a high(er) quality audio monitoring
setup etc. as well. But what do I know...

I agree with Rob here... i was lookin at DTS but its too much of an effort not to mention cost of an encoder and a trademark license..

on top of that DVDArchitect allows for ANY ac3 file to be used.. however it recommends the "standards" set by the dvd forum.. not all soundtracks are recommended... even though theyre accessable, compatibiltiy wise it would be best to follow the guidelines..

in that case, we don't need to use dolby digital 5.1 if we don't have high end audio as well, correct? dts is simply another alternate x.1 multichannel scheme. i was just wondering why Dolby has gotten into the market of prosumers to make it really popular but dts itself hasn't licensed its own codecs/plugins yet to DCC programs. if a director is making short movies 5.1 is just another alternate way to express themselves.

pete, the "standards" set by the DVD forums are followed by hollywood DVD producers, right? if that is the case movies like open range or classic movie on DVD releases contain 96kHz Dolby 1.0 MONO (just coming from center speaker ONLY). is that standard? if that is so why can't i encode that into DVD Architect? i've tried many combinations and whenever DVD Architect sees something different it always converts ALL audio to either Dolby 5.1 448kHz or Dolby 2.0 192kHz. i've NEVER been able to import/encode any other bit-rate, channels, etc. also hollywood movies released on DVD contains a number of unconvential Dolby 3.0 (just front 3 channels), Dolby 4.0 (like a quad) and so on. they have all been released on DVD commercially and everyone can play them on standalone players.

Apart from lots of added Functionality, the icing on the DVDA3 cake is the new Navigation interface - we achieved the same function previously by clicking on and selecting from drop down text menus - now it's a dragger's dream.

pete, the "standards" set by the DVD forums are followed by hollywood DVD producers, right?

((Yup, basically there are 2 systems, one is mandatory and the other is elective. Mandatory refered to a mandatory audio format with MUST be included on ANY commercial DVD> These 2 formats are PCM uncompressed and AC3. Elective formats are MPG2 audio <embedded> and DTS))

if that is the case movies like open range or classic movie on DVD releases contain 96kHz Dolby 1.0 MONO (just coming from center speaker ONLY). is that standard?
((If its AC3, its not a common standard, however it IS a standard as it is in AC3 format))

if that is so why can't i encode that into DVD Architect? i've tried many combinations and whenever DVD Architect sees something different it always converts ALL audio to either Dolby 5.1 448kHz or Dolby 2.0 192kHz.

((This is because you have either elected ac3 stereo or ac3 5.1 in the project settings. You can (or should be able to) overide this in the disc creation area. I think.. i have never needed to do this but looking at the creation element, DVDA will tell u whether or not it is compliant.
To be honest with you, i can see where youre going with this, however it may well be that Sony only licensed the 2 formats (stereo, stereo surround using metadata, and 5.1 <with or without metadata> )

i've NEVER been able to import/encode any other bit-rate, channels, etc. also hollywood movies released on DVD contains a number of unconvential Dolby 3.0 (just front 3 channels), Dolby 4.0 (like a quad) and so on. they have all been released on DVD commercially and everyone can play them on standalone players.

((as mentioned, it may well be that Sony havent licensed this element within DVDA3.. The encoder WILL give u these formats and i cant say whether any other authoring tool of this level will do it either. I know Maestro does this, but maestro is tedious and expensive.. I havent tried with Encore, but i really do think Encore is far more limiting and sluggish than what Architect is. ))

but one thing to consider is that a stereo track at 192kbs will only take abotu 200mb of space on a 4.3gb disc.. it really wont kill your project

hi peter,

thx for answering my questions =). i really appreciate it.

it's not about space but about artistic freedom (or anal retentive nature of artists in general). let's just say, for example, that i would like to emulate a classic film release and i would like to use Dolby 1.0 (96kHz) like they do on classics for black&white films released on DVD. why shouldn't i have creative license to do so on DVD Architect? that's just weird to me. or... like open range i want to save space and not put another 200MB into the already crowded 4.3gb or 8.3gb (dual layer) DVD. i would like to put a mono track that is much, much smaller so i can give my movie a commentary without sacrificing video quality. i'm not saying these are projects i'm working on but i'm just referring to the freedom to have the tools that are capable of doing all these things. i know that you can encode the .ac3 files to be anything you want, but DVD Architect isn't letting me preparing the DVD files with the exact specs i want for my movie.

also, to others, do you know of any DVD creation software that allows what i want but for a really cheap price? does DVD Lab do this?

u know i reckon u should post this up to the SOny Media Forums.
I havent really delved into this element (apart from stereo and 5.1) however u might get a reponse from one of the SOny techs.. ??

Does anyone mind giving me some advice? I am considering upgrading to Vegas 6 and moving to HD (the FX1). In the past I have authored DVDs with Sonic ReelDVD but found out I can't do 24p with it so feel it's time to upgrade. So I was considering also getting DVD Architect 3. I downloaded the demo and was wondering if anyone knew of any links to tutorials that would walk me through some of it's DVD authoring features and save me some time in making my decision?

there are the sony seminar series dvds available for training , but Jay has uploaded the NAB seminar, (which is what the seminar series are based on) which goes thru step by step.. albeit rushed for time