How do you get a 90 minute video to fit on a DVD?
 

I just rendered a 90 video to mpeg2 and when I took that file into
DVD arch., it told me that the file was too big to fit on a regular dvd. The file is 4.6 gb. and with the stuff that dvda adds, it comes out to over 5 gb.

I assume that there are settings that you should use to scrunch up the original mpeg2 so that it will fit. After all I see DVD's with several hours a material all the time.

Suggestions????

Thanks,
Milt

Use the 'fit to DVD' function in DVDA or you can go back to Vegas and rerender with a lower bitrate.

edit: Using the fit to DVD will result in the MPEG2 being rerendered and the quality will take a hit.

You have to go into the "Custom" settings and lower the bitrate so that it will fit. I have a bitrate chart in Vol 1 #7 of my newsletters and there's several bitrate calculators you can download available on the net.

Thanks folks,

I'm rerendering. BTW - I had already tried the "fit to disk" - but it wouldn't let it do it. Very strange. I will mess with that some more.

Milt

When starting with MPEG2, you don't want to use "fit to disc" as it will re-render your MPEG2 into a smaller file.

Thanks - yep I figured out that the "fit to disk" option is not really a great idea. Seems like if you do that - you lose all control.

Anyway, Edward, I used your chart, and it worked beautifully. Thanks for all you do with Vegas.
Milt

Hi,

I have stumbled over the same problem - and used sucessfully another approach to fit to the DVD media. If the source material is DV (SD), try to render in Vegas as AVI (in the same format as the SD) and let the DVDA perform the AVI to MPEG compression before burning to DVD. Then you have the possibility to set the compression rate manually or automatically, to get your material to fit. No re-renderings. To my understandning there should not be a quality loss since the AVI is actually the same format as DV, clips with no additional processing should be directly outputted without any conversion. At least that is my impression, and the result looks great. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Christian

Christian, that will also work fine. Letting it render DV is totally different than letting it rerender MPEG2.