I can't figure out what the heck I've done wrong. I'm trying to put just under 2 hours of footage to DVD. I used bit rate calculator and made 9 mpg files totaling 9.5 GB (yes, I know that doesn't work... before I go back and re-render the correct size...).

DVD Architect 5 thinks its 12.6 GB of material (no menus or anything yet).

Before I go back and try to resize this properly... what the heck is going on? Why is Architect inflating file sizes? How do I fix it so that when I DO get about 7GB of material, it doesn't think its 11 and thus too big for my DVD?

What format is the audio? If it's not AC3 that's the problem. It needs to be rendered in Vegas to AC3. BTW DVDA will almost always overestimate the size of the file generally by about a half gig but since yours is way over that that's why I went to the audio file size.

Hmmm. Possible. I'll try rendering an AC3 file separately and then drop it into Architect as a replacement for the audio track.

As you know, DVD size is directly and most influenced by BITRATE. I have often made more than acceptable, greater than 2hr DVDs. Can you list the Bitrates for each of the MPGES? IMO, you really should NOT be needing to re-do an AC3 in an attempt to reduce DVD size. I wouldn't.

Grazie

Grazie, I'm not understanding why you wouldn't render to AC3 when DVDA prefers AC3 as a file type for audio. PPCM or wav is a lot bigger than AC3 so while it does take the time to render the audio to AC3 in Vegas (preferred method) the file size is smaller which allows for a higher bitrate for the video file.
To me it makes perfect sense for Robert to render the file to AC3 which will decrease the file size as opposed to lowering the bitrate of the overall project and of course lower the quality of the video. I'm sure it makes sense to you as well.

Grazie, I'm not understanding why you wouldn't render to AC3 when DVDA prefers AC3 as a file type for audio. I didn't say that at all. What I said was: " . . you really should NOT be needing to re-do an AC3 in an attempt to reduce DVD size." My understanding is that an AC3 had already been done, and that to redo it, an AC3, wouldn't make much of a difference. I always create an AC3, from this I gather that that had not been done. So, most definitely make an AC3.

Grazie

Sorry Grazie, I misread what you wrote. Too early in the AM for me plus I think the English Accent thru me off. ;-)

See, I didn't see anywhere that the OP had rendered the audio to AC3 and of course as we all know there are only a couple of settings for AC3 and it's pretty much a no brainer which for an old guy who is slowly losing his mind is a very good thing.

Well whatever the OP does I hope it works for him.

I may have simply misunderstood the bitrate it suggested (though I don't think so). I did see that one file, at about 500 mb, showed up in Architect as 618 mb.

I'm rendering the whole set again, this time with separate mpg and audio (AC3) files.

The mpg's will be even lower quality, about a 3.5 million bps average. We'll see what happens. I think I originally did it at about 6 million bps. Re did already at that 4.2 million setting and it was still slightly over.

Very frustrating.

Robert
there are a bunch of bit rate calculators out there. I'm still using one from Edward Trowel that has never let
Me down. The calculator will save you time therfore money as well as grey hairs.

Robert, DVDA always over estimates the finished DVD size. To make sure that your material will fit and that you get the quality you want you should render a DVDA compliant mpeg file or files straight from your NLE and the associated AC3 files. Notice that DVDA compliant files are not completely the same as the DVD compliant specs. Then pull them into DVDA for authoring the DVD. DVDA will report that the estimated finished size is much larger than it really will be. When you go to "Make DVD" click the Optimize button on the Review Message List box. If you see a dimond with an exclamation in the middle the file will be rerendered. I their is a check mark it will not be. As long as your files going into the authoring process are small enough it will fit onto a DVD disc. Leave enough room for your menu pages too.

Also, if you are planning to use a dual layer disc make sure to have a chapter point at about the half way point. Going from one layer to the next can only be done at a chapter break or start of a new file.

Hope that helps.

Garret, I used to use Sony's tool that sent it straight to Architect. That meant having all my material in one project. Now I render each "chapter" or video as its own mpg and AC3, then gather it in Architect myself. That solves my dual layer/split issue. I'm using Sony's mpg template, then just changing the bitrate as needed.

Most of my DVDs have less material than this one, but this wedding was VERY Catholic. Their documentary style video alone is 1 hour 45 minutes, which is absurd, thanks to a long ceremony. Tack on highlights and family interviews and its... well, longer than most of mine.

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I'll be very glad when DVDs are finally dead and buried.

Robert, if you put a chapter break at the correct place in DVDA you can have one long file. I've found on some older players having separate files for each chapter causes problems when trying to navigate back and forth. This isn't usually the case but I've had problems in the past.

Still, if all of your files are DVDA compliant, DVDA won't rerender. Rendering long videos is more efficient (on space) and will yield better quality if you use Vegas, especially since you can use two passes where as DVDA will only allow you a single pass render. On some really difficult material I found that DVDA has some bad mpeg artifacts and when rendered in Vegas I had none.

maybe this isnt the problem but thought i'd mention it just in case...

i had copied a DVDA file from one project to use on another, and forgot that the original project had an extras folder of photos and video files for copying to a computer. well the new project still had that extras folder and so the resulting DVD was several hundred MB larger than the new video file (plus would've had the unrelated content had i not caught this).

Well, I used Sony's native mpg-Architect codec, just lowered the bitrates. I tried both 9 separate files, and a different set of renders totalling 3 larger files. Neither worked out.

For instance, the 9 files version shows up as a total of 6.79 GB in Windows. Put into Architect, it shows up as close to 13 GB. Something similar with the fewer files, larger sizes.

I gave up and just did 2 DVDs. One with the complete ceremony, the other has highlights, stories, and their reception.

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I thought I had solved this issue before, and my Google-fu (and searching this board) gets me no where. Can't figure out the correct terms to use, I guess.

Next try is going to use a different (older) computer to do the same renders. See what happens. Maybe they're different. Or maybe I haven't had to stuff this much footage onto a DVD in a few years (darn Catholic weddings).

Robert,
It doesn't matter how many chapters or files you render. What matters is the total length of time of all the files together. IOW if the total time is say 90 minutes and you have 9 chapters or 9 separate files that total 90 minutes the bitrate for a DVD would be MAX; 8. AVG 6.497 and minimum 2 using AC3 audio. Using PCM or WAV audio the AVG bitrate goes to 5.122. Quite a difference.
I routinely did 90 minutes and more on a single layer DVD with AC3 audio and never once had a problem with fitting it on to the DVD. This worked for material that was up to 180 minutes. Of course the quality of the 180 minute material on DVD wasn't as good as something shorter but generally that was only used by a client for TC logging.
What I'm getting at is if you use 9 files for example the EACH file has to be rendered using the same bitrate for what ever the overall time of the total is. Plus render each file to AC3.individually.
Hope that makes sense.

I found that sometimes it did over estimate the size, so I would prepare the disk without burning and if it came in under max size burn it. If oversize decide how much over eg. 10% then rerender at 15% lower bitrate.

I don't know if this has been raised in this thread, but along with BitRate Calc I also use BitRateViewer. This free utility gives an excellent graphical representational Graph of the whole file. This shows me the PEAKS and TROUGHS of the rates varying. On more than one occasion I have been able to pinpoint a "rogue" peak that was scrambling/cluging-up my otherwise perfect DVD.

BitRate Viewer: Bitrate Viewer - Main Page (http://www.winhoros.de/docs/bitrate-viewer/)

Cheers

Grazie

Robert, Don's recommendation is the way I do it if I have multiple files to create for a DVD.
I use the bitrate calculator found at http://www.johncline.com/bitcalc110.zip
It's never let me down and I find it to be a great tool.
I do make a few changes to it when it first comes up as indicated in the screen shots below.
I change the default safety margin from 1% to 5%.
I click the Settings box and, on the screen that comes up, click 1 kilobit = 1024 bits.
In that same window, I set the Audio encoding type and bitrate option to 192 kB/S as that's the DVDa standard. If you prefer to use a higher value, adjust accordingly.

FYI, I used it set to 2 hours (for your video) and got the following numbers (see screen shot below)

OK, I found it, I think.

Not only do I have to be more careful about EXACTLY which Architect codec I use, (DVD Architect 24p NTSC Widescreen video stream), more importantly

In Architect's properties (under File) is the option for... bit rate. Even when I'm using the correct bit rate in Vegas, when I put the files into Architect, its recalculating all of it at 8 bit instead of whatever I rendered the mpg files at.

That means my 5 or 6 Mbps files end up as 8 Mbps, except, of course, they're not really. That's why Architect thinks my 9 gigs of files is 12 or 13.

Welcome to the black art that is DVD encoding :)
Here are two screen shots from the render settings panel using your two hour timeline for the bitrate I recommended in my earlier post.
Make sure to choose the 2-pass option as this will maximize your final quality. It will take longer but the results will be worth it.
I always set my Video Quality slider to it's highest setting.
On the Project tab (this is in Pro 12), I set the Video rendering Quality option to Best. Once again this will make for a longer render but the final quality, especially still images, will benefit from it.

You can save this as a preset if you know you'll have similar length projects in the future.

Thanks, Mike, that is what I've been using.

With my new find, I think I may try rendering the mpg from Vegas as best quality and full 8 bit, like Architect wants, then let Architect do the conversion down to whatever bit rate I need. Its going to do it anyway, why not let it.

I may start doing a bit of math for my Vegas template, make sure I'm doing as close to loss less for my long term storage as possible. Right now, I pass the clients their DVDs, then on USB they get mp4s and a VOB to make more DVDs if they want. For me, I'm storing mp4s and mpgs, but maybe that should be AVI to avoid loss.

I am shooting on a 5d Mark ii and 70Ds. The 5d is under 6 MBps, I believe (though Magic Lantern let's you bump that way up to 76 MBps). The 70D is around 10 MBps. Should base my numbers on that for a start.

With my new find, I think I may try rendering the mpg from Vegas as best quality and full 8 bit, like Architect wants, then let Architect do the conversion down to whatever bit rate I need. Its going to do it anyway, why not let it.

Robert, DVD creators on this and other Vegas forums who are much smarter than me always say to do your encoding from Vegas instead of letting DVDA do it for you.
Letting DVDA do it for you means that it does what it "thinks" is best, not necessarily what is best. I always do my my encoding directly from Vegas as I have complete control over the finished product.

I may start doing a bit of math for my Vegas template, make sure I'm doing as close to loss less for my long term storage as possible. Right now, I pass the clients their DVDs, then on USB they get mp4s and a VOB to make more DVDs if they want. For me, I'm storing mp4s and mpgs, but maybe that should be AVI to avoid loss.

The best long term storage is to keep the source footage and all your project files, graphics, music, etc. in one master folder on an external drive. Hard drives are so cheap these days that doing that is a very good method of backing up. A lot of users recommend having a second duplicate backup stored off site in case of fire, theft, etc. Only you can make that call but it is a good idea for anything critical.
Remember to exercise the externals at least once every 6 months (plug them in, power them up and try reading a few files) as hard drives have been known to go bad over time.

My weddings each run 200-400 GB. I know hard drives are cheap, but that's 2 new drives a year, just for that privilege (since I double backup everything). Mostly, I just don't want to store that much long term. I currently have 4 large drives and usually keep original files for about 2 years. After that, when the space is needed for the 3rd wedding season, I clear them out and only have the final project files. My contract only promises 6 months of storage of the originals for them.

As for the Vegas/Architect bit, I've always done the work in Vegas and plan to... except for this ridiculous Catholic wedding with too much footage. I'm going to see what happens with the better Vegas render (8 bit) and then let Architect, who is redoing the file away, bring it down to the smaller file size.

This is the first project in... I don't know, a couple of years, where this has been an issue. I'm hoping it doesn't come up more than once a year, that's for sure. Glad I found that option in Architect, though.