Problem With 'Sonic - My DVD'

[KilinKind]

I've finally picked up a DVD-r with a few blanks. I'm wanting to make my first burn good so I've been holding off on burning anything. I'm trying to learn as much as I can first. I will be using Sonic My DVD for the burning and menu creating, etc. Im using Pinnacle VCR-PC transfer. I'm trying to fit about 2 and a half hours on one CD ( Which is 3 concerts) . I'm using TMPGE for the editing, etc.

I've got two shows on the the 'My DVD' menu right now. It says I have 920MB left on the DVD. So on my third one I had TMPGE shrink it down to about 915MBs. When I add it to the menu it says I have 0MB left and will not alow me to burn. Any ideas on what is causing this? Should I shrink it down some more? When I get done posting I will knock it down to about 880 and see what happens. It's just bugging me.

[housepig]

this isn't specific to your problem, but if your burner will burn them, pick up a couple of RW discs - you can burn and reburn them so you can actually test projects on your dvd player without wasting discs.

as for the dvd - I wonder if MyDVD is not taking into account the structural overhead that goes with the data on the disc... I just checked my copy of DVD Demystified, it says you should leave 3 to 4% of the disc free for control files and backup files created during the authoring process.

[ADS Ivan]

Sonic makes it a rule with all of their applications (MyDVD, DVDit!, ReelDVD and all the rest) follow the DVD spec very closely in an effort to make your DVDs as playable as possible. Unless you are encoding your video half frame or at an extremely low bit rate, you will never be able to fit 2.5 hours of video on a 4.7GB DVD-R. The spec that is getting in your way is the requirement for PCM or AC-3 audio.

MyDVD exclusively publishes PCM/uncompressed audio making your DVD playable theoretically in any player, however since it doesn't take advantage of MPEG Audio or AC-3 compression, your DVD will be inflated and filled with audio...With a different app (DVD MovieFactory 2, or pretty much any other app), you wouldnt have this problem.

ADS Ivan

[KilinKind]

Thanks that makes sense. I will keep an eye out for those programs you mentioned. I'm just totally ignorant to the DVDr world right now. I've been doing the VCDs for a couple years but it's still a different world because now Im really checking out the quality. A question with the first post.. about the DVDRW disc. I just used the disc up and burnt a half ass DVD just to see if it worked on the player and just to check out the quality. Well it worked fine but now Im having a quality issue. I bought some Memorex RW discs.. now how would I re use these?

[Tommyknocker]

Use them just like DVD-Rs. Except when you want to re-use them, you have to erase them first. Some programs like Video Studio has a reminder that comes up automatically to let you know this, and gives you the option at the same time.

[Yirkin]

I was just about to post a very similar question. Using TMPGEnc, I made 4 mpg files that are 1gig each. 4 gig is well under the 4.7 gig limit for DVDs yet when I put them into MyDVD, they registered as well over the max size for a disc. I have encoded and reencoded trying to figure out what went wrong. It didn't occure to me that when MyDVD stated that it was transcoding the audio, it was switching it over to PCM and thus blowing up the file sizes.

Thanks a lot for answering this question for me. It's a shame really, I was perfectly satisfied with MyDVD up until this point but if it won't allow me to use the compressed MPG audio, then I will have to invest in another product.

How safe am I encoding in mp2 audio for playback on set top players? Are there a lot of players that require the PCM audio or do most people go with the mpg2 audio because it reduces the file size so much more?

Oh and TMPEG always recomends 384 for my audio bitrate. Is that a good rate for TV shows or VHS to DVD copies? This site's bitrate calculator always defaults to 224 audio bitrate. Would that produce good results too or should I stick with the 384 that TMPGEnc recomends?


Thanks,

Howard

[KilinKind]

Hey Yirkin contact me at ICQ 65264556 I got something that might help you out.

[dcsos]

Almost all the DVD players out there will play MPEG compressed audio.
Below authoring suggestions for your 4 gigs worth of files to fit
This DVD Lab looks promising for only $99 bucks..and it will take the same files you prepared for MYDVD, if you can't affor SONIC FOUNDRY DVD
ARCHITECT

CAUTION 4.7 gig equals =4.3 gig depending on how you look at it

[dcsos]

Using 224 versus 384
I've never been able to hear the difference with other than the highest end audio system..even the best TV speaker reveals no difference
like MPEG audio-PROS use ac3 compressed files

Examples used professionally:
Sopranos BITRATE of 224 AC3
Bjork Volumen BitRATE of 224 but PCM audio
James Bond Die Another Day 384 AC3 used
LAGAAN (Bollywood Blockbuster) Bitrate of 441 ac3(highest I've seen)

btw:CD QUALITY is expressed as 256bits @16bits