Solved Creating DVD in DVDA 5 from Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 13

The total time for the entire "movie" is under 55 minutes. I was having issues getting my scene selection menu to work and spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. I have another thread on here, whihc I think you gave me some advice. It wasn't saving my in/out points so it wouldn't go back to the menu after it played. Long story short, I rendered each section and then created a video link to that particular file. It was the only way I could get it to work out. I know its not normally the way you do it. I don't know why it wasn't saving my in/out points.

I think the actual video is 52 minutes long. 4.9 GB. I don't understand how under an hours worth of video can't fit on a DL disk that can handle up to 2 hours. It perplexes me that a file that says is 4.9 GB can't fit on a 8.5GB DVD.

Hi Rwdoca
This thread raises two issues which may or may not be related:

• The primary question of Creating and Burning a dual layer disk.
• Your previous questions about creating a scene selection menu that returns to the menu at the end of an individual scene/chapter;

Creating and Burning a dual layer disk
Although I’ve never done it with DVDA the program certainly has the functionality to do what you are wanting – indeed you mention you have had success before. From what you have described and the attachments provided I can’t immediately see anything in your process that would trigger a fail. But as I mentioned in an earlier post DL burning is a finicky process and it doesn’t take much to trip it up. Is there anything about the current project or process that is different to earlier successful projects?
Creating a scene selection Menu
Am I reading correctly that your project has:

• a single video file for the full movie (with chapter markers);
• multiple shorter files extracted from the full movie for each chapter you want to have play from your scene selection menu.

If so, while it would produce the functionality you are wanting it would probably account for why your project is too large to fit on a standard DVD as you are effectively doubling the amount of data in the project. (Still wouldn’t account for why your larger Dual Layer project is not being burned successfully though).
Did you try producing your Scene Selection menu using the steps in my last post in your other thread? Using that method, when you create the first scene select button and link it to the same (full movie) file on your HDD as you linked to from the ”Play NCL Bliss” button on your main menu, only one copy of the ”main movie” file is needed in the project. The separate chapter clips aren’t required as all the buttons will reference the main clip (but “think” they are referencing separate clips), resulting in smaller project that would be more likely to fit on a standard disk.
Doc Zen – A normal Scene Selection menu is as you describe and illustrate and will show the link symbol in the Project Overview. In a previous thread Rwdoca had indicated that he was wanting to be able to play an individual chapter/scene and then return to the Scene Selection menu rather than have it continue to play through to the end of the clip, requiring an alternative to the normal scene selection structure as the normal Scene Selection menu doesn’t provide that functionality
Cheers, Robbie

RWDOCA - two comments.

A 4.7 GB disk is actually 4,700,000 bytes or 4.38 gb in computer language. Misleading I agree.

Yes 52 minutes will easily fit on a 4.7 GB disc but you will need to lower the bitrate to do so. To get two hours on a disk you need around 4.7 Mbps. Obviously you don't need to go that low. Search this site or the net and you will find bitrate calculators to help work out the required bitrate if you want to get the movie on a less problematic single layer disk..

Mark's DVD bitrate calculator has long been and still is used by many of us. The link to it (bitcalc110.zip) is in the tutorial
www.moviestudiozen.com/free-tutorials/dvd-architect-studio-50/493-how-to-compress-a-long-video-onto-a-dvd ,
which was also mentioned in this thread earlier (post #2).

If you cannot find it, try www.moviestudiozen.com/images/downloads/bitcalc110.zip

In addition to ericlnz's comments regarding DVD capacities, please see the screenshot and read the link in post #5 here
www.moviestudiozen.com/forum/movie-studio-platinum/1766-extended-length-dvd-r-of-movie-in-vms-14-platinum#8970
(Quote from the link in that post: "So disc storage capacity is measured in decimal form by manufacturers and in binary form by the operating system.")

The "DVD Sizes" section here might also be helpful.

I have already used the bitrate calculator. It came up with 9608 if I recall. I am about ready to just scrap the scene selection and just move on. I have been working on this for over 2 months and its time to put it to rest. I have burned many DVDs DL successfully. Same size video give or take a ten minutes. And I have had no problems. Apparently my scene selection isn't setup right. Apparently the way I did it has made the movie larger than is registering. So if I remove the scene selection completely it should bring me down to a regular DVD. If not then I will just scrap it. I was doing this for fun and the fun has long since passed.

Hi Rwdoca
Most of what I know about encoding, editing and authoring came through trial and error so I totally get your frustration, but don’t give up on your vision for the project just yet!
If your “NCL Bliss” movie is around 52 minutes I’m 100% confident you can comfortably produce a DVD with high video quality and the scene selection menu you are envisaging on a single layer disk if you follow the process I outlined in your other thread. Much of this you’ll already know but for completeness a nd to recap:

1. Edit your NCL Bliss Movie as you require and add chapter markers.
2. Render the video file using the Project>Render As> MainConcept MPEG2> DVD Architect (PAL or NTSC) Widescreen video screen template. Customise the template to use Constant Bit Rate at 8,700,000 bps (8,700 kb/s). This will give you good quality video for 52 minutes on a single layer disk (As a general rule I try to use only about 90% of the disk capacity as tracks close to the disk rim can be prone to error).
3. Render an audio file using Project>Render As>Dolby AC3 Sound Studio>Stereo DVD (this will be 192kb/s by default). Use the same folder and file name as for the video file.
4. Open a new DVDA project for DVD 4.7Gb.
5. On the Main Menu (i) create a "Play NCL Bliss" button linking to your rendered video file (using your preferred method of dragging from the Project overview or using “Insert media” from the menu Workspace) and (ii) create your Scene Selection menu by right clicking and selecting “Insert Submenu”.
6. On the Scene Selection Submenu right click, select “Insert Media” and then select your rendered NCL Bliss file from the relevant HDD folder. This will create a button. (For this step you need to use “Insert Media” and NOT drag the file from the Project Overview)
7. Right click on the button and select copy, then past as many copies onto the Scene Select menu as you require.
8. For each button you can then define the start and end points by double clicking on the button and then on the timeline dragging the yellow region marker triangles on the timeline to the required scene/chapter start and end markers.
9. Add whatever menu background media and button styles and properties you want and you’re done.

Given this is as Work in Progress rather than starting from scratch you may be able to save a new copy of your existing DVDA project, change the settings from 8.5 to 4.7, delete the existing buttons on your Scene Select Menu and recreate them following steps 6 to 8.
Cheers, Robbie

Thank you Robbie. I followed everything you said, except 2 and 3 because in my version of Vegas I don't have the "Render As" option anymore. It is just Make Movie. In an older version I did have the "Render As" so it would allow me to do the video and then the audio. In version 13 I just have Make Movie. I did change the format to NTSC Widescreen instead of the HD option. It then sent it over to DVDA where I followed your steps one by one. Total size of video was 2.5GB. I made sure the DVD was 4.7. When I made the buttons for the scene selections it brought me up with my markers that I had put in Vegas. So i could assign the button the marker name that was created in Vegas; but as you know when I did that it would take me to that spot in the video and then continue, which is what I had expected. So I clicked on the first button, went in and made my in/out points and repeated for the 8 buttons I needed. When I did that the links were broken. So when I went to "Make Movie" in DVDA it came up with errors that links were broken. I continued and once it was finished preparing it gave me the the "too large" for media. So I don't know if its pulling something from one of the older versions I don't know. So I have deleted all versions and starting over. I am rendering the video, with markers, in Vegas 13 and will try again to follow the steps. My only concern is since I don't have the "Render As" and the ability to change the constant bit rate that its messing me up somewhere. Once I render a fresh copy I will let you know the outcome.

Rwdoca wrote: "in my version of Vegas I don't have the "Render As" option anymore. It is just Make Movie. In an older version I did have the "Render As" so it would allow me to do the video and then the audio. In version 13 I just have Make Movie. ---My only concern is since I don't have the "Render As" and the ability to change the constant bit rate that its messing me up somewhere. "

If you have MS Platinum 13 (be sure to use the Advanced mode), go to Make Movie > Save it to my hard drive > Advanced options (e.g. MPEG-2) > Render As window, which gives you all the Formats and Templates options you need including Customizing templates. Note that the Dolby Digital AC-3 Studio template cannot be customized.

I'm sorry to keep banging on about Total Video Time, but I believe this is the cause of your simple problem.
Your project screen shot is shows that you have 8x videos in total, not just 1.

You have reported that the actual video is 52 minutes long - this is the time for one video only.

I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess that videos 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8 are all parts of the main video.
If my guess is correct, this means your DVD project is 104 minutes in total, not only 52 minutes.

I'm going to try and ask this one last time.
1. Total time for video Play NCL Bliss = 52 minutes
2. What is the total time for video Personal Intro ?
3. What is the total time for video Welcome ?
4. What is the total time for video Staterooms ?
5. What is the total time for video Entertainment ?
6. What is the total time for video Bliss ?
7. What is the total time for video Excursions ?
8. What is the total time for video Gallery ?