Sony Vegas file too big for DVD

[djchuckwortman]

Hi there, my first post, hoping you can help. I'm a DJ and I recorded a wedding so I could have dome footage for marketing purposes. I was asked if I could make a DVD from what I recorded. I agreed seeing it as an opportunity to force myself to learn how to use the tools and make a little money doing so.

I used Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11.0 and edited it down to under two hours. BUt the overall file size is too big for the DVD, coming in at 5.5GB.

I checked another thread through a Google Search and it said to export it as AVI and then run it through DVD Shrink. The file created was so huge that it took up the remaining 200GB on my hard drive & never finished converting due to lack of space.

Something didn't seem right since it was greater than even the originally recorded size so I decided to post in hopes those of you with expertise in this realm could better assist.

What do I need to do specifically to get this to fit on DVD? Sony Vegas offers a number of output formats to a finished product, including multiple mp4 and avi formats, so which do I choose? Once that's done, do I want to use DVD Shrink to get to a size that will fit on DVD?

Thanks so much!!!

[Paul2012]

I used Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11.0

[djchuckwortman]

Paul, I appreciate your replying, but could you elaborate? Your response isn't clear to me.

thanks.

[admin]

Do you need the DVD to play on a DVD player, or just on computers?

Assuming you need a DVD that plays on DVD players, I'm sure there would be an option within Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum to choose the output quality/file size. I don't really use the tool, but having had a look at a few videos on YouTube (quite helpful if you need hints on how to use various aspects of Vegas Movie Studio), there are some settings you can adjust when you select to render the video - there should be templates you can select, with a "customize templates" option. When you do that, there should be options to change the bitrate, which will affect the output file size. I've seen quite a few videos on how to change mp4/wmv settings, but not sure if there are some for AVI or (more importantly) MPG or DVD.

Looks like the AVI you created was done using uncompressed video, which explains the large file size. You shouldn't convert to AVI anyway, as DVD Shrink won't accept AVi files, and other DVD authoring tools will prefer the MPG (MPEG-2) format.

[djchuckwortman]

Thank you for the details. Okay, new stumbling block. Even for MPEG-2 I have number of sub-choices like... Program Stream NTSC or Program Stream PAL, DVD Architect NTSC Video Stream, DVD Architect 24p NTSC Video Stream or DVD Architect PAL Video Stream.
In addition to the above, each comes in Widescreen versions and as if that weren't enough, there's HDV 720-25P, HDV 720-30P, HDV 1080-24P. HDV 1080-50i, and HDV 1080-60i

I don't know if these are common formats or specific so I listed them anyway. Any idea which one I should choose?

"there should be templates you can select, with a "customize templates" option. When you do that, there should be options to change the bitrate, which will affect the output file size." I didn't see that option, but may have overlooked it. What bitrate size should I choose to get teh file to fit?

Thanks for your help!

[djchuckwortman]

I need to get onto a DVD. It's for someone who couldn't attend the wedding and lives far away.

[admin]

Forgot to mention a really really simple solution which somehow escaped me before - instead of trying to fit the video onto a 4.7GB single layer DVD, why don't you just use a dual layer DVD-R (or DVD+R)? That will definitely fit the video you produced (5.5GB), with plenty of room to spare, and the dual layer disc should work on most DVD players. It's easy to sometimes forget the simplest solution!

But if that's not something you want to do, then continue reading

Ignore the HDV options, since you're not producing a HD disc. I would say that the DVD Architect profiles are the ones you need (to produce files that works with Sony's DVD Architect software, but will probably work with other software too). As for PAL/NTSC, do you know which system your video was shot in? If you're in the US/North America though, I would say there's a 99% chance it was NTSC.

As for not being able to find the customize option, there are various versions of Vegas, so perhaps only the most expensive one has that. Just in case though, can you post a screenshot of the window that contains these profiles? (using Windows snipping tool in Vista/7)

The required bitrate can be calculated based on the length of the video. The bitrate is usually expressed in kbs, which can be worked out by finding out how many seconds the video has, and using this formula (4.2 being the size of a single layer DVD, in GB):

bitrate (kbps) = (4.2 * 1024 * 1024 * 8) / number of seconds in your video

If there isn't an option to actually change the bitrate, then you might have to just render the MPEG-2 file as it is, then use another DVD authoring tool to get the file size down, for example, one of the ones listed here (note that your video will have to be re-encode by these tools again, so there will be some quality loss):

http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/DVD_Authoring_Tools_Roundup

[djchuckwortman]

Based upon what you described, I used the MPEG-2 DVD Architect NTSC setting and exported it and the resulting file size was small enough to fit on DVD. From there I used WIndows Movie Maker to make the DVD from the file. The video came out nice, but there was only one problem...no audio!

What did I do wrong or what did I not do?

I'm so close I can taste it! Now if I can only get the audio squared away!

[admin]

Having done some further research, it appears the DVD Architect profile does not include audio. Are you sure there isn't a profile called "NTSC-DVD" or "NTSC MPEG-2" or something similar, and that there's no "custom" button that allows you to customize the profiles?

[admin]

I've just installed a trial version of Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum, and right where you start a new project, there is the option to select DVD - NTSC, and this is what you should have selected from the get go (see first screenshot).

But regardless, you should be able to customize the DVD Architect video profile to include audio, see attached second screenshot and the areas marked in red as to where the customize profile button is, and how to include audio. You may need to re-adjust the video bitrate as well to take into account the audio bitrate (224 kbps), in order to get a video file that's the right size (long story short, extract 250,000 kbps or more from the average video bitrate setting under the "video" tab of the customize profile window).

What people normally do is to export the file without audio, then export the audio track as an AC3 (also one of the available profiles), and then load them into DVD Architect separately. But since you're using Windows Movie Maker, then you should be able to get your rendered video file (now with audio) to work in there (first try to play the rendered file in Windows Media Player, just to find out if there's sound - if there is, Windows Movie Maker should be able to make a DVD out of it).