Rendering/transcoding question

Joe S · Post by **Joe S** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 7:13 pm

I have an avi file like this: 720x480 mpeg4 video, 48kHz stereo, about 1 hr long. It is a movie I d/l'ed from the internet. There are no menus or subtitles or anything added - it's just a single avi file.

Now I load it into VS 9, and burn to disk, not adding any menus or any other content. After 12 hours of processing, VS progress is only at 30%. After about 32 hours, the disc is finally done.

So I take the file and burn it to disc using ConvertXtoDVD. It transcodes and burns the disc in less than 1.5 hours!

I don't understand what's going on here. Shouldn't VS be able to burn the disc in about the same amount of time? The input file is the same, all the project settings are equal between the two programs. The final discs' video quality is identical - after a very careful examination.

What am I missing here?

Post by **Ken Berry** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 8:33 pm

No -- the file is an mpeg-4 one, which is a heavily compressed but usually good quality format which VS9 will only properly support with an mpeg-4 plug-in which is free to registered users of the (full) program. Your other program, ConvertXtoDVD, on the other hand, is designed specifically to deal with formats such as this, and so the overall process is much faster.

For what it is worth, .avi is really only a 'carrier' format used for distribution purposes. It can cover a variety of formats: true, uncompressed .avi is huge -- around 65GB per hour of video! Then there is DV/AVI, which is a special format designed by Microsoft to exactly emulate the quality of the video in a mini-DV digital video camera. It is still large, at around 13 GB per hour. Then there are mpeg-4 formats such as DivX and XVid which are small but lossy formats designed for heavily compressed storage/archiving and often used in exactly the way you downloaded this particular file -- as a way to compress a movie to fit on one or two CDs...

Joe S · Post by **Joe S** » Sun Feb 05, 2006 8:53 pm

Thanks, Ken.

Yes, I am familiar with the file formats. In fact, I use VS9 editing my DV/avi files from the cams to produce the movies. It works well there. This is my first attempt at MPEG4/avi files - sometimes the issues over plug-ins and codecs can get a little specific.

So it sounds like I need the MPEG4 plug-in for VS9 to make this work?

I'll do a bit of poking around and try and find it.

Joe S · Post by **Joe S** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:53 pm

The mpeg4 plug-in did absolutely nothing.

However, Vegas does just fine.

GuyL · Post by **GuyL** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 3:31 pm

I have noticed this as well. I don't think Video Studio was designed with transcoding in mind other than to be able to take a project, edit it and then create a file or disk from that project.

While this is transcoding in many respects, there are better alternatives in the marketplace that do only this function and do it more efficiently. However, they are not editors.

On the same level, some users use other software to burn their files produced from Video Studio. Again, VS will burn disks but not to the level of software specifically designed to this task.

jchunter · Post by **jchunter** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 4:15 pm

Joe,
You may have commited a Video Studio "no-no" by putting the mpeg4 file in the time line and hitting the Create Disk button. If so, this could be the root of your 12 hour burn problem.

Try this transcoding procedure instead:
(1) place Mpeg4 file in timeline,
(2) Select Share/Create Video File,
(3) Select Custom/Select: Mpeg Files, Options button
(4) Compression Tab: select NTSC DVD, Video Data Rate Variable, 8000Kbps
(5) General Tab: Frame size: 720x480
(6) Frame Type: Set to match the Field Order property of your Mpeg4 video file, Ditto Aspect ratio property,
Name the file and hit the Save button.
This should take a lot less than 12 hours.
Then with empty timeline, do a standard Create Disk using the Recommended Procedure in the top sticky post.