Rendering

[downesa]

In the first post on this forum it states that you must never try to burn a DVD before making a video file. I have been doing this and found that the project appears to render twice. Once during the making of the video file and then again during the burning phase (if it is not rendering it is certainly taking a hell of a long time to burn).

When I watched the tutorial contained in the "extra content" file (VS8) it suggests that you DO NOT need to write a video file but can go staight to the burning process.

Can somebody clear this up for me ??

Thanks

[rwindeyer]

I'll certainly try.

The little thumbnails in your project file are not files in themselves - they are "pointers" to very many files scattered across your hard drive. Also the project file specifies what you want - the first half of this clip, the second half of that clip, this transition, that music file etc etc.
When you make a video file you are asking the computer to find all that data from the scattered sources and assemble it in one contiguous file. I call this collating.
Depending on the format you are using (I use DV format for editing) the video may then have to be transcoded (changed to mpeg format); and then burned to DVD.

Very many people on this board have found that if you ask Video Studio to collate, transcode and burn all at the same time, then audio/video sync errors can creep in, or at worst the whole project just gets too hard and everything falls over. You can get away with it; the collective advice from here is not to.

So: make a video file that assembles all your edits etc. Run it to see that it works. Then load it into the burning module and create a DVD. Sure it takes longer, but it's better than repeated failure and frustration.

[downesa]

Thanks and I agree with what you have said completely. My only question is why once it renders once (during the create a file step) why it has to do it again during the burning step. I know it does because it takes longer to burn a disk than it does to create a video file.

I just thought of something. If you go directly from the edit to the share step the file loaded for burning is a VSP file even if you have already rendered the project. Is it then necessary to delete this and load the MPEG 2 file ?? Possibly then it won't try to render again.

This forum is very informative.

Thanks

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

After you have created a video file (rendered to Mpeg 2)
You use the Mpeg 2 file to burn a dvd.

Your project settings have to be the same as your video file, otherwise VS will rerender the file to match during the burner phase, NOT what you want.

Try this

First from File/preferences/ tick 'Show messages when inserting first video into timeline'

Now read My Quick Guide for Mpeg--from the link below.

http://www.stephen-wray.co.uk/lata/vs/all.htm

Hope this Helps

[Ken Berry]

... and if you first produce a DVD (or VCD/SVCD) compliant MPEG file before even opening the burning module, it has been rendered once already. To avoid a second rendering, once you open the burning module, be sure to check 'Do not convert complaint MPEG files' in the little icon drop-down in the bottom left hand corner of the burning module screen -- with a cogwheel on it in VS 8 and a blue tick in VS 7.

[rwindeyer]

Just for sake of completeness:
To answer your first question - the first step is collecting all the scattered data and assembling it. In my case - I work in DV format and build a similar video file (same as project settings) - this takes a (relatively) short time.
Then comes transcoding to mpeg-2 and burning to DVD. Transcoding takes a while whenever you do it; I allow 3 times the length of the video for this part.
Others here advocate transcoding to a DVD-compatible mpeg file while you are doing the collating step. That's fine, your choice. It makes the first step a fair bit longer, but if you get the parameters exactly right the second step is much shorter.
The second question - yes you are right. Once you have created a video file, load it into a new project. This is what you should be using to burn the DVD.