Burning Disc Image is taking waaaaaay to long -_-;

[deebingo]

I am currently using DMF4 and created a project about 4.3 gb of info out of the 4.7 media i'm using. (dvd-r 16x)) I have a 16x burner/writer (dvd+,-r/+,-rw) and when i select burn options and set it to 16x it still takes FOREVER to write. I bought the most expensive drive that my local computer store had to offer so I'd be pretty surprised to hear that it wouldn't support the latest DMF authoring suite. As a test I turned off all spyware apps and disenabled screensavers like the drive manual suggests. I go to burn disc after choosing my options and left it on overnight. Well, about 16 hours later when I get home from work it says only 50% complete.... WTF?! I did a spyware and virus sweep right before too to see if it there was a problem...completely clean. Does someone know where my problem lies or has an idea of where to start looking? Am I using the wrong blank media? BTW I have a Pentium 4 3Ghz on XP Home with SP2 and 1.5GB of RAM and tons of HD space left.

[GeorgeW]

something went wrong there.

I would do the burn in two steps.

1a) burn the DVD FOlders (or DVD Image) to your hard drive first
1b) test the DVD by using the DVD Player that comes with DMF4 DC, or PowerDVD

2) once you are satisfied with the DVD, burn it to disc in a separate step (you can burn the DVD FOlders or the DVD image file (so you don't have to re-render your project).


This approach lets you test the DVD, and you can also burn future copies if needed.

Before you burn, make sure you don't have any packet-writing software installed, any virus scanning software running in the background, and any other non-essential background tasks. Sometimes re-booting just before burning the DVD helps.

Also make sure your drive is configured properly. Is it internal? Is it in DMA or PIO mode?

[deebingo]

I guess I should have been more specific but the actual creation of the disc image itself is taking hours...the burning of the disc...well..I never got that far...16 hours is a bit long to wait So something is terribly wrong. Like I said I disable my antivirus and spyware apps in the background and reboot before attempting to burn the disc. I allways get same result. Hmmmm BTW Thanks for your response George The very first disc I burned was roughly 1 GB in length and took 90 minutes or so to complete. I don't get it...

[GeorgeW]

What types of things do you have in your project?

Video only, or slideshows as well?

What types of videos are they -- dv .avi, divx/xvid, .wmv, .mpg, other?

Are you doing any video enchancements?

Just to be clear, the 16 hours is just building the DVD Folders/Image, and it never really got to the actual burning to dvd step?

[deebingo]

Only video (.avi and .wmv) and I made some custom menus with jpg background, mp3 background music, and motion buttons with 24 seconds of playback. The only editing I did to the actuall clips was chop a bit off of the beginings. The largest file size is 200,000 KB and the total size is 4.38 GB of total data. When I went to burn the disc image it still hadn't completed it 16hours later; my drive hadn't even gotten the chance to do anything yet.

[GeorgeW]

.avi can be alot of things.

were they DivX or Xvid .avi's???

They can take a long time to convert -- when you're lucky it even makes it through the conversion step.

For starters, eliminate the motion menu/buttons (you can always add that later).

It might not be a total wash -- look into your temp files folders for DMF4, and see if you see the temp mpg files that were created.

You can start a new project using the finished .mpg's to see how they came out.

pay attention to your source video resolution -- you might not need to upsize them to full d1 resolution if they are already lower than that.

Resolutions:
http://www.videohelp.com/dvd

[deebingo]

Hmmmm. The .avi's were Divx but I don't know the resolution; when i checked properties while examining the file itself it said dimensions 400x300 while the .wmv's were all 640x480. Don't know if this is the same as resolution or what.

They can take a long time to convert--when you're lucky it even makes it through the conversion step

So maybe a seperate conversion software is in order here?

[deebingo]

Decided to get a seperate converter; Winavi to be exact. It would seem the DMF4.0 dosn't import Divx worth a damn. Converted all my Divx/avi into mpeg and its smooth sailing now.