VS X2 Pro, How long should it take to burn....

[FishInCO]

...my 2.5 hour video to DVD? Just a ballpark -- 2 hours? 5 hours? 10 hours?

I started burning my movie when I left for work this morning, and now -- 11h:39m later -- it's at 99% (97% of "Recording disk... Writing at 8.0x") -- And it hasn't moved for about 45 minutes.

The processor is still cranking (been pegged on 50% the whole time), and there is plenty of free memory (both hard drive and RAM).

Just trying to get an idea of how long I should let it go before stopping and trying again.

Thanks in advance!

-Brandon (FishInCO)

[Black Lab]

Initially that sounds like something is wrong. But you have really given us nothing to go on, and providing any kind of answer would only be a guess. Please read the READ THIS BEFORE POSTING!!! thread near the top of this forum and supply the requested info.

[Ken Berry]

First, though you filled in your system details, it was only partial and we have no real idea of how powerful or old your computer really is. And that is a major factor in burn times. For older P4 computers under 3.0 GHz, burn times for an already prepared, DVD-compatible mpeg-2 would typically be only a maximum of around 30 minutes at 8x, depending how complicated any menu you prepared might be.

Next, however, you also told us nothing about how you went about the project and burning. Did you finish your editing, and then first prepare the DVD-compatible mpeg-2 I referred to above (Share > Create Video File > mpeg-2 [or Custom])? Or did you finish editing, then jump right into the burning? If you did the latter, then the conversion of your project has to take place as part of the burning process. Typically, that would take 4 - 5 times real time. So for a 2.5 hour video, that could be 10 to 12.5 hours. So do NOT turn your burner off right away since I am guessing from the small hard disk size, that your computer is relatively old and this is the workflow you most likely followed. Patience is the name of the game!!

With older, less powerful computers, I would strongly recommend your breaking your project down into the two distinct stages. First prepare your DVD-compatible mpeg-2. Then Insert that new mpeg into the burning timeline and burn it as a separate step. Make sure that the 'Do not convert compliant mpeg files' box in the middle of the three icons in the bottom left of the burning screen, is ticked.