Making a DVD: DVD Movie Factory SE vs VS X3

[toddnorris]

I always struggle to understand all of the formats for sharing a video and the best order to do things. Now I have two products to choose between to create my DVD. I am a bit confused and looking for a North Star!! I have a series of 6 VS X3 video projects. I want to get them onto a DVD as chapters than could be played all the way through or called out a chapter at a time.

What codec/format do I use?
Do I use VS X3 Share to create the video file from the project, or just do it all from DVD Movie Factory?
And should I use DVD Movie Factory SE for this step in creating a DVD, or should I do it in VS X3?

I am looking for as much advice as I can get on Christmas Eve as I work to get my hard work on a DVD to wrap and put under the tree!!!

Thanks so much.

[Ken Berry]

In fact, you have no alternative but to convert them to DVD-compatible mpeg-2 in X3 since MF 7 SE will not recognise X3 project files. So when each of your six projects has been fully edited, choose Share > Create Video File > DVD (if your projects are 1 hour or less) or Custom if they are longer or anything else needs adjusting. With regard to the latter, you need to make sure the conversion field order is the same as that used by the original video. That's a basic rule of video editing.

If the projects are longer than one, you will need to reduce the default bitrate using Custom. As a rule of thumb, 6000 kbps will allow around 90 minutes of video at good quality and 4000 kbps will allow around 2 hours of video at reasonable quality.

Then when each of the projects has been converted into a video file, open MF 7 SE and insert each of those new files into its burning timeline. Each should appear as a separate thumbnail or title in whatever menu you choose. You can further subdivide those down into chapters if you wish.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

Just to add to Kens advice,
A standard DVD holds 4.3 Gb of data, so the total size of the 6 videos should be under this in order to fit to disc.

Navigation Controls
When using Movie Factory 7SE, the cogwheel, lower left opens the Project Settings panel.
To the bottom of this panel is a Navigation Control, this selects how the disc will react to the menu.

By default, It is set to Auto repeat, your disc will play forever.

Set to Continue to play next clip, will play the selected title/movie and all to the end.

Set to Back to Menu and it will play the selected title and then return to menu allowing you to select another title/movie.

[erdna]

When I use the VSX3 MF7SE route, I always set the DVD settings (oggwheel) in the MF7 program exactly the same (not only the field order) as the settings I used for rendering the mpeg2 file in X3. I don't see this mentioned. Is there no need to do so ?

[Ron P.]

Erdna,

Talking DVDs here, not the high-def, making sure your video clips are compliant with the International DVD Standards, will insure they are not recoded. This makes for faster burning, as the program will only render the menus you created. The project settings/properties of the program are matched with the video files, when you want to use Smart Render, rendering to the same file format as your video clips. So if you have just MPEG-2 video files, they are all DVD compliant, and you want to render a new video file from those, you could use Smart Render, and the program will only recode the portions of the clips that have been changed, around transitions, text titles added, the music or narration ect., not the entire clip. Unless you add filters, special effects, then of course it must recode since you made a major change to the entire clip. This applies mainly to VS.

The most important things to check for in the burning program, are the Do not Convert Compliant MPEG files, and Treat MPEG audio as non-DVD compliant.

[Trevor Andrew]

When I use the VSX3 MF7SE route, I always set the DVD settings (oggwheel) in the MF7 program exactly the same (not only the field order) as the settings I used for rendering the mpeg2 file in X3. I don't see this mentioned. Is there no need to do so ?

Hi

Erdna,
The settings in MF7 do not need to be altered.

If you have added a compliant Video File then it will not be converted prior to burning
The only option “Do Not Convert Compliant Mpeg Files” should be selected.
This option is selected by default and should remain so.

When you finally hit the "burn button" the process will start with “Create Menu”.
If you see “Create Title” then your video files are being converted using the settings under the cogwheel. Not required if the Mpeg2 file is compliant.

Using Video Studio a compliant video file is created by using the Share Create Video File -- DVD.

[Ken Berry]

Using Video Studio a compliant video file is created by using the Share Create Video File -- DVD.

Just to clarify, the latter applies if your video is around one hour or less. If it is longer, then you use Share > Create Video File > Custom, using the same properties as the DVD template, but reducing the bitrate. As a rule of thumb, 6000 kbps will allow around 90 minutes of video to be burned at good quality, and 4000 will allow 2 hours at reasonable quality. Using Dolby audio will allow about an extra ten minutes of video.

Note that you must ensure that the Field Order is the same as the original video. So if your video is Upper Field First, that should be used throughout, including the production of the new DVD-compatible. Same goes if it is Lower Field First -- maintain LFF throughout.

[erdna]

Thanks Ken. Only one more question: when I set the bitrate to e.g. 4000kb/s and UFF for the DVD file creation in X3, and then I set " do not convert compliant Mpeg files" in MF7SE, do I have to set (oggwheel) the bitrate to 4000Kb/s and UFF also in MF7SE, or will this taken into account automatically ?

[Trevor Andrew]

Thanks Ken. Only one more question: when I set the bitrate to e.g. 4000kb/s and UFF for the DVD file creation in X3, and then I set " do not convert compliant Mpeg files" in MF7SE, do I have to set (oggwheel) the bitrate to 4000Kb/s and UFF also in MF7SE, or will this taken into account automatically ?

No you do not need to change anything


The settings in MF7 do not need to be altered.

If you have added a compliant Video File then it will not be converted prior to burning
The only option “Do Not Convert Compliant Mpeg Files” should be selected.
This option is selected by default and should remain so.

When you finally hit the "burn button" the process will start with “Create Menu”.
If you see “Create Title” then your video files are being converted using the settings under the cogwheel.
Not required if the DVD Mpeg2 file is compliant.

[erdna]

Thanks. It's clear now that, if I select "do not convert compliant..." I don't have to "match" MF7SE settings to the mpeg-2 setting used for my the X3 (Mpeg-2) file creation(which I did before).