Time to Burn DVD or Image File in VS5

[CharlieTX]

I seem to have inadvertently done something that has increased the time it takes to burn a DVD or ISO Image file from less than an hour to over 7 hours. I'm working on my first project, and have burned several discs along the way, and most burn in well under an hour. Then ... I must have changed something without understanding what it meant, and the time to burn has increased by around 10 X. Hardware acceleration for everything is On, and disabling it slows the process down even more.

The project is a video slide show with 994 photos, a music track ripped within VS5 from a CD to wav files. The project ends up just over 5 GB to burn to DVD. I tell it to let DVD Fit adjust the size down and it does reduce it to 4.38 GB.

Another thing I noticed, is that after letting it run to completion, instead of it taking up most of the DVD, the DVD is only half full even though I'd expect it to be almost full with 4.38 GB and it has been up until this problem started. And if I make an ISO Image instead, it is less than 2 GB in size instead of close to 4.38 GB. I'm wondering if some how I told it to do a massive job of compression?

FYI - I'm using the trial version of VS5, so it may not have SP 1 installed, and it appears that SP 1 cannot be installed on a trial version.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

[canuck]

How long in time is your slideshow? Considering that a standard 4.7GB DVD can only hold 60 minutes of video at best quality, anything longer will have to be compressed. Usually compression is done by reducing the Bitrate. At best quality the Bitrate is about 8000 and I would consider anything above 6000 to still give good quality. Below that quality drops fast and I would not watch anything under 4000.
With almost a 1000 images the "viewing" time for an image is only about 3.6 secs per picture at best quality and propably a lot less if you add in audio and menus since they will also require space on the DVD.
Hopefully you have broken up the slideshow into chapters and are not trying to view it as one show.

[Ken Berry]

First off, welcome to the forums!

Personally, I never user the inbuilt 'fit to disc' option because I don't think it works too well. If I need to downsize from an expected file size larger than will fit on a single layer DVD, I will allow VS to produce the full size DVD, but usually as a 'DVD Folder' than as an ISO. I will then use a program like DVD Shrink or Nero Recode to shrink it to fit on a single layer DVD.

But the other way of avoiding the production of an over-sized DVD-compatible mpeg-2 is to reduce the bitrate which is used. If -- as I suspect -- you have finished your editing and jumped straight to Share > Create Disc > DVD, then the default burning Properties (shown when you click on the second cogwheel icon in the bottom left of the burning screen) will probably use a bitrate of 8000 kbps. Reducing this to 7000 kbps will almost undoubtedly fit your existing project on a single layer disc, given what you have told us of the projected size of the ISO before you told the program to reduce it to fit.

The other way would be to finish your editing, and then produce a DVD-compatible mpeg-2 before you even open the burning module. So you choose Share > Create Video File > Custom. Make sure that mpeg-2 is the designated format in the dialogue box which appears. Then click the Options button. On the Compression tab in the new box, adjust the bitrate to 7000 kbps. Then click OK to close that box and then give the new file a name, and click Save to close the original dialogue box. VS will then produce an mpeg-2 of a smaller size.

Then go to File > New Project. Don't bother about giving it a name as the objective is merely to clear the timeline. Then select Share > Create Disc (which will in fact be your only option) and select DVD as your output. When the burning module opens, its timeline should be empty (if it isn't, then delete whatever is there). Then select Insert Media in the top left of the burning screen. Navigate to your new mpeg-2 and insert that in the burning timeline. Click on the Options cogwheel icon and make sure the box beside 'Do not convert compliant mpeg files' is ticked. Build your menu and burn...(or produce your ISO file or DVD Folder.)

Incidentally, the reason I use DVD Folder instead of ISO is that you can open the Folder with virtually any DVD software player and review the final result before committing it to an actual disc. With an ISO you have to first mount it on a virtual drive before most software players can play it. VLC player is about the only one I know which can play an ISO directly, though there may, of course, be more (Media Player Classic?)

[CharlieTX]

Each slide is set for 5 seconds, and decreasing the bit rate as suggested to 5500 took care of the fit issue. Doing so took the size down from 6.35 GB to 4.69 GB so it would just fit. "Thank You" for that!

But, the long Burn time is still there, although it is now only 4 hours compared to the 8 hours it was before reducing the bit rate. However, it was originally only 1 hour. A clue is that even though VS5 says the DVD will be 4.69 GB, the actual Burned DVD contained only 1.77 GB. When the Burn completed, the bar graph along the bottom of the VS5 window changed itself from 4.69 GB to 1.77 GB, indicating (I think) that the actual compression was much, much greater than the asked for compression.

Suggestions?

CharlieTX

[Ken Berry]

Doing a very rough and quick calculation, 1000 images at 5 seconds each would take up about 83 minutes or slightly more of video. I am therefore a little surprised that you had to go down to 5500 kbps as a bitrate when 6000 kbps even with full LPCM audio should allow 90 minutes to be burned to a single layer disc -- and fill it. Not that there is much difference, I agree.

But to then find that the burned file is only 1.77 GB suggests something very strange has happened.

So if you followed my suggested workflow above, and produced the DVD-compatible mpeg-2 before even opening the burning module, could you please right click on the mpeg-2 in either the VS timeline or library window and tell us at least its size in Properties?

How long did it take to produce that mpeg-2? If you say the *burn* took four hours using what was supposed to be already a DVD-compatible mpeg-2, then something is definitely happening in the burning module which should not -- and it sounds as though it is actually converting something as part of the process (apart from the menu). Did you tick the 'Do not convert box'?

[CharlieTX]

After chasing down a number of different paths that produced inconsistent results, it became apparent that the problem was likely not Video Studio, but a problem with Windows 8. In looking at a number of possibilities, I noticed that Windows Update had quit working correctly. Although it seemed that such an issue would have no affect on Video Studio, I found that after resolving that problem that Video Studio started working as expected.

Just FYI - in case you ever run across this issue, the solution was in the Microsoft Article ID: 947821 titled "System Update Readiness Tool fixes Windows Update errors in Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2008". It has recently been updated for Windows 8 compatibility. The particular problem that it reported as fixed that resolved the Video Studio problems was the Windows 8 "component store" had become corrupted. Once repaired, Video Studio started working correctly.