I made a VC&C compilation of ten *.mpg videos totaling 2.4 GB and it took about 2 hours to make the hard disk folder. In video copy mode, going from the hard disk to a dvd only takes about 15 minutes. Is this normal and would MyDVD take about the same time?

Operating System: Windows XP
Windows Version: 5.1 (Build 2600) Service Pack 3
Processor: Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 2.66GHz
Total Memory: 5612220 KB
Total Available Memory: 4152004 KB
Disk Space: 50640 MB Free space on C:

Al

Yes…

File size is a totally useless measure and you did not say what the length of the project was???

Generally a 1:1 ratio in render time is about par for a 1.5ghz PC.

Faster PCs mean less time and using clips that are already in DVD Movie compliance speeds things up.

I have seen a 1 hour movie take 8 minutes to render as a DVD Movie and the same file take 12 3/4 hours to render as AVCHD… With your PC about 20 minutes for that file.

So there are some variables.

[quote name='Jim_Hardin' date='Mar 24 2009, 06:19 AM' post='265032']
Yes…

You did not say what the length of the project was???

What does length of project mean? I takes 45 mins to play.

Yes.

Anything else?

Yes,
1. Would mydvd be any faster.
2. Since you say that filesize is totally useless, what indicator is there?
3. How can I tell if something is "already in dvd movie compliance" or make it so. As I said, these were mpg files.

1. No, but it is a better program with far greater flexibility.
2. Time
3. Match Source with Output

A 4.7Gb DVD holds 1 hour of DVD Movie at High Quality.

HQ is 720 X 480 at 8 or 9 mbps. If your source matches that, the program will Smart Render, essentially just copying.

But if you drop quality to LP then each and every frame (30 per second) has to be pulled in, and re-rendered to a 352 X 240 size and put together at 4 mbps.

Almost everything connected with a Menu has to be fully rendered. I have made many mixed projects of compliant clips, WMM and MOV clips. It is kind of funny to watch the 'Smart Render' pop on and off.

Keep in mind that the time spent rendering/burning is really about as unimportant as it gets!

1. I wouldn't expect MyDVD to be any faster.

2. The previous question about project duration (play time) is the indicator of how long it will take to render the video if it's not a compliant MPEG2 file.

3. Well, if you're capturing from an analog source through something like the Roxio USB Capture device, or even some other device, to an MPG file, then there's a fairly good chance it'll be in a compliant format. You'll know because when it starts rendering, you'll get a gray "preview" screen, and it'll go very fast because it's basically just copying the file. If you're starting with a higher quality .AVI file, then it'll need to be rendered to a .MPG file, which will take a lot of time.

Hope that helps!

Thanks to you both.
I can't tell what quality I am selecting!
Does vcc compilation automatically insist on highest quality if play time is under 1 hour, and lower if it's longer?
Does it do that even if you output to a folder instead of disk?
Or is there some place where I am supposed to set the quality?

Here's what I did:
I started with mpg files which came from VideoWave output, selecting best dvd quality.
I brought these into vcc and told it to output to a file folder.
My "Options summary" says: Custom profile dvd: dvd video folder, create main menu.

Options also checkmarks "always convert to preferred video format (default)" which according to the help file applies only to divx and wma so it doesn't apply to me. Is there a place in vcc where I would set the default preferred video format?

The end result of this is a video_ts folder, containing the usual vob and ifo files; mpg goes in, vob comes out. This is what took about 2 hours to create a 45-min long movie.
After I tested the above, I used vcc to burn to disk. As I recall that took about 15 mins.

When did Video Copy and Covert come into this?

If you send VCC an ISO or select a Video Folder the "quality" has already been set by the render to create those…

VCC will look at the length and the media and compress it to fit if needed. It does a good job at this, better than you and I can do tinkering in MyDVD.

The "quality" starts with your source and you can't make it better! You did not "start with a file from VideoWave"! What you really did was load a clip from ??? into VW. The quality of that clip is where it all begins.

One does not normally output a file from VW but rather Saves the VW Project. (original file is untouched – and the VW dmsm file is a set of editing notes)

You then add the VW dmsm file into MyDVD. The output of MyDVD is where you set final quality.