Best way to break up long MP4 files into manageable chunks

[cgwaters]

New Vegas Movie Studio Platinum v13 user here. I have a set of MP4 videos from a private event. Each video is approximately three hours long and has multiple segments therein. I want to create DVDs of this event so that some of my senior friends (who don't have Internet access) can watch. Each video is too long to fit on a DVD--even with DVD Architect's 'Fit to Disc' option. What's the best way to split up these MP4 files so that I can then assemble them into content that will fit on DVDs?

I loaded one of the MP4 files and used the Split feature to flag each segment...but I'm not sure where to go from there. It seems that the Split and Trim features are used to delete content--not necessarily split up content towards my goal. Must I delete the content after each segment (say 30 minutes), save that video, load the original MP4 file again, trim the content up to where the first segment ended, and continue the process, producing individual ~30 minute segments? And then load (say, three at a time of) these segments into a new project? Ideally, I'd like playback of the DVD to flow seamlessly, segment to segment.

I appreciate any assistance.

[Steve Grisetti]

Welcome to Muvipix, cg!

I'd recommend you break your video into three 1-hour segments. (As a rule of thumb, most people can watch about 30-45 minutes of home-shot DVD in a sitting, so even an hour is pushing it.) But the principle is the same whether you're breaking it into one-hour or 30-minute segments.

The easiest way to do that is to just make three copies of your project file. To make part 1, open one copy and throw away everything after the first hour. To make part 2, open another copy and throw out the first and last hour. To make part 3, throw out the the first two hours.

Then use File/Make Movie/Burn to DVD, select the option to burn a DVD with Menus and just follow the prompts on each panel. After clicking Next through a couple of Make Movie panels, your project will be ported over to DVD Architect automatically. Do that to create a separate DVD for each segment. Pretty simple, really.

[cgwaters]

Thanks, Steve. These are actually videos from a religious convention; approximately 18 hours, in total. However, the videos are professionally-done, with interviews, demonstrations, videos, etc.--so it's not too difficult to watch a few hours each sitting.

Is there any way to determine how much of the content I can realistically fit on each single-layer DVD? For instance, say I want to include two sequential segments--the first, 30-minutes, the second, 60-minutes--on one DVD. (The content is meant to be watched chronologically.) I'm trying to avoid repeatedly trimming, rendering, and porting only to then have DVD Architect tell me it can't fit the content on one DVD. Is there any way to eliminate this trial-and-error process yet still make the best use of the storage capabilities of the DVD media? It would be ideal if Movie Studio could estimate the results--rather than having to repeatedly go through the lengthy rendering process.

[Dave McElderry]

You can put 60 -70 minutes on a single layer DVD at highest quality. As you work your way toward 2 hours at lowered bitrates the quality will degrade correspondingly. I think you'll find that about 2 hours is the limit, but I'd personally recommend sticking to 90 minutes or less if possible.

Welcome to Muvipix!

[cgwaters]

You can put 60 -70 minutes on a single layer DVD at highest quality. As you work your way toward 2 hours at lowered bitrates the quality will degrade correspondingly. I think you'll find that about 2 hours is the limit, but I'd personally recommend sticking to 90 minutes or less if possible.

Thanks. I followed Steve's suggestion of copying my project file, opening the copy and deleting everything after the first 90 minutes, and then rendering to 'DVD with Menus'. When I selected "Make DVD" from within DVD Architect, it warned "The estimated size of the project is larger than the default space available on media". Then I realized that the MPG file was still three hours in length! It seems that deleting everything after the 90 minute mark did not reduce the overall length of the video; there's a stupid thin bar above the timeline that was still set way out at the three-hour mark; I had to drag it's yellow arrow left until the end of the actual remaining video. (So much for intuitive software!) So I rendered the content yet another time; this time, the MPG file is definitely only 90 minutes. Once again, DVD Architect warned me about the size of the project. When I click Optimize > Fit to Disc, it says "Media file(s) is too big and could not fit into single disc. Consider making more media assets available for recompress or removing some media assets...." I'm not sure how to proceed.

<sigh> This is the cyclical pain I was hoping to avoid.

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Hello cgwaters and welcome to Muvipix.

I'm not sure that we have reached the end of this problem yet and I am afraid I cannot 'chip in' as I do not use Vegas software. But if, at the end of the day, it transpires that there is an intractable problem, you could always use this:-

http://www.vso-software.fr/products/convert_x_to_dvd/

Writes DVDs from most file formats and automatically applies the appropriate compression. An alternative would be to use dual layer DVDs(?).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Verbatim-43667- ... +layer+DVD

[Steve Grisetti]

I'm not sure what you're doing, cg, but I've never known Vegas or Movie Studio to create a project longer than the clips on your timeline. I'm also not sure why you understood me to say to delete everything after 90 minutes. I advised you to break your movie into 30 or 60 minute segments.

If the movie you're outputting after deleting all but the first 30 minutes is longer than 30 minutes, then you have not deleting EVERYTHING beyond 30 minutes. You've still got some events out there making your movie longer than it is.

[cgwaters]

I'm not sure what you're doing, cg, but I've never known Vegas or Movie Studio to create a project longer than the clips on your timeline....If the movie you're outputting after deleting all but the first 30 minutes is longer than 30 minutes, then you have not deleting EVERYTHING beyond 30 minutes. You've still got some events out there making your movie longer than it is.

Thanks, Steve. I'm not sure *what* happened. I copied my project having the three-hour MP4 file, deleted everything after the first 90-minutes, and then used Make Movie > Burn to DVD > DVD with Menus; however, the resulting MPG file that was written to my project directory was still three hours. I then went back into the project and noticed that I could continue scrolling the timeline past the end of the 90 minutes of video, right up to the three hour point. That's when I noticed the yellow arrow on the thin bar above the time ruler, near that three-hour mark. (I think that thin bar is called the 'loop region'.) I'm not sure if it was the cause but prior to my copying the project and deleting the content after the 90-minute mark, I had defined a few markers (which, I noticed, appear on the loop region bar), including one near the three-hour point. After I deleted the extraneous content I also deleted the markers but (as I said) the timeline (and the loop region bar) did not shrink down to where the video ended. Perhaps if I hadn't defined any markers, there wouldn't have been an issue? Update: I created a new project and noticed that the Loop Region's yellow arrows default to where they were for my earlier project: 00:00:00;00 and 01:31:11;09. I'm not sure why a new project is 'inheriting' these loop region values...but I'm guessing it has nothing to do with the strange extended length of my MPG file. No matter; I proceeded to add my three-hour video, trimmed everything after the ~90-minute mark, and exported the results to DVD Architect...and am not encountering any space or size warnings.

I'm also not sure why you understood me to say to delete everything after 90 minutes. I advised you to break your movie into 30 or 60 minute segments.

Sorry if I misunderstood your suggestion. I'm still working on my first 90-minutes of segments. Other than my deleting (i.e., 'throwing away') everything after the first 90-minutes (granted, instead of 30 or 60 minutes), did I do something different than what you suggested?

[cgwaters]

I may have spoken too soon. I used DVD Architect to prepare a simple menu having a JPG background, as well as a submenu to select the four markers I defined within Movie Studio. When I select to burn a DVD, the "Review Message List" wizard page shows no warnings; it also says "Estimated project size: 4,577.6 MB (98.0 % of 4.700 GB media)". Yet when I get to the "Select Burn Parameters" page and press the Finish button, the "Rendering...Preparing...Burning" window appears followed by a popup window that states: "Your project is too large for the selected media. Would you like to continue anyway?" What would make 98% too large?

Update: I went back and tried the Optimize > Fit to Disc feature but got the becoming-all-too-familiar "Media file(s) is too big and could not fit into single disc" error. I double-checked; the video is now only 90 minutes.

[Bob]

The "Estimated project size" is just that, an estimate. When you do the prepare operation, the actual files that will be burnt to disk are created and the actual size may be greater than the estimate. Another factor is that all of the 4.7 GB are not available for data. Some of it is used up in the formatting and file system overhead of the DVD itself.

DVD Architect will not normally recompress a file that is already DVD compliant. When you select File>Optimize, compliant media will have a checkmark. If that's the case with your video, you will need to force recompression. Select the video in the Optimize dialog and click on the video column. There should be an option to recompress the video. After setting that, then click the "Fit to Disk" button. Instead of "Fit to disk", you can also manually set the default bitrate to a lower value. Recompressing can take a lot of time.

[cgwaters]

Thanks, Bob. In the Optimize Disc dialog box, my video has the two checkmarks. (I also notice that the "Total audio bit rate" text is in red and has a value of 0.192; is that significant? Also, what's the significance of the non-video item -- "Disc 1" and "Menu", in my case -- having a yellow icon with an exclamation mark?)

When I select my video, press the Video 1 button, and change Recompress from No to Yes, the Estimated Size increases from 4,600.4 MB (98.0 %) to 5,997.2 MB (128.0 %). That's quite a difference in estimates!!!

When I press the 'Fit to Disc' button, the "Default video bit rate" drops from 8.000 Mbps to 5.997, resulting in the Estimated Size dropping to 95.0 %. As I'm not overly concerned about video quality with this content, I'll proceed with this setting and observe the results.

[Bob]

The yellow icon with the exclamation mark just indicates the item needs to be compressed to DVD specification. This is normal for those items. Not sure why the audio bitrate text is red. 0.192 is not unusual for audio.

[cgwaters]

At the time of my earlier post, I had selected Make DVD > Prepare, and then pressed "Fit to Disc" -- which lowered my video bit rate to 5.997. I verified the results (including the audio!) by pointing VLC at the destination folder and then playing the virtual disc. Next, I went back and selected Make DVD > Burn. Yet again it said that the data was too large to fit on the DVD -- so I selected Optimize > Fit to Disc another time. It lowered the bitrate to 5.747. It's currently re-rendering the content in advance of burning the DVD.

Why would selecting 'Fit to Disc' on the "Prepare" wizard result in a different bit rate than when it's selected on the "Burn" wizard?

[Steve Grisetti]

Because fitting to disc lowers your bit rate so that the file is small enough to fit on a DVD.

I'm still interested in why your DVD-ready file is so large. If it's really only a 30 minute or 60 minute video, it should easily fit on a DVD. Can you double-check the finished video/DVD and see if it actually is only 30 or 60 minutes long?

[cgwaters]

Hi Steve. A few posts earlier in this thread I mentioned that I'm working with a 90 minute segment. BTW, I've confirmed that the video is 90 minutes in length.

After using the 'Fit to Disc' feature to lower the bitrate from 8.000 to 5.997, being told that it's too large, and then lowering the bitrate again to 5.747 (see above), I began the rendering/burning process before retiring for the night. When I checked the results this morning, the warning "Your project is too large for the selected media. Would you like to continue anyway?" had appeared yet again. The heck with it; I said "Yes" and then left for work.

I can't believe how excruciating it is trying to get DVD Architect to burn 90 minutes of video to a DVD!