DVD won't render - "unsupported file format"

[Chuck Engels]

A lot of people here started with wanting to do family stuff and decided to start a business.
There is plenty of knowledge and all you have to do is ask.
Start a new topic and I'm sure you will have lots of support, feedback and help

[momoffduty]

Well, I have read one of yours from cover to cover and they're great!
At some point, though, we all have to cease spending so much time learning and focus on EARNING. )

The learning never stops.

Generally speaking, establish a good base of knowledge in your area of editing that way when a deadline looms it is less stressful. Then continually add more layers as you go.

The tutorials here are very good & so are Steve's books. The Muvipix members are a diverse crowd and I have yet to see a question go unanswered. I've learned a lot just reading posts and it is interesting to see all the different types of projects.

[Jordanmphoto]

The learning never stops.

Generally speaking, establish a good base of knowledge in your area of editing that way when a deadline looms it is less stressful. Then continually add more layers as you go.

Oh I agree. There are so many areas of technical quality that must be controlled if you're going to do high quality video work. I believe the only way to make it economically viable is to have established a standard for controlling each of these - something that you are sure will work and won't leave you sitting up at 4am tearing your hair out. When you have time you can do "research" into better ways, but generally you have to be able to take an assignment and run with it as fast as you can. KISS, is what I always say, but that's not always so simple to figure out!

But this aint so bad. I am switching careers from architecture because there's no work. The programs you deal with there are, for some unknown reason, about 5 times as expensive as graphics/editing programs and about 5 times as susceptible to bugs and slow performance. Tech support for many CAD programs is in Russia or some other place on the other side of the world and if you think Americans don't understand business deadlines, try telling a Russian about it. So I find these editing programs a dream to use, because the problems are actually solvable.

But we digress. I haven't yet solved the DVD problem but will get back to it next week when I'm not out of town.

[Gerry]

1440x1080 IS widescreen, Jordan. 1920x1080 and 1440x1080 create exactly the same size video frame. The 1440x1080 uses non-square pixels that are wider than they are tall -- the television standard. Trust me. Or try it. You'll see.

Sorry to "Lazarus" this topic, but I'm coming into this HD stuff sort of late.

I'm understanding the amorphic pixels thing. My only question is: is there any advantage at all to using 1440 vs 1920? E.g. it's easier on the processor, it's faster, it creates smaller file sizes... stuff like that.

I ask because I just finished my first two Blu-Rays using Prel9 in combination with DVD Architect Studio 5, and used the "1920" setting and things worked out fine. So do I fix what seemingly ain't broke? Or maybe it's on the verge of breaking and I don't know it?

[Chuck Engels]

I always use the 1920 setting myself and haven't had a need for 1440.

Here is some interesting reading from the HV20 forum but I bet Bob can put it into 2 or 3 easy to understand sentences http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?13602-1440-vs-1920

Does your camera record at 1440 like my HV40 does or does your camera record at 1920?
Either way it really doesn't matter if you use a 1920 preset as the software will make the adjustments automatically.

[Gerry]

Here is some interesting reading from the HV20 forum but I bet Bob can put it into 2 or 3 easy to understand sentences http://www.hv20.com/showthread.php?13602-1440-vs-1920

I understood amorphic until I read that thread...

Does your camera record at 1440 like my HV40 does or does your camera record at 1920?
Either way it really doesn't matter if you use a 1920 preset as the software will make the adjustments automatically.

1920.

I just figured that if DVD Architect Studio took 4 hours to render a Blu-Ray at 1920, maybe you guys would tell me it would only take 3 hours at 1440 and I wouldn't lose any quality.

[Chuck Engels]

The only thing that will speed up the rendering process is a faster computer CPU.
How long is the Blu Ray movie Gerry, it doesn't take that long for me to render a 1 hour Blu Ray disc.

[Gerry]

How long is the Blu Ray movie Gerry, it doesn't take that long for me to render a 1 hour Blu Ray disc.

Total time is just over an hour to be written to the disk. I write at 2x (they're Verbatim 6x disks).

Here's the workflow: The camera writes .MOV files to an SD card. The camera records 1920x1080 30fps HD movies. I dump the contents of the SD card to a dedicated hard drive, then bring each movie into PREL9, which I have set up for 1920x1080, 30fps Drop-frame. I then edit it, and write it back to the hard drive using "Computer/MPEG/1920x1080i 29.97 High Quality, MPEG2 Blu-ray." That obviously writes m2t files.

I then go into DVD Architect Studio, and make sure the project is set up for Blu-ray, 25g, MPEG-2, 18.00 bit rate, 16:9, 1920x1080, 29.97 interlaced, PCM stereo (I have no other options for that), 48,000 sample rate.

I then assemble the disk as per Steve's tutorial instructions and click on "Make Blu-ray Disc." On this particular disc there are 6 segments, each menued, no sub-menus, for a total running time of just over an hour. I get messages saying that the video and audio from each of the segments will be compressed, I hit "OK" and it's off to the races.

About 4 hours later (not absolutely certain of timing since I do it overnight) a Blu-Ray spits out.

[Chuck Engels]

Well the good thing is that it works, and 4 hours isn't terribly long considering how long it used to take to render 5 minutes of digital video (24 hours or more for just 5 minutes). I don't think it would take that long with Premiere Elements, at least that isn't my experience but it is still over 2 hours for a 1 hour movie.

[Gerry]

Well the good thing is that it works,

You know it. Bottom line is that 4 hours is better than 0 hours because it's not working at all.

Thanks for the help, Chuck!