Video bit rate too high - Error message

Greetings forum,

I am building a dual layer, SD DVD of a feature film with extra materials that will be sent for replication this coming week.

I have 128 min 28 sec of video (total) encoded in Compressor (from Final Cut) with 2 pass vbr - 6.8Mbps - 8.0Mbps. 7GOP, IBP. The project includes 55 jpg images which (before encoding through DVD studio) are 60.5MB. Upon importing the assets, the status bar in DVD studio indicates that I have 6.0GB of information on the disc.

I have no audio in the project yet. I will be encoding to AC3 this evening, but I wanted to test the video build first.

During the build, I get the message "Compiler - Video Bit Rate Too High". It is happening at the point in the build "Muxing VTS_01_1.VOB"

What am I missing?

Thanks, as always, for your help.

Max

To give a bit more info here:

I'm running DVD Studio 4.

I don't have alternate angles or alpha transitions.

Structure is:
Intro Menu
Main Menu
5 Chapter menus
Special Feature menu
Deleted scenes menu
2 "transitional" menus (no difference if these are removed)
3 stories
5 tracks
1 slideshow

""2 pass vbr - 6.8Mbps - 8.0Mbps. ""

Those encode rates are WAY to High for the average DVD Player to decode on playback.

Higher bit rates don't necessarily mean better content, just larger files once encoded.

The bit rate budget on Kenstone.net and the reading I've done including the certification book from Apple, have indicated that 7.2 - 7.8 is the highest that you want to go forf max bit rate on duplicating DVDs. As I was sending them for replication on dual layer, I pushed that to 8.0.

That being said, I've been doing tests and it seems that it may be a dual layer problem. Too much information in each VOB. I'll post an update if I find a configuration that works.

Hello again,

I thought that it might be a GOP structure problem as I had set that initially for 7 IBP plus edit
markers through FCP. I thought it might be a problem with too many I frames. With that in mind, I tried encoding the .mov through DVD Studio (same vbr rates) and the compiler completed successfully.

At the same time, however, I also went through the original encode and found the real culprit. An error in the compression which was freezing the file about half way through (about right where my dual layer break point was!).

Although the DVDSP encode worked and is a great back up plan, I now get to go back and try again with my edit markers in tact. It makes for a much prettier encode that way!

Unfortunately, I think DVD Studio throws the "video bit rate" error for lots of different encoding problems.

Happy Holidays!

How did you find this compression error. Is there a log in Compressor that tells that, or did you just see the error in the Mp2 file?
I have one I've been trying to build for a week, have encoded 3 times at successively lower bit rates, and it gets 83% into the build and throws the VBR too high error. Does that mean it is at a particular spot since I've encoded 3 times, and it always happens at that point?
I'm doing a dual angle DVD of 42 minutes (84 total for the 2 mp2 streams), 1 subtitle stream (11 subtitles), and an .ac3 audio stream at 192. I've been authoring these same type DVDs 3 or 4 times a year for about 3 years, and have never had a single problem. In fact just successfully authored act 1 of this show 2 days before I tried to build this one.
I've checked the FCP time line to make sure there are exact cut points in both video tracks, and they are all exact.
I also tried taking the audio stream out and leaving the 2 video streams and the DVD builds fine. I took one video stream out and left the audio and one video and it worked fine.
The project is only 3.9 gb encoded at 6.0/7.8 so it's not a size issue.

I'm at a loss to explain this and none of my other FCP friends have run into this problem.
Please help!

Tv Vet - make sure that your audio is an AC3 file, and not .aiff. What you describe suggests that your error occurs when audio is present, and the bit rate for your video is on the high side. If you use .aiff audio you will max out the bit rate, and you'll get the rather confusing 'video bitrate too high' error... when it is in fact the audio that is pushing things over the top.

If you encode your audio to AC3 (Dolby Digital) and use a standard stereo file, you can keep the bitrate down to 192kbps... that's kb not mb... heck of a difference and no perceptible loss in audio quality for the vast majority of people.

Use Compressor to create your AC3, and set the dialog normalization setting to -31db (press return after typing it in to ensure it 'sticks'). This will ensure your audio comes out sounding the same as it went in with no attenuation for the dialogue sections.

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