Help with bitrates?

[CFster]

I'm not sure which forum to post this too so here goes:

I'm authoring DVDs.

I'm:

-Capturing with ScenalyzerLive via firewire through my camcorder.
-Ripping the audio into .wav with VirtualDub.
-Using VirtualDub's info function to determine the number of frames.
-Converting to .ac3 with ffmpeggui @ 192kbps
-Calculating my bitrate with cceguesser.
-Frameserving the .avi to CCE with AviSynth using a 2 pass VBR.
-Authoring with TMPGEnc DVD Author.

According to cceguesser, with 181570 frames, using Multi-Pass VBR and an audio size (ac3) of 141993 KB, I should be using an average bitrate of 5858kbps to fit on a single layer DVD. The video is around 1 hour 42 minutes long.

The problem is, when I go to "create a DVD folder" with TMPGEnc DVD Author I always get this message:

"The combined bitrate of the clip exceeds the upper limit for a standard DVD.

The current bitrate is video: 9800kbps, audio: 192kbps, combined: 9992kbps.

The combined video and audio bitrate can be no more than 9.848Mbps (9848kbps)."

What am I doing wrong? Should I be calculating the bitrate based on the .wav filesize, not after it's converted to .ac3?

Thanks,
CF

[Kedirekin]

You're average bitrate calculation is probably fine.

I think you encoded the video with too high a maximum bitrate in CCE. Unfortunately I think the only way to fix it is to re-encode the video with a lower maximum bitrate. Based on the numbers you put in your post, a max bitrate of 9656 kbps would work, but I wouldn't trust that 100%; go a little lower just to be safe.

Personally I'd set the max to 9000 kpbs - that should be plenty high enough. For example, many studio DVDs have 3,4 or even 5 audio tracks. Their max video bitrate is probably down around 8000.