Deleting the uncompressed video file once m2v and aif have been created

Question

When I create a dvd then close the project.
I then later delete the uncompressed video file captured from tape.
I reopen DVD studio pro and it tells me that it cannot find original file.
I tell it to used m2v encoded file as new video file and aif encoded file as new audio file.
But i am then given an error message and these two files disapear.
Can anyone help me out. Surely i should not have to keep the original captured video file for every dvd I want to make. The idea surely is that once DVD studio pro has made m2v and aif files then the project should be able to use those to create any further DVD of that project.

Answer 1

I've still never seen any problems with a single video track and uncompressed audio.
I won't argue that it never happens to anybody, of course, but I've made DVDs for a lot of people, and usually the only problems I hear tend to be a problem with their brand of player not being able to recognize the media. Those are relatively rare and almost always has to do with cheaper brands of DVD players. If they can get it to start at all, I haven't heard of any trouble with playing the whole thing.
I would like to know if that's the problem I had with trying multiple video tracks, though. DVDSP would refuse to even finish the build. It would start to mux, then partway through, say the bitrate was too high and abort. It was a long time ago, but I would've been using uncompressed audio and probably fairly high bitrate video (3.2Mbps, possibly even 3.5). Seemed stupid to me; I would've thought the muxing would be a smart enough design so that only the video and audio tracks in use at any given time (one video, one audio, one subtitle) would count toward your maximum allowed bitrate.
But that brings up another point you guys might try. I heard people mention 3.5Mbps. I use 3.2, and I don't see any noticeable difference in the quality of the video. But switching from uncompressed audio to ac3 definitely is a noticeable (downward) difference, at least using the stock Dolby 2.0 encoding preset included in DVDSP4 / Compressor 2 and a standard stereo (2-channel) source. I did several different tests where I encoded the audio both ways and burned a test DVD with multiple audio tracks, switching between them to compare. Even normal conversations on the ac3 (Dolby 2.0) track sounded quieter and less dynamic, and there was (naturally) an even more noticeable difference in any kind of music.
So you might give that combination (3.2Mbps video with uncompressed audio) a try in the future, especially if you're picky about the audio. If that fixes the problem, I think it's a reasonable sacrifice since the audio difference is more severe. Basically, if you're doing a professional enough job that the difference in video between 3.5Mbps and 3.2Mbps is important, then you should already be doing a professional 5.1 audio encoding from individual channels anyway.
BTW, I have my 3.2Mbps labeled "120min", since that's about what I can fit on a DVD with uncompressed audio. My other often-used settings are 2.8Mpbs for 135min (three hour-long TV episodes with commercials cut out), and 2.0Mpbs for 170min. (And I can't remember for sure, but the 170min may even be a slight overestimate, so be careful of cutting it too close if you use those settings.) I usually don't even notice a video quality difference with 2.8Mpbs, though I have only used that with a less-than-pristine source anyway, so the lower bitrate isn't the bottleneck for quality in that case.