Hi all, This has been doing me in for days. First of I have authored many dvds in the past and this is a new problem I have not encountered. Basically I had 2 mpeg files that I spliced together using Womble Mpeg Video Wizard. My new file was 4 hours long and around 7 gb. I put my dvd compliant file into dvd-lab pro and made a simple dvd ready to be shrunk to dvd-5 format. So all good. I burnt the dvd folders first (in case I end up making a coaster). So I open the VIDEO_TS files in PowerDVD. Whoo hoo it works or so I thought. I skip through the movie and get to about 3 hrs 20 and the video starts being choppy for the remaining 40 minutes. Audio is fine. Very bizarre. I dvd-shrink the VIDEO_TS folder and look again. Exactly the same problem. Why? It's not that the last 40 minutes was the point I joined the 2 mpegs so why only the last 40 minutes? I have wasted about 4 days on this and I can't work it out. Even more bizarre is that if you launch the dvd by opening the file via the .IFO file, playback is absolutely perfect so the mpeg is fine. Now the bit rate of the created movie is VBR peak 9801kps which is 1 kpbs over the standard dvd format. But I am not convinced this is the problem as the film would be choppy all over not the last 40 minutes. I am really stumped, I even tried to shrink the file again no luck. Any ideas greatly appreciated.
I've had similar issues. I don't think it's the fact that you joined them together... DVD lab requires a total bitrate to be less than or equal to 8000kb/s. If the video you encoded exceeds the bitrate, it may hang on the last good frame before the bitrate was exceeded. I've used TMPGenc at 6500 (2-pass) and the hanging has subsided considerably. Scan the help file for 'bitrate'... and it will explain how to use the bitrate tool to find out if you have exceeded the limit at any point in the movie. On a second note: DVDShrink will only shrink what it sees... it doesn't correct anything while it encodes...If the video doesn't playback correctly before Shrink, it won't be any different after Shrink.
Thanks for the reply very helpful. I did the bitrate viewer in dvd-lab pro on the now Vobs. I think this is what you meant. The highest it ever went for the film footage was 6000kbps. So I am not sure why when I extracted the raw Mpg file one time it said it was vbr peak 9801kbps (tmpgauthor). Very confusing. So dvd lab pro seems to like the vobs. The menu I created had a huge bitrate that went through the roof, would this have anything to do with it? I should also add that if I extract the raw mpg again and try and put the mpg clip into another authoring piece of software like Ulead DVD Workshop 2.0 it insists on greying out the box to convert the video file to Mpg DVD. You can't deselect it so Ulead thinks the file is not dvd compliant. But DVD lab pro thinks it is. So something is wrong with the file somewhere... I let Ulead try and convert the file to how it seemed to think a dvd compliant file is and it gave an unspecified error after 16 hours of conversion. Thanks Ulead. I'm stumped. Any other ideas? Thanks.
What are the specs of the file? Aspect/framerate? What is the audio type (.wav .ac3 .mp2 .mpa)? What is the audio bitrate?
Hi, The file is NTSC. It is a 16:9 file Runs at 29.97fps The Audio is AC3 at 320kbps. Also when the file was made into dvd folders by dvd-lab pro, I analysed the vobs and for 3 of them it said they were 3:2 Pulldown and the others were just Pulldown, but I don't think that is anything to do with it... Thanks for your interest.
Thanks. Right so I created another set of VIDEO_TS this time excluding the menus and the playback again goes all manky at the same point so there is obviously something wrong with the file itself. Again playing the .IFO file it all works fine. I'm a bit stuck because I tried to reencode the extracted raw mpg and start again but I tried to reencode in both MainConcept and Ulead's encoder and it crashes trying to reencode the mpg. I have not tried TmpgEnc as it takes about 40 hours. This will be the final resort. What would you do in my shoes? So frustrating I got this VIDEO_TS folder ready to go yet it goes all funny towards the end but not if you play the .IFO. Any other ideas greatly appreciated. Thanks.
What plays on your computer has almost nothing to do with what will play in a standalone. If mainconcept and ulead both crash, you may have other problems with your computer, and not just this file. I would open the mpg in virtualdubmod, and frameserve it to mainconcept, however, the fault probably lies where your join is. If you have the originals, I would start over. Encode both pieces separately, then join with tmpgenc's merge tool.
i did something similar... only in my case, i used a much larger mpeg file... i want to create a dvd using dvd lab pro and use dvdshrink to fit it on a dvd my starting movie is about 27 gig. i split it in 2 pieces so i could have enough chapters. there is one motion menu, and 9 chapter selection menus all videos used are 720x480, 29.97 fps, 4:3 ratio, NTSC and all audio is 48 kHz, 192 kbps, stereo when i compile the dvd, it looks as though everything works completely fine, except about halfway into the movie, the dvd program cant read the movie file anymore. it says something like "there was an error on the dvd disk". all the menus work and all the chapters work up to this point, and it compiles perfectly fine with the test compile. this leads me to believe that the only problem is that the movie file didnt get completely written or something. Why is this happening? ive tried 3 times, and still not working.
Yeah I tried again to join the file from scratch with reencoding and I get the same result I think in my case the 2 mpgs were not suited for what I wanted to achieve so I have given up. Thanks for everyone's ideas though.
I wouldn't give up. There's always a way Did you try frameserving? Did you try a re-encode to uncompressed avi in virtualdub? Did you try masking the (possibly) bad frames at the join?
rebootjim, sorry to bother, but if you could, please read my previous post, do you have any suggestions?
Thanks for the continued interest. I will try each of the things you suggested one by one. That should keep me busy for a while! I will work with the mpg I have edited seeing as it works on the computer and do each point you suggested one at a time. Thanks.
btstephen, the files may simply be too large. Check the bitrate. Unless running time is about 10 hours, the bitrate is way over spec. davehhh1, first open the file in virtualdub-mp3 (yes I know, another version of vdub). Select Video, check for errors, and let it run. It will output a file called badframes.txt in your C: root folder. You can then mask those, and frameserve the file to the encoder, and re-encode it. Your other option, is to open it in virtualdubmod, and simply save it again, as an uncompressed avi. This file will be HUGE! Make sure you have the room. Alternatively, you could use Huffyuv or mjpeg codecs to retain at least decent quality. Don't use divx/xvid or other crap codecs. The output file should then be able to be re-encoded to mpeg-2 without error.
rebootjim, the bitrate of my mpegs are 7960 kbps and 6784 kbps is this too high? how high should the bitrate be? and how do i fix it? thanks for being so patient with me
Ok, First step I tried VirtualDub-mp3 and I could not even open the file. I could open other video types but opening this problem .mpg of mine I got "MPEG Import Filter: Pack synchronization error" So there is obviously something wrong with the file. I will try the other points you listed and let you know. Thanks.
However, I did run the error check in virtualdubmod and it said no bad frames but no good frames whatever that means. I will try to recreate the avi but you are right it's going to be huge I may not have enough space... Thanks.
If necessary, you could use huffyuv or mjpeg codecs to decrease the filesize, without losing too much quality. Try frameserving instead, then you don't have to resave a big avi.
rebootjim, the bitrate of my mpegs are 7960 kbps and 6784 kbps is this too high? how high should the bitrate be? and how do i fix it? thanks for being so patient with me
