my dvd-lo that works on Mac, not in external player

[oldblues]

Everytime I try to find a way to convert video files and make a playable disc from them, I encounter a new problem. This time the source files are my own captures (using vidi with default dv settings) so that shouldn't be so exotic. I'm trying to put a bunch of old tv episodes on one DVD, so I tried the DVD-lo preset. That worked except for the audio being at the wrong speed. So, I changed the audio rate to match the .dv files, turned off 'author as', everything seemed ok. the discs worked in the computer using Apple's DVDplayer software. But, then when I finally hooked up my external DVD player and tried to watch one on the TV, all the files I had captured and converted had crummy quality and the sound was chipmonked. The ony episode that worked on the disc I tried was one I downloaded that was in some .avi format to begin with. (something I'd had trouble with in the past!)

Is DVD-lo an exotic format to some players? Is there a better way to make small DVD files?

I guess the simple form of the question is, how should I go about encoding a capture from vidi with 32 kHz 16 bit uncompressed mono audio, 4:3 video ratio; anyway, that's what I seem to be getting. Or should I change the audio rate at the capture stage? Is there any reason this is what I was getting by default? Are there other settings I should be changing from the preset to make it more compatible?

[Case]

The order in which you do things in ffmpegX may be a source of wrong settings. So follow the guide:
1. [Open/]Drop file, 2. Select a target format [and/]or use tabs, 3. Encode
Switching the order of step 1 and 2 may set some settings wrong, as a preset-defined value may get changed to match the source file, which may be incompatible with the target format.

Audio on DVD-Video should be 48 kHz. Check if ffmpegX is set to convert your 32 kHz to 48 kHz. If your source is mono, you may set the target to mono as well. If your source is stereo, you may set the target to stereo as well.

While mp2 audio (the default) should work in just about any player, you may try AC3 audio if all else fails to improve the audio.

The DVD-lo preset uses a reduced horizontal resolution and a higher Qmin. Both options are valid within the DVD spec. They reduce quality somewhat in order to be able to fit more on a disc. The effects of these settings should be visible in Apple DVD Player in the same way as on your tv.

You may want to elaborate on "crummy quality" for further troubleshooting.

[oldblues]

I definitely do things in the correct order. This main issue is with the audio, the video quality may just look better on the computer, let's forget that for now.

I started setting the audio to 36K to match the source file, because when I let ffmpeg re-encode the audio with the preset settings it no longer synched with the video. So, I burn with toast, and while I have 're-encode never' set, I guess that only affects the video. Toast must be re-encoding the audio. It does come out synching (unike the ffmpeg re-encode), but only plays correctly in the Apple DVD Player, not in the hardware DVD player, where it is high-pitched and stuttering.

Unfortunately, I was only checking my results on the computer for some time (both disc images and actual burned discs), so I went ahead and did a number of discs and deleted the source files. The only files I have left to try to redo are the .mpgs as they came out of ffmpeg... DVD (lo) format mpeg-2s with 36k audio. anyone have any clue what I could do with those to try to reclaim them? ffmpeg doesn't seem to want to even open them again (yuv scaler error.)

[oldblues]

here's another sad wrinkle. I was thinking I could reset the audio capture rate in Vidi, but that is just for their radio. I guess it is the device that is creating 32K and I'm stuck with it. So, the central problem is that I can't successfully convert any of this 32K audio. It goes out of synch with the ffmpegX conversion of the original, and I don't know what I can do with the already encoded dvd format mpgs since they are getting that error.

[Case]

To fix this, make sure what you're dealing with:
Check if the VOB files from your DVD are 32 kHz or 48 kHz by dropping any one VOB file on ffmpegX. The Summary should tell you what the audio sampling rate is. Don't encode, just see what is says about the audio.

If it says 32000 Hz, you could pull the DVD apart into separate title sets, demux those into separate video and audio streams, resample the audio, and build a new DVD in Toast.

If you are a registered user of ffmpegX, you could do the demux-resample-build steps in one go, using the svcdvd tool.

[oldblues]

yep, sure enough; that audio on the DVD is still 32K. Which, now that I think about it, makes sense. The player insists on treating it like 48K, so it sounds high. So, now I know to aim for 48K all the way through, and re-convert all those dozens of things I've done since sometime last year when it seemed like that wasn't working.

Which remains the mystery, because going with the preset now, I find that it does work. Or, has on the two vids I tested all the way. But, I swear, a year ago or whenever it resulted in a video file where the sound went out of synch unless I changed to encoding rate to 32K. Maybe it was a bug that got fixed somewhere along the line?

[oldblues]

> If you are a registered user of ffmpegX, you could do the demux-resample-build steps in one go, using the svcdvd tool.

That would be handy now. But is there some way to make that tool stop short of building the dvd and leave the re-muxed mpg's behind?

[tomlee59]

There is an option to "keep elementary streams" that you may wish to select. This also allows you to remux, which you may find useful in resyncing if that problem (re)appears.

[oldblues]

no, the 'keep elementary streams' doesn't seem to affect the svcdvd tool. They disappear without a trace.