DVDAuthorGUI - Status Access Violation

[ecc]

I have tried to author a DVD with DVDAuthorGUI several times and I always end up with this error:

INFO: Video pts = 0.178 .. 90.651
INFO: Audio[0] pts = 0.178 .. 89.650
STAT: VOBU 175 at 63MB, 2 PGCS
20812 [main] dvdauthor 536 _cygtls::handle_exceptions: Exception: STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION
42991 [main] dvdauthor 536 open_stackdumpfile: Dumping stack trace to dvdauthor.exe.stackdump
erase "C:\lappartement\*.mpg"
echo *process complete
*process complete

The first couple times I got the warning that the target bitrate was less than the calculated bitrate so I restreamed all of the video streams with a lower max bitrate (film, trailer, motion menu) and the warning went away but I still get the error after more than a half hour of multiplexing (well that's what DVDAuthorGUI says its doing) even though the timing at the end of the authoring process says it only took about 20 minutes. The resulting file is only ~200 MB and has just VTS_01_0.VOB and VTS_01_1 is the muxed title 2 instead of title 1.

The STATUS ACCESS VIOLATION seems to happen during the multiplexing of the second title (the trailer) so I re-encoded (i.e., I ripped it again, and converted it again with HCEncGUI) that and I still get the same error. I've multiplexed the film itself, the menus, and the trailer with Imago Image Muxer so I don't think its an error with either of the videos themselves.

One other thing that keeps cropping up is that it says the buttons' y coordinates are odd and that they might not display properly but I don't think that's the problem.

[liquid217]

restream doesn't actually re-encode the video stream. It only modifies the header. If the max bitrate is still too high, then you are probably exceeding the max datarate that a vob container can handle. By only changing the headers, dvdauthor is proabably getting confused and crashing.

[ecc]

Can anyone recommend a bitrate calculator that allows one to calculate the bitrate for an entire DVD including extras? All of the calculators I have looked at have the main video and sometimes room for more than one track at different rates or one drop down for number of audio tracks (which means you can only select one data rate for all three even if a 5.1 might be 448 and a 2.0 224 or 192) and the just a space for entering the total size of the additional video and audio tracks together though those always seem to get larger than the size you enter and you are over the single layer size even though the calculator says you should be within the target data rate.

If possible, I'd just like to reencode the trailer at an even lower bitrate because it'll take too long to reencode the feature and I'd have to completely redesign the motion menu from scratch to drop the text for the trailer button. I've already dropped the music from the chapter screens.

[ecc]

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong here. The ac3 and m2v streams play well on their own but when multiplexed (with Imago MPEG Muxer) the video is jerky and the audio sounds slower. The audio framerate is 23.976 and the video is 23.976 with DGPulldown (23.976 to 29.97). Is my computer having trouble playing back a 4+ GB mpeg file that it might not have if it were a segmented VOB file with an IFO or is there something not matching up with the streams themselves?

For some reason DVDAuthorGUI will not mux these files but Imago will (previously, I had a problem where a m2v encoded with FreeEnc would not mux with either, it would just crash) but with jerky results. Imago will output VOB files but just video and audio so I don't get the subtitles or the menus I've created.

[guns1inger]

Audio doesn't have a framerate, just a duration.

I don't know of a bitrate calculator that allows for multiple titles with different formats. I just break it down and use custom sizes for each asset to get bitrates.

How did you encode your assets to begin with ? At the moment it seems to be these at fault. When one tool wont touch them, and another will, but with useless results, I would start looking at the assets as the source of the problem.

[ecc]

The previous one that neither Imago or DVDAuthorGUI would touch had the video encoded with FreeEnc (substantially below the bitrates I set) and the audio with BeLight (which adjusts the duration of the audio for 2.0 tracks but doesn't work with 5.1).

With the current project, I used HcEncGUI to encode the video and BeSweetGUI to encode the audio since it was a 5.1 track using their preset for 25 to 23.976. The video then has pulldown applied to it with DGPulldown to get the DVD compliant framerate of 29.97.

[guns1inger]

So you started with PAL footage and you want NTSC output.

I would have resized the video to 720 x 480 but encoded it at 25 fps. I would not have touched the audio at all. I would then use DGPulldown and use a custom pulldown of 25 fps to 29.976 fps, and authored from that. Less damage to the video, not changing the audio at all, and you still get a film that plays back as NTSC video. I have seen too many posts re: besweet and it's so-called framerate conversions of video going bad to trust it.

[ecc]

BeLight seems to work but that's only on 2.0 material, it always crashes when I try to convert 5.1 tracks (the converted 5.1 with BeSweet also seems to lose its mixdown flag or maybe the volume is just reduced overall).

I may give up on the framerate conversion with this film but there are others where the speedup is apparent and distracting (specifically if I'm familiar with the film from NTSC tape and PAL DVD is the only release - or its just the better release).

I might try ripping the 5.1 audio again, using HeadAc3he to mix it down to a 2.0 wav and BeLight to convert it to 2.0 AC3 and adjust the pitch (though my copy of BeLight doesn't seem to like to do more than one thing at a time).

[ecc]

Still no luck. I even ripped the movie again, encoded it at 720x480 at 25fps, applied DGPulldown and tried to multiplex it in DVDAuthorGUI with just the video, audio, and subtitles (not even chapter stops), the barest of the bare and I got the same error. I have no idea why I'm getting all of these problems suddenly.

[liquid217]

Check your encoding settings. Make absolutely sure you aren't exceeding the max bitrate. You can also try the alternate muxer, by choosing it under 'tools'.

[ecc]

There was no more warning about the calculated bitrate exceeding the maximum bitrate. The problem crops up even without all the menus (when I calculated the bitrate, I told it to leave 500 MB free for extras). The alternate muxer has the same result.

[ecc]

Solved. Apparently its not the streams (so 23.976 is not the issue). While DVDAuthorGUI accepts .sup subtitle files, it apparently does not like them. After replacing the .sup file with an .srt (sacrificing the italics for offscreen dialogue), the project processed fully and plays beautifully on my DVD player (apparently the jerky playback on my computer was just my CPU spiking - I had Firefox opened at the same time and sometimes that demands a lot of my computer's resources).

[liquid217]

If it didn't like the subtitles, it probably alerts you earlier in the log. sup format subtitles usually work best in DVDAuthorGUI when rendered from subtitlecreator.

[ecc]

With the sup file, it does the "generating subtitles" (I think that's what its called) with all of the timings and I don't remember a warning about it not liking them (the way it did when I tried to load a .sub file - the graphic kind not the text).

It may work with .sup's created by Subtitle Creator but the .sup files I was working with was one created with subtosup and another that was demuxed (rather than ripped) from the DVD files and it didn't seem to like either of those.

I'm glad the default streams option was added in the advanced tab for the menus.