Audio is choppy playing on standalone Panasonic DVD Players

[Mythos2002]

Hello,

I'm having some problems with audio on DVD's I make when I try them on Panasonic DVD Players. I don't have the model numbers, but I have tried the DVD-RW's I have made on 4 different Panasonic DVD Players and I have the same result. The video plays fine, but the audio is choppy and stutters throughout. They play fine on my Pioneer DV-525.

What I did was capture the audio and video with my ADVC-100 (I had the same audio problem when I captured with my GeForce4 Ti4200 and my built-in soundcard.). After capturing, use Virtual dub to save the audio as a Wav file (48000khz). I then use TMPENG Plus to encode the video only. I then author the encoded video and the Wav file audio with DVD-Lab. My audio properties are: Bit Rate: 1536kbps., Audio Sampling Size: 16 bit, Channels: 2(stereo), Audio Sampling Rate: 48khz, and Audio Format: PCM.

Are there any known problems with Panasonic DVD-Players and uncompressed PCM audio? Should I use TMPENG Plus or something else to convert the audio to MPEG-1 Layer 1 or Layer 2 48000khz at 384 kb/s or less?

I just want to make sure my final DVD-R will be compatible with a wide range of Players. I thought DVD Players where supposed to play PCM audio.

Do you have to go into the setup menus on Panasonic DVD Players to allow them to play PCM? I haven't tried that yet.

Thanks.

Mythos

[studawg66]

Did you ever find a resolution to this problem?
I have the Panasonic S35 and experience the same exact thing you describe when running a PCM encoded disc.
So far, my workaround has been to encode everything to AC3 using AC3Machine (GUI for BeSweet), which is free by the way. Everything works fine after that, but that's one extra step. DVD-Lab does have a way to reference an external encoder so that you could just point it to BeSweet and it will take care of it during the Compile process, but I haven't tried that yet. I'd rather find a solution for playing PCM on my Panasonic...it plays just fine on my Apex1225 that cost $27!!!

[Mythos2002]

Thanks for your reply. You are the first person I've heard back from. I'm wondering if it could be a media issue. I'm using Maxell -RW's for test discs.

Thanks for the workaround. That may be what a friend has to do if they want a copy of my final DVD-R's since they have a Panasonic which exhibited the problem. Unfortunately for me, using 2 channel AC-3 made by BeSweet results in a similar problem on my Pioneer DV-525. I've heard it would be fine if I used another AC-3 encoder, but I don't know of any others that are free. What a pain. All DVD players should be able to handle AC-3 and PCM.

Thanks.
Mythos

[badgerboy]

I have had this problem consistently with disks produced with DVD Lab and played on a Panasonic player. Had a long discussion on the DVD Lab forum about it, with no solution offered. The problem only occurs with PCM/WAV sound; if you convert the audio to AC3 using one of the free tools, all is well. I think its a bug in DVD Lab, but they deny it and point to just about anything else...

[Mythos2002]

Thanks for the information. I believe DVD-Lab is the key to the whole problem. Hopefully they will fix the problem even if they don't acknowledge it.

Mythos

[studawg66]

I agree that DVD-lab must be the problem here.
I have burned DVDs on about 6 different types of media using DVDit!SE, DVD-Lab, DVD-Decrypter, and others. Projects created in DVD-lab, even if burned in Nero, consistently will not play PCM on the Panasonic S35. So PCM from DVD-Lab will play on my Apex but not on my Panasonic, while PCM from DVDit!SE will play on both. Definately points to a problem with DVD-Lab, no doubt. Probably in their multiplexer. Unfortunately, as good as this product is, it is a company of one, so tech support is lousy and limited to forums and FAQs. Maybe he'll get enough complaints on this issue and listen to the consumer.

I wonder if we could monkey with some of the settings in DVD-Lab to get different results? There is a "force audio" checkbox that I am not sure about, but might try unchecking it to see what happens (on a DVD-RW, of course). Maybe someone else has other suggestions.

Thanks, guys. Hopefully we can get this solved.

[badgerboy]

I have tried just about every setting in DVD-Lab you can imagine to try to eliminate the problem with PCM audio stuttering when an authored disk is played on my Panasonic. I have also tried using various media (different brands, different pieces within a brand), using various applications to produce the PCM/WAV file elemental, using other apps to burn the disks and a number of other things. Near as I can tell this is just a bug that can't be avoided; the only solution is to use ac3 sound. Its frustrating because they won't acknowledge that the problem is real... With this exception, it seems to be a wonderful product.

[Panama Red]

I too am having problems with DVDs authored with PCM audio in DVD Lab when played on a Panasonic stand alone. I get an annoying clicking in my audio.

Been searching for evidence of someone else with this problem. Unfortunately, no solution, but it is comforting to know that someone else has encountered this problem and it's (probably) not something I did wrong.