Sizzle Chapters Audio problem

[rorschach]

I composed a Sizzle project. There is one video consisting of three previously stand-alone segments which was joined via MoreMissingTools (and also MPEG2Works) and here’s my problem: the video track has 3 chapters. The title's chapters 2 + 3 has no soundtrack! The Chapter function WORKED FINE, but the audio is SILENT in Chapter 2 and 3. Chapter 1 is FINE. This, to me, indicates its a joining glitch because the audio drops out after the end of the 1st segment and to Chapters 2 + 3.

Playing back the joined video track as a Quicktime file containing all 3 chapters is JUST FINE. I'm puzzled. The audio of the Title in question which contains the 3 chapters, is properly defined as the file in question.

I had 3 widescreen MOVs videos (editing in Premiere) converted up to DVD quality (each containing short clips) via FFMPEGX and then I used MoreMissingTools' MPEG Join feature to combine the three videos (now in 640x480 quality) together. I couldn't do it before because I needed to letterbox it first. That became the single video that I ported into Sizzle and used chapters to denote the three segments.

I could not compose the three segments in one Premiere timeline because of an aspect ratio difference.

It was suggested I convert the mp2 file to WAV and then back to mp2 and I did that but the result was off-synch soundtrack on Chapters 2 + 3!

The workaround of this was to join the 3 MOV segments inside Premiere and output as a single track but this resulted in slight pixellation around the edges of faces, for example. It works properly but I would like NOT to join it that way, although that’s what I’ve done and may have to burn disk in that method. HOW can I join the 3 MOVs and get correct soundtrack in Chapters 2 + 3 in Sizzle DVD?

I tried demuxing/muxing the file but it seems to have problems. Here’s a report of the muxing log.


INFO: [mplex] mplex version 2.2.2 ($Date: 2003/02/25 21:30:57 $)
INFO: [mplex] File /Users/myname/TV program/my TV program/Join test/chunk-0.m2v looks like an MPEG Video stream.
INFO: [mplex] File /Users/myname/TV program/my TV program/Join test/chunk-0.mp2 looks like an MPEG Audio stream.
INFO: [mplex] Video stream 0: profile 8 selected - ignoring non-srtandard options!
INFO: [mplex] Found 1 video streams 1 MPEG audio streams 0 LPCM audio streams 0 dts streams and 0 AC3 streams
INFO: [mplex] Selecting DVD output profile (INCOMPLETE!!!!)
INFO: [mplex] Multiplexing video program stream!
INFO: [mplex] Scanning for header info: Video stream e0 (/Users/myname/TV program/my TV program/Join test/chunk-0.m2v)
INFO: [mplex] VIDEO STREAM: e0
INFO: [mplex] Frame width : 720
INFO: [mplex] Frame height : 480
INFO: [mplex] Aspect ratio : 4:3 display
INFO: [mplex] Picture rate : 29.970 frames/sec
INFO: [mplex] Bit rate : 4000000 bits/sec
INFO: [mplex] Vbv buffer size : 229376 bytes
INFO: [mplex] CSPF : 0
INFO: [mplex] Scanning for header info: Audio stream c0 (/Users/myname/TV program/my TV program/Join test/chunk-0.mp2)
INFO: [mplex] MPEG AUDIO STREAM: c0
INFO: [mplex] Audio version : 1.0
INFO: [mplex] Layer : 2
INFO: [mplex] CRC checksums : no
INFO: [mplex] Bit rate : 28672 bytes/sec (224 kbit/sec)
INFO: [mplex] Frequency : 48000 Hz
INFO: [mplex] Mode : 0 stereo
INFO: [mplex] Mode extension : 0
INFO: [mplex] Copyright bit : 0 no copyright
INFO: [mplex] Original/Copy : 0 copy
INFO: [mplex] Emphasis : 0 none
INFO: [mplex] SYSTEMS/PROGRAM stream:
INFO: [mplex] rough-guess multiplexed stream data rate : 4294048
INFO: [mplex] target data-rate specified : 10080000
INFO: [mplex] Setting specified specified data rate: 10080000
INFO: [mplex] Run-in Sectors = 89 Video delay = 13019 Audio delay = 13019
INFO: [mplex] New sequence commences...
INFO: [mplex] Video e0: buf= 237568 frame=000000 sector=00000000
INFO: [mplex] Audio c0: buf= 4096 frame=000000 sector=00000000
++ WARN: [mplex] Data follows end of last recogniseable MPEG audio frame - bad stream?
INFO: [mplex] Scanned to end AU 15807
++ WARN: [mplex] No seq. header starting new sequence after seq. end!
INFO: [mplex] STREAM c0 completed @ frame 27426.
INFO: [mplex] Scanned to end AU 26389
++ WARN: [mplex] No seq. header starting new sequence after seq. end!
INFO: [mplex] Scanned to end AU 30373
++ WARN: [mplex] No seq. header starting new sequence after seq. end!
INFO: [mplex] STREAM e0 completed @ frame 30373.
INFO: [mplex] Multiplex completion at SCR=113936676.
INFO: [mplex] Video e0: buf= 216528 frame=030373 sector=00232957
INFO: [mplex] Audio c0: buf= 4096 frame=027426 sector=00009125
INFO: [mplex] VIDEO_STATISTICS: e0
INFO: [mplex] Video Stream length: 469686763 bytes
INFO: [mplex] Sequence headers: 2057
INFO: [mplex] Sequence ends : 3
INFO: [mplex] No. Pictures : 30373
INFO: [mplex] No. Groups : 2058
INFO: [mplex] No. I Frames : 2058 avg. size 25728 bytes
INFO: [mplex] No. P Frames : 8101 avg. size 18419 bytes
INFO: [mplex] No. B Frames : 20215 avg. size 13232 bytes
INFO: [mplex] Average bit-rate : 2870000 bits/sec
INFO: [mplex] Peak bit-rate : 4066800 bits/sec
INFO: [mplex] BUFFERING min 15 Buf max 223882
INFO: [mplex] AUDIO_STATISTICS: c0
INFO: [mplex] Audio stream length 18430944 bytes.
INFO: [mplex] Syncwords : 27427
INFO: [mplex] Frames : 27427 padded
INFO: [mplex] Frames : 0 unpadded
INFO: [mplex] BUFFERING min 15 Buf max 683
INFO: [mplex] MUX STATUS: no under-runs detected.
[h24-80-7-46:MissingMpegTools.app/Contents/Resources]

[llee782]

How was the video for each segment encoded?

[rorschach]

Although I have decided not to assemble the compilation in this way any more (I ended up doing separate menus for stand-alone entries as opposed to joining the 3 clips and Chaptering) the videos were encoded in three steps:

• Original AVI files were decompressed to MOVs
• After choosing my clips and editing in Premiere, I Exported as MOVs;
• Used FFMPEGX to render the MOVs as DVD-quality files and those files were ported into Sizzle.

The workaround of this audio problem was to join the edited MOVs into the Premiere timeline and export that. But there was 1 file with a slight aspect ratio difference (640x368 vs. 640x352) from the other 2. This workaround actually *worked* in Sizzle and the videos worked fine as chapters, but I noticed a change in the quality of video's pixellation which is puzzling because the Export settings of the joined 3 in Premiere were the SAME as the settings of each individual clip after editing in Premiere. (Hope you follow me here!) I felt I achieved better video quality as separate menus; and clips that were not joined.

I chose not to compose the three clips all in one inside Premiere timeline because of the aspect ratio differences. I had to compose/edit my clips separately for best results, thus the need for the joining so that I could do Chaptering.

But now, I'm doing audio commentary on each clip and am faced with the same situation. I may need to join these 3 clips again with a different soundtrack. I wonder how that will come out? Thanks for inquiring.

[llee782]

You might want to have a look at this.

If you check the video files and find that the information is applicable, you can use this Applescript to quickly chop off the last 5 bytes of your first two (all but the last) .m2v files. Save it as an application using the Script Editor and drop one file at a time on the application's icon. If you have enough disk space, you might just want to give it a try on copies of your .m2v files without bothering to research it.

on open sourcefile
****display dialog "Are you sure you want to remove the last 5 bytes of this file?"
****set the_target to sourcefile
****set theFile to open for access file (the_target as string) with write permission
****set full_file_length to get eof theFile
****set shortened_file_length to (full_file_length - 5)
****set eof theFile to shortened_file_length
****close access theFile
end open

[rorschach]

Thank you! It will take me a while to absorb all that. And yes, I DID have a project at 1:31 but I ended up using Sizzle to get around that. Sizzle allows me to use SVCD which DOES play okay on my DVD Player... so I combined a 91 min DVD + 2 SVCD programs in one (as separate entries of course, not joined, in Sizzle).