Please help! (no one has yet)...(s)VCD skipping/stuttering

[cheeseheadjed]

Hi, I am having some problems with svcd's skipping and stuttering and i am out of ideas. I've looked through the forum for help, but couldn't find anything that seemed to solve the problem. No one has been responding to my posts. PLEASE HELP!

Problem Description: Several times while watching the movie, the audio will start to cut out. Almost immediately, The dvd player makes a noise like it's spinning the disc real fast. The video freezes, and then sometimes skips ahead or stays frozen. It continues to studder unless i rewind or fastforward out of it. If i rewind, it usually is fine the 2nd time through that part. A lot of times, i have to shut the player off, restart it, and then ffward to where i left off and then it plays that part fine. This problem happens periodically throughout the movie, but happens to occur almost without fail at the end. I have tried multiple dvd players, and found the same problems. The skipping doesn't always happen at the same parts of the film. Also, random note, but might be related, sometimes when i try to rewind, it fastforwards instead. weird

Anoyone could help, i would REALLY APPRECIATE IT! It is extremely frustrating, and all my copies are going to waste. thanks. Here's how i make my movies, start to finish:

-Smartripper to rip to hard drive. don't think anything in there would make a difference

-dvd2avi to convert the vobs for tmpeng

-tmpengcplus for the encoding. here are my settings:
SVCD, CBR @ 2100 or less, Video type: non interlace, field order:top field first (usually), apsect ratio: 16X9, content:video movie, motion search precision: highest quality, encode mode:non-interlace, video arrange method:full screen (keep aspect ratio 2), de-interlace:even field
movie info: 480X480, 29.97 fps, audio 44.1 224kbits
I use toolame for the audio conversion

-Chapterxtractor to get chapter entry points and paste into vcdeasy

-vcdeasy to make a bin/cue file, and then burn at 12X

Anyone spot anything that could be causing this problem? any help would be greatly appreciated. You guys rock... Thanks!
-Jed

[redwudz]

I'm afraid I have never used your methods, I just load a DVD into DVD2SVCD and let it run, never had a failure, great quality. If you plan to watch the SVCD, don't know why you deinterlace if your source is interlaced. Usually what you describe the DVD player is doing is a result of the drive not being able to read the file. Try a different media if you haven't yet. Someone else may be able to tell you more.

[cheeseheadjed]

Thanks for the reply! I have found better looking video on my standalone dvd player when i de-interlace. It looks smoother in motion scenes. I really am new at this though and it might be a bad idea to de-interlace, i don't know. Could this be the cause of my problems?

[DereX888]

I used to make SVCDs almost same way as you do, however I never had a problem as you described.
I just wonder why you encode rips in CBR? you'd have same quality but much efficient disc usage with VBR (i.e setting max at 2496kbps, avg. at 2100kbps and minimum at 100kbps may even cut in a half amount of discs needed for some rips, while you'll have *better* picture quality than your 2100 CBR rips)

Anyway: Try determining the reason first - potential reasons for such behaviour I can think of are either due to bad/wrong multiplexing, or because of bad/wrong authoring.

Once you have your SVCD-compliant file encoded, load it in Nero (using Nero's SVCD mode) and burn it. If it plays without "the special effects" youve described () then you'll know there is something wrong with your authoring software. But if it will stutter/etc then you'll know the problem lies somewhere at the encoding/multiplexing stage.

BTW interlaced/de-interlaced:
keep your encodings *deinterlaced*, you'll be thankful when you buy your next TV set, trust me

[offline]

Burn a movie *without audio* and see if the problem goes away.
If it does not then it could be your burner or media.

[cheeseheadjed]

Thanks for the replies! I'll try those suggestions and get back to you on the results. The only annoying thing is taht the stuttering happens without predictability, and only three or four times throughout a movie, so watching a whole film without audio just to see if it stutters might be quite boring. Wish me luck!

[cheeseheadjed]

I ended up finding the ultimate solution to my problem....I bought a dvd burner! Thanks for all the help though guys. When it all came down to it, i figured i'd spend the $100 to spend hours of stress/problems.
-Jed

[jtoolman2000]

That was been my solution as well. Although I still get a kick out of producing a backup of almost DVD quality but only CD size.

[macleod]

read through your post and there were a few missing items:

1) the dvd player in question. Follow up question of does it do the same in other dvd players?
2)media used and at what speed do you burn it

It sounds like you solved the problem with a dvd burner. What I suspect is that your dvd player couldnt handle bit rates (either audio or video) or there was something else "out of spec". Again, sounds like you solved your problem.

[dbecker]

i think if you lowered your burn from 12x to 4x, you probably would of removed the stutter problem...

[cheeseheadjed]

Just wanted to update everyone, especially for anyone having similar problems:

Well, i was having the same problems with my new burnt dvd's...so, i researched some more, and found a lot of people who had the same problems, and it was because of the labels....guess what, i found the same thing. No problems once the lables were no longer used. So anyone having skipping/stuttering problems, try not using labels. See if that works for you. Good luck. (i know this topic has been discussed to death in the dvd to dvdr forum, but haven't seen much talk over here in the vcd board, so i thought i'd spread the knowledge)
-jed