A Few Questions Regarding SVCD

[IAIHMB]

I am not the best writer, so I will try and make this as understandable as I can:

1. What formats(?) can I use to burn SVCD? I know I can use .bin/.cue and mpeg, but are there any others?

2. What DVD authoring tools can burn SVCD? I was using DVDlab but I ran into a problem. When I burned more than one SVCD onto a DVD all of the SVCD's audio files would be 1 second bigger than the SVCD video files, throwing the audio and video out of sync.

Sorry for all the questions lately, and I hope I got this in the right forum this time. Thanks for all the help guys.

[Grimey]

I am not the best writer, so I will try and make this as understandable as I can:

1. What formats(?) can I use to burn SVCD? I know I can use .bin/.cue and mpeg, but are there any others?

2. What DVD authoring tools can burn SVCD? I was using DVDlab but I ran into a problem. When I burned more than one SVCD onto a DVD all of the SVCD's audio files would be 1 second bigger than the SVCD video files, throwing the audio and video out of sync.

Sorry for all the questions lately, and I hope I got this in the right forum this time. Thanks for all the help guys.

You can use any format you like. You need to convert it to a proper svcd Mpeg, and you can do that using TMPGEnc or an encoder like that.

Don't be sorry for asking questions, thats what this site is here for

[IAIHMB]

Errr, I guess I need to rephrase that. What formats can I use to burn SVCD onto DVD? I've only had luck with MPEG. I've also never converted into MPEG either, I've always used IsoBuster or VCDGear to extract the MPEG, does it still require converting?

[Grimey]

An SVCD is an Mpeg2 file with a resolution of 480x480(ntsc) or 480x576(pal). only this kind of video can be burned as a svcd. you can take any file you want and convert it to this kind of video. This will explain how to put them on dvd's much better than I ever could: http://members.lycos.nl/eenhoornokidoki/

[IAIHMB]

3 trys, 3 coasters. For you people that burn multiple SVCDs on DVDs, how do you go about doing it? No matter what I do the audio goes out of sync with the video at one time or another. Heres what I am doing:

-If it is in .bin/.cue I used VCDGear to rip the MPEG2 video, if it is already in MPEG2 I move on.
-Place the movies in DVDlab's assets and let it de-multiplex and then transcode the audio.

Once I get here I notice that the audio and video are always one second off (eg: the video will be 10:01 and the audio will be either 10:00 or 10:02.) I've tried adding delays but that just throws off further videos. I also tried fixing the .vob files in VirtualDub only to discover that the finished product can only be saved as AVI, but my original video is OK to begin with.

I really do not want to resort to putting this one SVCD on 2 or 3 CDs, but I am not seing any other options.

[yoda313]

Hello,
Why don't you try cutting a second of audio out of the clips? I've had success with that with music video clips and they returned to perfect (at least visually) synch. If you've gone to this much trouble reducing the audio might work. Give it a try. Best of luck.
Kevin

[IAIHMB]

That tends to work some times, but when the audio file is :01 shorter than the video I run out of luck. Thanks though

[yoda313]

Hello,
No problem. I was just wondering if there is a way for you to add 1 second of blank video to balance out the problem. You may want to check out some guides for adding video. It might be as simple as adding a black .bmp file. Keep hunting. Hopefully you'll find a procedure that will work 99.99% of the time (in the world of computers there never seems to be a thing called 100% )
Kevin

[IAIHMB]

I am almost positive it is DVDlab now, it is the only one that creates offset file sizes. What authoring programs that support SVCD do you guys use or suggest, I don't see a point in keeping DVDlab anymore.

[bugster]

You can try de-multiplexing the audio and video with a different tool, then resample the audio to 48khz and re-encode to mp2 with tools other than dvdlab. I would suggest TmpGenc for the de-multiplexing (File-Mpeg tools). You can also use TmpGenc for re-sample and re-encode. Then put the video and audio into DVDlab seperatley.

[IAIHMB]

I found a guide on here, thats pretty much what I did, and it works! I just don't see the point in having DVDlab anymore though, those features were part of what set it apart from other authors. Thanks for the help guys, now I am off to search for another authoring program.

[IAIHMB]

I know this doesn't belong here, but I don't think tihs deserves it's own topic. Would converting SVCD to a DVD MPEG2 be a good idea? I've been trying to solve my problem for a couple of hours now with no luck, converting to DVD almost seems like a good idea at the moment.

Edit: Nevermind this post, it looks like that doing that will kill the idea of putting multiple SVCDs on a DVD.

[sherman]

If you just want to put more then one SVCD on a DVD-R why don't you try MPEG2 352/480. It is a valid DVD resolution for DVD with MPEG2 and I think you can still use two audio tracks (are you maybe trying to fit several TV shows on one DVD-R this should maybe get you 4 hours of Video on one DVD-R.

Sherman

[IAIHMB]

Hrm, that sounds like a good idea, I take it I would do that with something like DVD Patcher?

[offline]

Umm.. there is a popular tool called svcd2dvd

[IAIHMB]

SVCD2DVDMPG worked pretty good, it has given me my best result yet, thanks guys.

[IAIHMB]

Scratch that last post, as soon as I put the SVCD DVD in a second time my DVD player won't read any of my SVCDs. I guess you get what you pay for, 30$ in the hole.

[Febre]

I've been down this road before and have experienced the same problem like you (IAIHMB) and have been able to find a solution. This post might be long, so I hope you don't mind reading it.

Tools used:

1> Tmpgenc 2.521 for de-mux
2> DVDLab 1.31 for DVD authoring
3> Nero 6.3XXX for burning

I'm assuming your very familiar with each of these tools and so I won't be going into to much detail about where to find certain settings. The trick for this transfer to work is to keep things simple and to know the basic requirements of DVDLab.

Step 1:De-Muxing
You need to use Tmpgenc's mpeg tools to de-mux the iso/bin file or mpeg2 file if you are the original author. I usually use the "Simple De-Multiplex" option. You will end up with two files for each SVCD disc you demux= yourmovie01.m2v & yourmovieaudio01.mp2, yourmovie02.m2v & yourmovieaudio02.mp2, etc.

Reason:DVDLab is more comfortable dealing with elementary streams then with raw mpeg2 or vobs.

Important Notes:
1>Since your dealing with SVCD, you will be demuxing three to four discs. DO NOT try to merge the resulting elementary streams to make one big file after or before the demux cause that will cause an audio sync issue in DVDLab. Like I said, keep things simple, and label your files properly.

2>If your not the original creator of the SVCD files, you will need to find out what the audio bit rate is for your mp2 files. You can use winamp to play your mp2 file and read the audio bit rate (usually between 192 to 224 kbs) in its display panel; you'll need this information when we transcode the audio files in DVDLab.

You should now have six files if you demux the typical three disc SVCD movie (3 of .m2v and 3 of .mp2), double if your going to put two SVCD movies onto the DVD-R. From this point on, I'll assume we are try to put two movies with an average of three SVCD disc per movie onto a DVD-R.

Step 2:ReAuthor
Bring up DVDLab and in the "Connections" window add six "empty movie" cells. Label them like movie01a, movie01b, movie01c, movie02a, movie02b, & movie02c.

Use the "Draw links" tool and link movie01a to movie01b, movie01b to movie01c, and do the same thing for the movie02 series.

Now's the time to bring in your elementary streams into your "Video & Audio" assets. Bring in one video/audio pair. You'll get a "warning" box about wrong resolution and audio frequency- click the "ok" button and accept the "transcode audio" option.

In the "Audio Transcode" box, look for the "MPEG AUDIO -> MPEG AUDIO 48KHZ" section. You should also find a "Bitrate" drop down box. Choose the proper bitrate that matches your audio stream. If there's no match, then use the default "Optimal" setting.

Once the transcoding is done, just drag the video/audio stream into an "empty movie" cell. Repeat steps with the other video/audio stream pairs.

Reason: 90% of audio sync problems occur when people try to merge all their SVCD discs to one large file prior to authoring. Typically at the merge points are where the audio sync problems occur, compounding with each additional merge points. Also, if your original SVCD has different audio bit rates for each disc, the transcoder will try its best to find an average and this will always cause an audio sync issue. Since we kept your SVCD parts seperate and put them in their own "empty movie" cells, DVDLab will treat each cell as a separate movie and allow them to have different audio settings. By "linking" a movie cell one-after-another, DVDLab will play the linked-chained as a complete movie. Where the links occur, DVDLab will treat that as a chapter break. You can go into each individual movie cell and point more chapter breaks if you want.

At this point, you should have two movie chains (for movie01 and movie02). Add your menu and menu links and compile. You should be able to use the "Main" multiplex engine, if not, the alternate is ok. If the resulting file is bigger then 4.3GB, no problem, you can use DVDShrink later to reduce the file size.

Step 3: Burn with nero- I'm assuming you already know how to do this.

That's it!!!! I've used this method a lot and usually get two 2hr movies onto a DVD-R. I do my own SVCD encoding so none of my files give me any problems. Some of my friends who aquire their SVCD from unknown sources sometimes require more work to fix any odd formating.

Hope this helps you