Jerky playback with vcd

[beth1949]

After reading all the information that I could get my hands on about making a vcd, I jumped into the process a couple of weeks ago and have not made a successful vcd yet. As suggested by an awful lot of people, I am using TMPGEnc to encode and Nero to burn. Here is my problem. I have gone through about 20 disks and every result is the same. The picture is jerky. Almost like for a few seconds everyone is in slow motion and then back to regular for a few seconds and then slow again. I have started with an avi clip and following the guides, have changed every conceivable setting in TMPGEnc one by one and same result. The interesting thing is that without exception, the avi plays great on my computer, the converted mpeg 1 plays great on my computer, after burning to disk, the disk plays pretty darn well on my computer, it just won't play well on my dvd player (above problem). I have a mintek dvd player which plays everything. I burn at the slowest speed. I have tried 4 different kinds of disks (r & rw). I even took a disk I burned over to a friends house and it played badly on her dvd player also - same problem. I think I eliminated my dvd player and the burner on my computer as the problem. So the only thing left is the proverbial operator error - ME. What on earth am I doing wrong. Thanks for any help you can give and please remember that I am very new at this and would appreciate those of you who are experts trying to get basic for me. It would help a lot.

[Drakng]

Did you choose the right format for your avi? Pal or Ntsc. Try to start off with the wizard from tmpgenc. Without details it's difficult to answer your query. Best you put up what did you actually do

[mats.hogberg]

have changed every conceivable setting in TMPGEnc one by one

Not a good sign... You should start by using the appropriate VCD template (NTSC or PAL depending on your source), and that wont let you change any settings at all!
When all is fine, you can try changing some setting if you feel adveturous, but changing any setting (slight exageration here...) will make it a XVCD (=not standard VCD) that may or may not play on your particular player.

/Mats

[beth1949]

Thanks for the replies, but starting in the wizard and loading the template is the very first thing I tried. Then I read on the TMPGEnc forum that some people could get rid of jerky playback by uping the bitrate some, so I tried that. Then on this site, there were several guides for making the vcds with different settings. Tried them all. Nothing gets rid of it. The avi clip is in ntsc format, but just in case I also tried the pal template to see if it made the difference. Just for testing, I got hold of a clip that is already in mpeg format and burned it as vcd to see if it was a problem with the encoding. That disk played perfectly on my dvd player as far as video goes, but the audio was messed up. Very garbled. Once again it was a clip that played perfectly on my computer as a clip and as a burned disk. It takes me back to it being a dvd player problem, but it also has the garbled audio in my friends player. I looked up my player on this site and it supposedly plays everything. I am not a complete idiot, but am starting to feel that way. Any other suggetions besides just giving up? By the way, some of the things I have tried are probably all of the obvious ones like making sure nothing is running in the background on my computer and disabling my screensaver. Burning at different rates, and trying several different types of disks. Thanks for any help you can give.

[mats.hogberg]

Using the correct VCD template in TMPGEnc, not changing anything besides selecting audio/video source, (and of course making sure that the source is in perfect condition) produces very compatible mpg's. Fiddling with bit rates will only make matters worse.
What frame rate is your source, and what template do you use?

/Mats

[beth1949]

My frame rate is 29.97 and I use the video cd (ntsc). mcf template.

[mats.hogberg]

Sounds quite on the mark... Not that I think it will solve your problem, but have you:
A) Tried authoring with something besides Nero?
B) Tried burning at a lower speed, like 2 or 4x?
C) Tried some certified VCD like the one here?

/Mats

[beth1949]

By authoring, do you mean burning? If so, no I only have nero. I do have roxio on my machine, but it is a limited version and will not burn vcds. 4x is the lowest setting with my computer burner and that is what I have been using. Don't know what you mean by a certified vcd and when I clicked on your link, it just took me to a "page cannot be displayed" page. If you mean a vcd that has been purchased rather than home made, then the answer is no, I have not tried that. Are you leaning towards it being a dvd player problem?

[mats.hogberg]

No, I mean authoring. Between "I have a mpg" and "I have a VCD" there are 2 steps:
1) authoring where the mpg is turned into a .dat, and folders are created and lots of black magic.
2) Writing the stuff from step 1 to a CR-R(W)
Part one can be made in slightly different ways, that's why I suggested you try something besides Nero for this stage. VCDEasy comes highly recommended.
Sorry for the broken link - it's obviously gone from the site. It's an ISO of a 100% standard compliant VCD - very nice to have to determine if it's your process that's wrong, or your player that's acting up.


/Mats

[beth1949]

Sorry about that, but I did say that I was new to this. I will try vcd easy and see if that makes a diference. I just can't understand why the disk that I burn will play on my computer without the jerking but when I put it on my dvd player, I get that effect. Anyway I will let you know if anything changes. Thanks.

[d_unbeliever]

use another cd writer or another dvd writer

[mats.hogberg]

I just can't understand why the disk that I burn will play on my computer without the jerking but when I put it on my dvd player, I get that effect.

Computer CD readers, and VCD software players are much more forgiving than their hardware stand alone counterparts. To me, it sounds like the mpeg is out of specs somehow, but if you've encoded with the VCD template, that rules that out. What's left is some problem in the authoring, that's why I suggested you try some other method for this step.

/Mats

[beth1949]

Well, I tried vcd easy tonight and if anything, the result was a little worse. I don't really know for sure if I did it correctly. It did something called a simulation and I got an error about the cd writer driver. I put in a generic driver and then ran it again. After the simulation, it began (I thought) to burn, but when it ejected the disk, it immediately inserted the disk again and said it was burning using nero. I let it do that and the end result was as I said above. Did I do it correctly? And if I did, why is it using nero? Anyway, unless I did something wrong, this did not help my problem. Any more thoughts on this will certainly be appreciated.

[mats.hogberg]

Just make the image with VCDEasy (as VCDEasy doesn't handle all writers/systems nicely) (You uncheck the "Burn" checkbox) and use Nero (if Nero works well on your system) to write the cue/bin that VCDEasy produces.

/Mats

[beth1949]

OK - I let vcd easy run through it's thing with just simulate checked. It produced several files. The ony one large enough to be what I want to burn is called "video cd.bin - avg update file". When I tried to burn this with nero, it says "file is invalid - need mpeg-1 that was encoded for video cd". If I use the mpeg file that I got after running tmpgenc, then why would I use vcd easy at all? I obviously am once again doing something wrong, but I went through the process twice with the same result. You said burn the bin/cue file, but there is nothing like this in the folder that I designated. If I am understanding correctly, I would encode with tmpgenc, run vcd easy in simulate only, and burn resulting file with nero. If this is correct, please let me know where I am going wrong as I can't seem to get the file to be accepted. Thanks.

[mats.hogberg]

with just simulate checked.

Error 1. You should uncheck the "Burn" checkbox.

with nero, it says "file is invalid - need mpeg-1 that was encoded for video cd".

Error 2. You're trying to tell Nero to create a VCD from a CD image (which already contains a VCD created by VCDEasy). You should use File -> Open and select the cue from VCDEasy.

/Mats

[beth1949]

Sorry to be a pain, but are you saying to uncheck burn AND simulate? Because I already had burn unchecked. Thanks.

[mats.hogberg]

Simulate not checked, Burn not checked. Then ypu'll get a cue/bin pair (videocd.bin, videocd.cue is the default) that you open with Nero as mentioned above...
BTW, did VCDEasy issue some warnings or raise any errors while authoring?

/Mats

[beth1949]

Ok - simulate not checked, burn not checked. These are the files generated. video cd (avg update file) video cd (xml document) video cd.cue and analyze file. Nothing about bin file. Am thinking it is the cue file that I will open with nero. Is this correct, or should I have a bin file? Also there were numerous yellow and green exclamation points in the vcd easy log, but it said it was completed sucessfully. Nothing about needing to fix anything. Thanks.

[Garibaldi]

There could be a problem with the header file of the avi file. As for the mpeg, that could also be a header problem. What you can do for the avi is download either divfix or divxrepair, which allow you to rebuild the header file. As for the mpeg, you could try using a program like restream or dvd patcher to rebuild the header. Another thing you can try to rule out is use a different brand of cd-rs to burn the vcds.
You could also try downloading demux found here:
http://www.geocities.com/ted_rossin/tools/Video/Video.html
just copy demux.exe into the folder with the mpeg. Then start a command prompt, by going to start, run, and then typing cmd. In the prompt type cd C:\.... to the directory of your mpeg file. Then type demux.exe and press enter. Then type demux.exe yourfile.mpg your output file. This will split your mpeg into native m1v and mpa (or another audio format) files. Check the audio for problems and then run the files through tmpgenc again.
Let me know if this works or not. If not I'll suggest something else.

[mats.hogberg]

numerous yellow and green exclamation points in the vcd easy log

Well, that's the beauty of VCDEasy - it allows almost anything, but warns about everyting.
Just to make sure: no warnings about bit rates, resolutions or frame rates?
It's the cue that you open in Nero, but the cue in itself is pretty useless, as it's a text file describing where the bin is located, and how it should be written to the CD. You should have a bin there too!

/Mats
PS! Do you still have the "Hide extension for known file types" option checked in Exporer? I suspect that the "average update file" is in fact the bin, even if Windows "protects you" from seeing that! Uncheck that option in that case - it's one of the single most stupid "inventions" MS ever came up with! DS

[beth1949]

Sorry about the delay. Haven't been able to get to it for awhile. No warnings in vcd easy about bit rates, and the others you were asking about. Unchecked "hide file extensions" and can now see the bin file. Having said that, I encoded with tmpgenc using the video cd ntsc template. That doesn't allow me to change very much. Only thing I changed was to use highest quality. Then I used vcd easy and got the bin/cue files. Then I used nero to burn using the cue file. I burned at 4x and checked "disk at once". Put the disk in my dvd player and still have the jerky playback. It did seem to be a tad bit better, but still unwatchable. Should I just give up at this point, or do you have any other suggestions? Are there any settings in tmpgenc or vcd easy that I should change? I am really getting frustrated. Thanks for all your help and for keeping it as simple as possible. I get confused easily!!

[mats.hogberg]

Well, if your source is a NTSC avi, and the process is as described, no, you've done everyting right, and the VCD should play fine.
2 other things to try: Other make of CD-R and other DVD player.
There are no setting that mightimprove matters at this stage, as VCD is a very hard defined standard...

/Mats

[vcd4ever]

Tmpgenc encoded mpegfiles are NOT fully VCD2.0 compliant and will cause playback problems on every standaloneplayer that fully follows the VCD2.0 spec.

vcd4ever.

[mats.hogberg]

Tmpgenc encoded mpegfiles are NOT fully VCD2.0 compliant and will cause playback problems on every standaloneplayer that fully follows the VCD2.0 spec.

...and yet, TMPGEnc is the most used and most recommended encoder for VCD mpeg... every standaloneplayer that fully follows the VCD2.0 spec sums up to (extermely close to) no player at all.
But of course, beth1949's problems might be caused by this - that's why I recommended trying the VCD on another DVD player.

/Mats

[beth1949]

Tried the vcd I made on yet another player and this time I did not get any jerky playback. However it had a lot of what I think you would call pixalization. You know, those blocks of distortion in the background. I did not get this on my player. The picture was very clear, just jerky. Does this suggest anything to you? Keep in mind that I am talking about the same disk that played jerky on 2 players and did not have a clear picture on the third player. Thanks.

[mats.hogberg]

This is getting wierder and wierder! No, I'm out of ideas.

/Mats

[VCDHunter]

Sounds like you have a DVD player that either -

a) Doesn't like those CDRs you've bought
b) Doesn't like VCDs

[beth1949]

When I get a chance I will try one more kind of disk and see if that works. I really don't think that it could be the dvd players since all three will actually play the vcd, just not well. I have already tried 3 different kinds of disks as I said in one of my earlier posts, but am willing to try another kind. Will let you know if anything turns out differently. Thanks.

[vcd4ever]

beth1949,

Can you download, burn and play the bin/cue at ftp://pmk.dynip.com:2121 and report to me if this VCD is also causing playback problems. This VCD(ntscfilm) is authored by philips videocd2.0 toolkit.

vcd4ever.