Solution for breakups (glitches) on burned DVD's found

[stephenisaacs]

Does your homemade DVD breakup? Have you tried everything to correct the problem? After months of suffering with this problem I have finally resolved it. The problem is caused by a combination of factors both hardware and software. I feel obliged to share this information with the world to save others from the frustration I have suffered.

First my equipment:
I have two DVD players, A GE1101PA (a Shinco made unit with modified loophole firmware) and a Citizen JDVD3830 (a Norcent "golden" clone with OFFA 1.4 firmware). I also have a Yamaha 4416S SCSI CD burner and a new NEC1300A DVD burner. My PC's are both AMD, an Athlon 500 and a K6-2-500. I use a Sony DVMC-MS1 which converts analog video and audio to firewire format (DV-AVI). A Pyro Basic DV card is used to bring the firewire signal into the computers.

Next the software:
I have been using Sonic Foundry's Video Factory, Ulead DVD Factory, Cinemacraft Mpeg Encoder, TMPGENC Mpeg Encoder, Mainconcept Mpeg Encoder, Mainconcept DV codec, Canopus DV codec and converter, AuthoringWare DVD Quickbuilder and Record NOW DX CD/DVD burning software. I also make use of Aviutility and the Vfapi converter/codec. The K6-2 system uses WIN98SE. The Athlon uses Windows 2000.

The Problem:
DVD's and Mini-DVD's breakup randomly every 5 to 10 minutes. The audio drops out for a second then the video pixillates badly for an additional second.

The problem cropped up last year before I got my DVD burner when I started making Mini-DVD's with the Yamaha CD burner using the K6-2 system. I would start by capturing a half hour TV show using a Sony DVMC-MS1 and Pyro Firewire card. The resulting files were segmented DV AVI files of about 6 gigs in total. Win98 has a 4gig size limit. I would edit the files using Video Factory to remove the commercials and re-render the file. It was still multiple DV-AVI files. I would then encode the files to MPG-2 at 2460 M/Bits/Sec using Cinemacraft. The resulting MPEG-2 file was small enough (650 Megs) to fit on a CD. I could make either an SVCD or a Mini-DVD with this file. I tried Mini-DVD using Ulead DVD Factory. The file would play beautifully in the Citizen but would break up on the GE. I just figured the GE was "fussy" but I tried other TV shows and the breakups continued. The GE always complained, the Citizen didn't most of the time. A few times the CItizen did show some minor breakups at the places where the GE was having trouble. Because the breakups were always in the same places for a given MPEG I concluded there had to be "something" on the CD at those points and I was determined to make disks that would play properly on either player.

First I thought the problem was media related. So I burned more disks. The problem was still there in exactly the same places. Then I figured the MPEG file was bad so I rerendered and reencoded it. The problem remained exactly as before. When I changed the bit rate or the frame size, the problem moved to different points in the show but didn't go away. When I used a different Mpeg encoder the problem would move again but was still present. It didn't matter which authoring program I used. Both Ulead DVD Factory and Quickbuilder would accept the MPEG files and give me a Mini-DVD but the breakups would be in the same places using either program.
At this point I gave up on the Mini-DVD format and tried SVCD. With SVCD I had success. The discs played properly in both players. I made dozens of discs and was at peace with my technology.

A few months ago I bought the NEC DVD burner and created the Athlon system. I moved the Pyro firewire card from the K6-2 to the Athlon and embarked on the quest for the homemade DVD again.

This time my goal was to create a DVD with several hour-long episodes of my favourite show. I captured the video as before but because the Athlon was running Windows 2000 I didn't have to split the file. The capture resulted in a single 13-Gig DV-Avi file. I edited out the commercials, rerendered and ended up with a 9 Gig DV-Avi file. I encoded again, authored and tried burning a DVD. My breakups were back. The computer was new, the burner was new, the media was new but the plague that had haunted me last year was back with a vengeance.

Because the Citizen was so much better at playing these DVD's than the GE I figured it might be the GE's firmware. I tried flashing the GE with Mintek firmware, a compatible option for the GE. This improved the GE's performance but it didn't cure it completely. Some breakups disappeared but others remained. This confirmed for me the issue was software/firmware and not the GE loader hardware.

I set out trying to figure out what was different about the SVCD's and the DVD's. There were three possible issues: frame size, audio bit rates and authoring method. DVD's can support bitrates as high as 9.8 MBS versus 2.8 for SVCD but there is nothing that prevents you from making a DVD with an SVCD bitrate. I tried this but the breakups were still there. It didn't matter if I authored the disk to DVD or Mini-DVD. The breakups for a given Mpeg were still in the same places. There was something about the DVD's I was making. They had some non-standard issue that showed up on the GE. I was sure many people were making the same "mistakes", yet unknown, that I was making but because they didn't have a fussy DVD player they were unaware of the potential problem.
Next I tried making a DVD with 44 KHz audio (SVCD standard) instead of the DVD standard of 48 KHz. No joy. Breakups continued. Then I tried 480 X 480 (SVCD standard) frame size DVD's. More breakups.

At this point I decided to try a new authoring program. In the beginning I was pretty confident it wasn't an authoring issue because two different authoring programs, Ulead DVD Factory and Authoringware Quickbuilder produced DVD's with exactly same faults. I suspected the problem was occurring when the MPEG file was being converted to a VOB, the DVD file format. I confirmed this by playing the raw MPEG-2 files on the GE (possible with Mintek firmware). They would play perfectly without breakups but without a DVD or SVCD file structure they couldn't be fast forwarded. If this exact same MPEG was used to make a VOB the breakups appeared.

I tried Sonic DVDit PE for this next test. DVDit will take an MPEG-2 file and create a VOB but it gives you audio options that weren't available to me before. DVD standards allow for three different audio formats: LPCM, Dolby Digital AC3 and MPEG-1 Layer 2. DTS is also allowed but can't exist alone. LPCM is essentially an uncompressed wave file and is a common audio standard used on music video DVD's where DVD space is less of an issue. Dolby Digital AC3 is the format on almost all commercially made movie DVD's. MPEG-1 Layer 2 (related to MP3) is the only format Ulead, Cinemacraft and Mainconcept encoders can create so it was the audio format I was using. With DVDit you must choose to have your source audio converted to LPCM or 2 channel Dolby Digital (AC3). Mpeg audio is never recorded to the DVD. It is always converted to one of these other standards.

Do I say Eureka! at this point. Dvdit's DVD's with LPCM audio did not breakup! Its Dolby Digital DVD's also didn't breakup. So was it the audio format or the authoring program itself? Ulead only works with Mpeg audio so I couldn't import LPCM or Dolby files using it but I retried Quickbuilder with these audio formats and again I had some success. The LPCM Quickbuilder DVD also worked perfectly and its Dolby AC3 DVD didn't breakup but had severe lip sync errors. By the end of the 46 minute program the error was almost a minute! "Aha!" I said. The fussy GE player can't handle Mpeg audio on DVD's, and Quickbuilder has AC3 issues. All the commercially available discs I had ever used were either LPCM or AC3. That's why I only experienced breakups on my homemade Mpeg audio disks. The cure for my troubles (or so I thought) was to encode all my audio as AC3 or LPCM and my problems would be over.

I was a little disappointed by this discovery because it meant that I couldn't use Ulead DVD Factory anymore for creating DVD's. It was my favourite authoring program. It was easy to use and made great looking menus but would not accept an Mpeg with LPCM or AC3 audio. Quickbuilder was limited in its authoring abilities only allowing two titles per disc and its lip sync error made its AC3 files unusable so I was on the hunt for a new authoring program. Although DVDit solved my breakup problems and was capable of making custom menus I didn't like the interface. Also the fact it forced a conversion of audio from Mpeg to AC3 extended the time to make a disk significantly.

I decided to try TMPGENC Author 1.5. This program is great. It's small, simple and works well. It was easy to use and within a few attempts I had a multi-title DVD with chapter marks and smart looking menus with thumbnail buttons. I imported the same MPEG video I had been using and was able to select either the LPCM audio or the AC3 audio that DVDit produced. The DVD's played perfectly. No breakups and no lip sync errors.

I thought my job was done. But being the rather obsessive person I am I decided to try importing the troublesome MPEG audio file into TMPGENC Author. Guess what? It also played perfectly! HUH??? The fussy GE was quite happy with the TMPGENC Author Mpeg audio DVD's. The only conclusion I can reach is both ULead and Quickbuilder can't multiplex Mpeg audio in a VOB properly. Since ULead's only audio option is Mpeg, it is fatally flawed, at least for GE 1101PA DVD owners. Quickbuilder can handle LCPM but has issues with the other formats, breakups with Mpeg audio and lip sync with AC3. DVDit conveniently avoids the Mpeg audio issue entirely by forcing conversion to the other formats.

Next I tried using a very high quality (9000 Mbs) Mpeg-2 video file with Mpeg audio. Ulead and Quickbuilder created DVD's that had a very bad stutter. Both audio and video would freeze a couple times a second. Neither DVD player could play them properly. The bitrate meter on my Citizen player approached 10 Mbs. I used TMPGENC Author to make the same disk. Success. No stutter no breakup. The bitrate meter showed a slightly reduced rate as compared with the Ulead or Quickbuilder DVD's. Then I tried TMPGENC Author with the same video and LPCM audio. Success again. Even though the calculated bitrate exceeded 10 Mbs because of the LPCM audio the disc played perfectly in both players.

So to summarize, don't use Ulead DVD Factory. Its DVD's will always breakup because of some error in VOB Mpeg audio multiplexing. If using Authoringware Quickbuilder only use LPCM. If using TMPGENC Author feel free to use whatever audio format you prefer. Your DVD player will never complain even it is a fussy GE.

[andie41]

Very interesting! Thanks for the post.

[Radioman]

First of all, an interresting problem, I read it all There should be more comments on this... ? Surely there must be some other persons with the same experiences

I use Ulead DVD Moviefactory 3 Diskcreator and the few disks I have made works OK. If your still hanging around this forum, which version of the Ulead product was the tests done at, stephenisaacs ? Version 1 or 2 ?