DVDLab doesn't compile the entire project.

[Fallon]

Uh... hi, I'm the new guy. :P

Anyway after lurking throughout your fine forums for so long, I've come across a bit of an issue with DVDLab Pro. My problem is thus: when I go to compile my final project (nothing too complex - just the usual main menu and chapter select menu, along with a subtitle select option), the compile process gets to the first "Muxing Is In Progress" stage, and claims to have completed this stage when it actually hasn't. The first indicator of this is that the red progress bar doesn't completely fill up, the next indicator is that once this process has 'completed', it doesn't move onto the next step. It merely hangs, and I am left with one incomplete file in the temp directory I've selected. Now I can assure you that the program has not crashed or frozen when this happens, and additionally when I run a 'test compile', the process continues all the way through to completion.

I wonder if anybody might be able to assist me in determining why the project refuses to compile?

Now, as you might have gathered from my somewhat hazy description of the problem, I'm no expert on the technical side of things, however my gut instinct tells me that the problem lies with my main video file being corrupt, in which case I hope you'd be so good as to help me fix that if at all possible.

Thanks for your help

[reboot]

If test compile works, but the real one doesn't, there's something wrong with your assets.
How did you originally get the input video? Did YOU encode it somehow? Did you get it "from a friend"

[Fallon]

Hmm, not to put too fine a point on it, my input video file 'fell off the back of a truck'. (TVRip sent to me from a friend in Germany :P) It is looking highly likely that this is the problem.

However, I actually encoded it with the latest version of TMPGenc, which may be part of the problem as it frequently gives me the message "invalid pointer operation" when I change the settings, whereas the previous version never did this.

I will re-encode the file with my older, much nicer version of TMPGenc and see if that makes a difference. If not then I'll just give up and write it off as a lesson on the evils of piracy.

Thanks for your reply.

[reboot]

If it came from Europe, it's in PAL format.
If you're trying to make an NTSC compliation in DVDLab, it will choke.
The framerate is wrong, the aspect is wrong.
Take a look through the guides, and convert to NTSC, doing audio separately, and you should have better luck.

[Fallon]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I am in Australia, where we also use PAL, and I have set DVDLab to compile a PAL project.

In 2 hours time my re-encoding of the file will be complete, so I'll try to compile it with the new file and see what happens.

[Fallon]

Hahaha, that April Fool's joke just had me raging at my PC screen in a fit of "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" style anger.

Anyway, the project compiled without a hitch after I re-encoded the original video (this time around I used 2-pass VBR, 4000kbps - the newer TMPGenc doesn't have as many options with regards to bitrate...), so I can only assume I was trying to compile with a corrupt or incorrect video file before.

Thanks for your suggestions reboot.

[reboot]

Most likely it wasn't compliant in some way, either aspect or framerate. Glad you got it sorted