Editing BIG files... problems in MPEG-VCR??

[rmarquez5]

Greetings to all,

I've had a lot of success recording TV shows with my Happauge PVR-150, recording them at about 2.0GB/hr, editing them with MPEG-VCR, and burning the resulting files to DVD for my own TV episode DVDs. I recently switched gears and started recording some movies from TV, and editing the files have given me nothing but grief.

Where the TV episode files are between 600MB to 2GB in size before editing, movie files are between 3-4GB, or larger! When I bring the file into MPEG-VCR, I get erradic behavior. If I jump from the start of the movie to the end (using Home and End keys), the program suddenly doesn't know how long the movie is, or thinks its a movie of zero minutes in length or an incorrect length. Sometimes it just locks up completely.

What gives??? Is there a limitation or glitch when the video files get too big??? Should I try a different tool?

Any input you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
R.

[redwudz]

Just a guess, but if your RAM memory is 128MB, that could have a bearing on it. The OS may not be able to keep up with the edit marks. Of course if your profile is incorrect, it could be something else.

How much free hard drive space do you have when you edit? You apparently have your drive formated as NTFS or you would be coming up against the 4GB limitation of the FAT32 file system.

Even without that, it's hard to edit a very large file. But I have no idea why the programs would report the file as being 48 minutes long.

[rmarquez5]

Sorry my profile is incorrect. My current system is XP with 2GB of RAM. I have at least 8-10GB of free space. So I don't think its that... thanks for responding though... any other thoughts gang?

[nlec]

I haven't had it lock up but for the first time I am having audio sync issues with large files. I recorded a playoff baseball game the other night using 2 DVD-RW discs on my DVD Recorder, each set to 3-hour FR mode (Panny ES20). After removing commercials the game should be < 3 hours long and fit on a single-sided DVD blank.

I joined the 2 VOBs together using MPEG-VCR and saved the result to my HD as an MPG file. It's 5.97 GB long. The video and audio are in sync. When I process the file and cut out the commercials the result is another MPG file that's 4.3 GB long. Everything is fine except the audio and video are no longer in sync.

I've been doing this for a couple of weeks now with baseball playoff games and this is the first time I noticed this behavior. I, too, am wondering if the large file size is contributing to the problem. Previously I cut out the commercials on each VOB first, and then joined the results together. This time I joined the VOBs first and then cut out the commercials.

[rmarquez5]

I just wanted to add an update... it appears that any file I try to edit that is 3GB or bigger seems to fail in ULead DVD Movie Factory as well as MPEG-VCR. So I'm thinking that its not the tool as it is the size of the file. The weird thing is that if I play the MPEG file in Window Media Player, the sound and video are in sync all the way through, no matter where I jump to.

So I put this out there to people who may know... is there a limitation in editing a big video file in Windows XP?? My partition is NTFS, so its not a FAT 4GB limit issue. The file I was trying to test edit was 3.5GB. And any file that is under 3GB edits just fine.

Thoughts??
R.

[redwudz]

Try running Task Manager and observe the CPU and memory use while you try to edit a large file. Sort of a long shot, but it sounds similar to a problem you could have with insufficient memory, though I see you have 2GB. If your memory is more than one stick, pull one and see if anything changes. If not, at least you may have ruled that out as a problem.

Another remote possibility: Check your drives in Device Manager to make sure they are all in DMA mode. You would probably notice the drive being slow, though.

I can't think of much in software that would cause this. Maybe something with the OS, but I have no clue what.

[FulciLives]

I've never had a problem with MPEG-VCR but I haven't bothered to upgrade it in a while so maybe you have a newer (or older) version than I and it is buggy?

Tis a thought.

My version is 3.14

Also when joining I do the editing first then join. Never joined then edited.

For captures that are in MPEG file format you might want to run it first through VideoRedo's QUICK STREAM FIX as that will correct any possible loss of sync when editing. I have both and that is all I use VideoRedo for as I prefer MPEG-VCR for editing.

You shouldn't have to do the QUICK STREAM FIX for a DVD rip from a DVD recorder but it probably wouldn't hurt as some DVD recorders do odd things with the file structure.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[nlec]

For tonight's game I used the ES20's LP 4-hour mode. The unedited VOB is 3.9 GB. I loaded it up into MPEG-VCR 3.14 (June 2006 release) and cut out the commercials. The resulting file is 2.9 GB. No joining anywhere. The original file is in sync and the one with the commercials cut out gradually loses sync as the game goes on. When the bat hits the ball in the later innings it is really noticeable.

I'll see if a pass through video redo helps. I've never had this problem before with MPEG-VCR. It has always preserved AV sync perfectly. These files are the longest ones I've dealt with since upgrading. If videoRedo doesn't help I guess the next thing to try is an older version.

[classfour]

You may be crashing due to hard disc space: MPEG2VCR has to have some working space to preserve the edit. As a guide, when doing editing with MPEG2VCR, I allow 3 times the actual working file for edits. Even then, it may crash.

Anymore, I normally just import the video straight into TDA 2.0, insert chapters, make cuts, etc., and author to DVD.

[Suds-N-Spuds]

rmarquez5:
Sometimes I see some similar behavior when using MPG-VCR to edit large files. Typically I open the file, jump to the end and then jump back a few seconds. MPEG-VCR will appear to be locked up (Windows will report it's status as "Not Responding"). Fortunately, MPEG-VCR is not locked up but is (I suspect) busy indexing the mpeg file. When this happens I wait a few minutes and the program comes back to life. Since this doesn't happen every time I suspect that the problem may be related to a full or badly fragmented scratch space or possibly some other application hogging the disk IO. For example when I'm running more than one instance of MPEG-VCR and both are reading or writing to the disk both operations will be brought to a crawl.

MPEG-VCR handles large files just fine. I use it nearly every day on 4 to 12Gb files and except for a few quirks like the one above it works great.


nlec:
Your unedited vob's probably have some quirks to them which result in MPEG-VCR losing sync when editing out the commercials. Before editing the vob's run MPEG-VCR's MPEG VOB Fixer to find and correct any problems.

[nlec]

Thanks, suds, it's encouraging to know that large files are not necessarily the problem here. Did you mean "GOP Fixer"? I don't see a "VOB Fixer" tool anywhere.

[FulciLives]

Thanks, suds, it's encouraging to know that large files are not necessarily the problem here. Did you mean "GOP Fixer"? I don't see a "VOB Fixer" tool anywhere.

I think the MPEG GOP FIXER option in MPEG-VCR is the same (more or less) than the VideoRedo function called QUICK STREAM FIX.

Since I have both though I use VideoRedo as there were a bunch of posts (what seems like eons ago) about people who could not edit without A/V sync loss until they used the VideoRedo function QUICK STREAM FIX.

In other words there is precedent for it working.

Never heard much of anyone talk about MPEG-VCR's MPEG GOP FIXER function.

But if you don't have VideoRedo it is worth trying.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[nlec]

MPEG-VCR's "GOP Fixer" comletely hosed the VOB. It didn't modify the original VOB file (thank goodness) but the MPG file it output is totally fubar. It claimed to have fixed a couple thousand "(2) Audio PTS" errors. but the video is jerky and unwatchable. It's as if someone were hitting the pause/un-pause key several times per second on playback. The audio sounded OK.

When I de-mux the VOB using TMPGEnc, and then re-mux the M2V and AC3 files to an MPG file, the "GOP Fixer" says there are no errors, and it plays back fine, AV in sync, using several different playback apps. It's only when I use MPEG-VCR to cut the commercials out of that file that the sync problem shows up. I'll try to see if a trial version of VideoRedo will make a difference on the stream.

[The_Doman]

This looks like the well known problem of the Hauppauge PVR sometimes creating recordings with invalid/corrupted timelines.

Maybe some more information you can find here:
SHSPVR Forum: Captured video can't be edited

Possible you can edit/fix the recording with ProjectX
Hauppauge UK: solve a CRC error in a capture

[nlec]

After processing with VideoRedo and then cutting the commercials out, it's better. Still not perfect. There's still a slight delay in the audio towards the end. About 2.5 hours into the video. I can live with that I guess. I've cut out 20 commercial breaks in the 3.5 hour video 5 separate times now and it's tedious, to say the least.

I wish there was a utility that would insert clapboard sequences in between closed GOPs at predetermined intervals. Like they use in movie production. That would make it easier to narrow down where out-of-sync audio becomes noticeable. As closed GOPs they could be easily removed afterwards. Like anything is easy

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone.

[nlec]

Hallelujah! VideoRedo can do what the June 2006 version of MPEG-VCR cannot: cut commercials in a 3+ hour VOB and retain AV sync. At some point I will try an older version of MPEG-VCR, or maybe even a newer version, but right now I don't have the time.

All hail VideoRedo.