Does GSpot not read .m2v files correctly?

[Gordon_Shumway]

I'm converting some downloaded .avis to dvd eventually. Using CCE to encode them, using the settings from the various guides around. Right now, I'm just working in a small 2 minute segment for testing purposes.

So I've got a file. Gspot 2.60 RC01 says the file is XVID, MP3 VBR audio, Len: 2:11.922, Frames: 3,163, Pic/s: 23.976 and Frames/s: 23.976. Your basic downloaded fullscreen video file. I'm stripping out the audio to ac3 with ffmpeggui, that's all working fine.

My .avs file is:

# AVI Calculator by Husain
# AviSynth 2.5 Script file for CCE
# AVI source is NTSC

avisource("Split1.avi", false)
Lanczos4Resize(720,480)
AddBorders(0,0,0,0)
ConvertToYUY2()

Ok, feed that to CCE, and it generates an .m2v file. When I examine that file with GSpot, I get this oddness:
Len: 0:00.459 Frames: 11 Pics/s: 23.976 Pic/s: 23.976

Why does it think there are only 11 frames? When I load the video into Media Player Classic, it too reports the video length wrong, but it shows as 32 seconds, and it does play correctly, the slider stops at the 32 second mark, but the full video plays for the full 2 mins 11 secs.

I've tried dozens of different variations, CBR, VBR, high bit rates, low bit rates, even tried changing the frame rate in CCE, but not a one of them produces anything nearly correct when looking at it in GSpot. The number of frames reported changes from 11 to 28 sometimes, etc. And changing the frame rate in CCE just gives a sped up video, so clearly the 23.976 setting is correct.

One other oddness, every single .m2v shows up with the 3:2 flag and I/L Interlaced flag on. This makes *no* sense to me, I've got Progressive Frame checked under Picture Quality in CCE.

Thus, my question, is it just Gspot, or is there something else going awry?

[bendixG15]

Standard elementary video stream in my CCE is an mpv file.

Just checked and Gspot Gives me Len=00.00.01 and Frames =~29.

This is for a file with a size = 3.2GB created from a 50 minute VHS tape.

So Gspot is not perfect .....

[Gordon_Shumway]

Ok, that explains the file length I guess. Would like to know why it can't report it right, though.

What about the interlace flag, do you see the same thing?

[andie41]

From my experience, GSpot has several problems and should be viewed with some skepticism, especially with elementary streams. It reports my M2V elementary streams as an Mpeg2 codec, but claims no codec is installed and also reports incorrect kbps bitrate. When converted to program stream it reports it as an Mpeg2 and now says codecs are installed, and the kbps bitrate is now listed correctly. Also GSpot shows my DV video transferred from my DV camcoder as TFF - it is actually BFF. Overall a very good program.