DVD Video made with PiTiVi and DeVeDe -- no sound. How do I proceed?

[VanillaMozilla]

This is an editing AND authoring question, but I don't think I should post it in BOTH forums.


I'm trying to create an ordinary NTSC DVD video with a single menu, but the project has gone seriously astray. I succeeded in making a short test video, but after many hours of editing, the complete video has no sound.

Here's what I have to work with:
1. Two .AVI files that I ripped from an NTSC video that I created with a Philips recorder (from my own analog 8-mm tape).
2. An edited PiTiVi project created from those two files. The files are rearranged into about 20 clips.
3. PiTiVi output: (a) .xul file for the PiTiVi project; (b) 11 files, each representing a video chapter. The format is the default (I believe it's ogg theora, but I can't check now). The 11 files all seem to play normally.
4. The 11 files were imported into DeVeDe, which exported an .ISO, burned with K3b. No sound.

Possible clues: PiTiVi sound setting was for the default CD quality (44 kHz). Oddly enough VLC says the rendered files are the correct 48 kHz. Go figure.

A rather frustrated summary of what I have already tried is here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1695777 .


It would be awfully nice if I could save as much work as possible. There are a couple of ways:

1. Import the 11 separate files into an authoring program, which would hopefully give a VALID output for burning. (Assuming the 11 files are OK).

2. Use PiTiVi to render the video (minus chapter marks and menu) into a valid file that can be imported into another authoring
program. Note that PiTiVi cannot be used to save chapter marks, and DeVeDe imports separate files but cannot add chapter marks within a file.



Any suggestions? Either Ubuntu Linux or Windows XP works.

[hech54]

1. Two .AVI files that I ripped from an NTSC video that I created with a Philips recorder

Why AVI?.....
Uncompressed AVI?

[VanillaMozilla]

Why AVI? Probably because I could, and I got two programs to work with that file format without crashing. As I recall, ripping to mpg failed.

You have to understand that (1) there are hundreds of options at every step, (2) if there were a coherent, concise manual for anything, I would read it, (3) most of the programs I have tried barely work, so options may be limited, and (4) like almost everyone, I am a complete newbie at video processing. So I am definitely open to advice on (1) how to salvage this project and (2) how to do it right the next time. And yes, I have RTFM -- up to a point -- but there are so many of them.

But I don't know what's going on here. I have good equipment, I'm not a computer newbie by any means, and I'm unaccustomed to such widespread software failure.

To make matters worse, my modem died yesterday, so I am without Internet at home, where this work is being done. With luck I'll get that fixed this evening.

[hech54]

You need to start from scratch.
Again....uncompressed AVI or some other type of AVI(divx, xvid, h264, etc etc)?

[VanillaMozilla]

One other reason for selecting .AVI: I successfully created a test disc with that format, using some files from a digital camera, but nothing else worked. But it didn't work with the current project.

OK, let's see if I can simplify this. I have 11 good, edited rendered, Ogg multimedia files, with Theora video. I'm not sure what the audio is. AC-3 if I'm lucky. (Yes, I know it's stupid to compress them to ogg theora, but it seemed to work and the quality is OK.

Is there a simple way to convert those to DVD-compliant .mpg files?

[hech54]

Goodbye.

[Baldrick]

ffmpeg.

[VanillaMozilla]

Good idea, Baldrick, thanks. As it turns out, ffmpeg and tovid both failed. Rather than track it down (a fool's errand), I spent some time with PiTiVi and solved the sound problem, using the appropriate codecs. Unfortunately, the DVD video is output in highly compressed form. The quality is not good, but it will have to do for now. I can get good video quality or sound but not both. It's a nice program, but the back end stinks, at least on my computer. Too many problems to write bug reports. Solved, I think. Thanks for your help.

[VanillaMozilla]

Follow-up
The key was to set PiTiVi to use Mp2 DVD (ffmux_dvd) container and video codec (ffenc_mpeg2video), AC3 audio, and to reset the video bit rate. Too many choices, the default video bit rate is WAY too small, and as far as I know there is no documentation for the back end.